If you think of that hunk of foam above your bait as just a float — rather than an attractant — you won’t catch near the fish you could.
Capt. Theophile Bourgeois pulled his camouflage neck gaiter above his lips before he started talking. Trying to hear what he said through the gaiter, over the growl of his outboard and through the hood of my own 100 m.p.h. rain suit was difficult. I put in more effort than I do when my wife starts talking during a Saints game, but I heard just as little. “Not the best day for a battle of the popping corks,” I finally made out as I leaned in close enough for Bourgeois’ breath to fog my glasses. “Been catching the reds crawling a jig on bottom in the back of dead-end canals. Maybe we can get them under the corks when the sun comes out.”
The only problem with that was the clouds were getting thicker rather than thinner, and the temperature was two degrees colder 30 minutes into our run than it had been when we got in the boat back at Bourgeois’ dock. Our battle of the popping corks was shaping up more like an episode of Man vs. Wild.
Bourgeois brought along Visitation of Our Lady eighth-grader Evan Ferrell, a friend’s son, to give us an extra cork in the water, and like most eighth-graders would, he came way underdressed for the icy boat ride. If he was frozen, it didn’t show as his fingers nimbly rigged his pencil cork at our first stop at the rocks on the west side of Bayou Perot.
I chose an egg-shaped Marsh Works Bayou Thunder Cork with a 4-inch Marsh Works Big Poppy rigged on a 1/4-ounce lead-head, and Bourgeois went with a concave Bomber X-Treme Paradise Popper with a 4-inch black/chartreuse Bomber Mud Minnow on a 1/4-ounce chartreuse jighead.
“We gonna mix it up a bit with everybody throwing different baits and corks until we get on some fish,” Bourgeois explained. “When we get some bites, we’ll switch to the same thing at the same depth but under different corks to see if the fish want one more than the others.”
The beginning of our little battle was very easy to keep up with, as the score from our first spot was Bourgeois – 0, Ginn – 0, Ferrell – 0. The irrefutable funk that had infested the speckled trout for the first part of the year looked like it had spread to the redfish, and we all began to wonder if our battle would amount to little more than a scuffle with the sniffles.
The score did not change at either of our next two stops, so Bourgeois pointed his boat toward some dead-end pipeline canals to the west of Bay L’Ours. Certain this would be the spot to keep us from sniffing the skunk, Bourgeois eased toward the back and made his first cast before I could warm my fingers enough to do a little re-rigging.
“Lose-e-Ann-Na red-feesh in da by-you,” Bourgeois sang as his Bomber X-Treme Paradise Popper drew first blood.
Ferrell and I immediately chalked up Bourgeois’ sudden lead to the fact that we had been seriously front-ended by a virtual vacuum cleaner. It didn’t take long for our theory to get blown out of the water.
Ferrell was throwing a Saltwater Assassin pencil popper with the same 4-inch black/chartreuse Bomber Mud Minnow as Bourgeois. He had endured some raucous ribbing because of his tiny cork, and now it was his turn to give it back.
To make matters worse, the redfish Ferrell’s pencil cork put on the board weighed as much as two or three of Bourgeois’. The score was now Bourgeois – 1, Ferrell – 1 and Ginn – 0. The only thing I was doing differently was fishing the Marsh Works egg cork, whereas Bourgeois’ Bomber had a concave head, and Ferrell threw the pencil cork.
I stopped the proceedings to do an audible sound check on the three different corks. We cast our rigs toward the bank and let everything settle down before we started popping them. The differences in the sounds were distinctive and very discernable.
“This Bomber has more of a bloop-splash sound,” Bourgeois observed. “And your egg cork has kind of a pop-splash. The pencil cork that Evan is throwing is definitely a tick-splash. You can bet if we can tell the difference the fish can, too.”
While Bourgeois and Ferrell stuck with their respective corks, I began going through several other egg corks to see if any of them had a different sound that the redfish would want.
First up was a Deadly Dudley Mauler. Although it had a slightly different sound than the Big Poppy, I didn’t get any bites. Next was the Original Speculizer, but it, too, left me fishless. The same scenario played out with an H&H TKO egg cork. On this particular day, the egg corks just weren’t happening.
“Got ta get ‘cha one a dem Bombers,” Bourgeois ribbed while unhooking his sixth redfish. “Gonna be corkscrewed without it. Ain’t nobody in da boat catchin’ fish but me. I think I got the reason this cork is workin’, but I ain’t givin’ it up yet. Keep on trying those other corks, and keep Evan company because he ain’t catchin’ either.”
I had to admit that the Bomber cork was winning the battle at the moment, but I refused to concede just yet. I grabbed a Betts Billy Bay Louisiana Lightning cork that Capt. Owen Langridge down in Venice had given me the day before. It had a concave head just like the Bomber, and I wanted to see if that was the key.
The first pop I made with the Billy Bay cork got Bourgeois’ attention because of its obviously higher pitch tap at the first jerk rather than a low-pitch bloop. I didn’t hold his attention for long, though, as he had to go back to yanking on another redfish. However, my new concave-head cork did eventually go down a few times.
Even Bourgeois’ bite eventually slowed to a crawl, but not before I made him share his observations on the day. The final score was 11 for Bourgeois and his Bomber, two for Ferrell — one on a pencil cork and one on a lemon drop — and one for me on the Billy Bay Louisiana Lightning.
“The Paradise Popper definitely won for today,” Bourgeois began. “I think the scoop had a lot to do with it because the scoop allowed me to pop my cork hard enough to get all the good sound without moving it too far out of the strike zone, which was about 2 feet off the bank.
“You didn’t realize it at the time, but you pulled your bait out of the strike zone a lot quicker because your egg corks didn’t provide as much resistance. You didn’t catch a fish until you changed to the scoop cork.”
Bourgeois went on to theorize that we had to power-finesse the redfish because of the cold water. Power in the form of aggressive pops and finesse in the form of letting our baits sit still in between.
“Redfish were patrolling the bank,” he said, “but they weren’t in any hurry. Rather than rush over every time they heard the pop, splash and tick, they moseyed over taking their own sweet time. The scoop corks ensured our baits were still in the strike zone when they finally got there. My cork was traveling maybe 2 inches with every pop, but your egg corks were maybe moving 10 inches or more.”
Does that mean we can throw away all our egg corks in favor of scoop corks?
“Not gonna happen,” said Bourgeois. “You need to keep all different kinds of corks for different situations. Say you’re out trout fishing on a reef in Barataria Bay in 80-degree water. Then you may want to go with the egg cork to get all that aggressive movement — pulling it 10 inches at a time.”
So, what about Ferrell’s fish on the pencil cork and lemon drop? Bourgeois jokingly attributed Ferrell’s fish to beginner’s luck or maybe even something a little more nefarious.
“He must have put on a shrimp,” Bourgeois joked. “The way he was fishing, I think he was going for catfish. Did he ever even pop his cork? He was trying to be sneaky, and that’s just what those pencil corks are far — being sneaky. They’re very subtle and good for the winter months when fish want smaller baits and less aggressive presentations.”
Like most terminal tackle, popping corks rarely get as much attention as the baits hanging beneath them. However, thinking of your cork as more of an attractant rather than a float will force you to start fine-tuning your selection as much as you would topwater baits.
Popping corks may sound the same on the pegs at the tackle shop, but they all sound different on the water. Keep a few different brands of scoop, egg and pencil corks in your box, and you’ll be ready for anything.
The fish are listening. Are you?
Capt. Theophile Bourgeois can be reached at 504-341-5614.
