There’s no matching the fighting power of a brute bull redfish, and there’s no better place to experience it than the passes near Grand Isle.
Bobby Chouest wanted to head to the near-shore rigs to catch some bull reds, but Buggie Vegas suggested trying Caminada Pass before making the several-mile run.
Chouest didn’t feel very confident, since the tide was moving out, but he shrugged and headed for the boat.
“We’ll go to the green buoy,” he said. “There’ve been some fish there in the evenings.”
After barely getting his boat on plane, the owner of Bon Chance Charters pulled back the throttle.
“Look, there’s some fish moving over there,” he said, pointing just off the pass.
The disturbance was simply a push of water, forming a series of small waves.
Bait was everywhere, so Chouest idled his boat out of the pass, and called for Vegas to drop the anchor in about 4 1/2 feet of water.
The boat pulled back against the anchor line, pushed away from shore by a stiff north breeze.
Chouest grabbed a heavy rod out of the rack, dipped a suddenly panicked croaker out of his livewell and expertly ran the big 5/0 hook through its back.
Vegas did the same, using a lighter-weight spinning rig.
Both baits were tossed out, and the anglers sat back to wait.
Nothing happened for about 10 minutes.
But Chouest suddenly perked up, pointing westward.
“Did you see that fish?” he asked. “That’s a redfish rolling on bait.”
Sure enough, a huge red back appeared about 80 yards off the port side of the boat. The big fish was wallowing around in the water, much like a hog in a mud hole.
Vegas quickly reeled in his bait, and sent the croaker toward the feeding bull.
The bait fell well short, but seconds later, Vegas was smiling.
“There he is,” the owner of Bridgeside Marina said. “He’s got it.”
Chouest coached Vegas not to set the hook too soon.
“You have to let him take it,” Chouest said. “Just let him run for a little while.”
Vegas did just that, opening the bail to allow the fish to swim away with the croaker.
“While he’s running, he’s pulling that bait into his crushers, and the deeper it gets, the better chance you’ve got of landing him,” Chouest explained.
About 15 long seconds passed, and then Vegas tripped the bail and jerked the rod tip skyward.
The reel screamed as the fish made its first run. Vegas couldn’t quit grinning.
And then the clicker on Chouest’s reel began chirping.
He ran to the back of the boat, and opened the drag on the big Penn 309.
A few seconds later, Chouest joined Vegas in the fight.
The fish ran back and forth, alternately swimming to the boat and making hard runs away.
The two anglers ran around the boat, working to keep the fish separated.
“We call this the bull red shuffle, the bull red two-step,” Vegas chuckled.
Ten minutes later, the two fish had been netted, admired and released.
New baits were dropped into the water, and the anglers settled down to wait for the next strikes.
“This is a waiting game,” Chouest said. “The bull reds are moving back and forth along the top of this sandbar.”
Vegas said that’s what he likes about fishing for bulls.
“It’s relaxing,” he said.
The wait didn’t last long.
Soon, sea gulls bunched up south of the boat and began feeding on bait.
“Look at those birds, Bobby. That school is moving in,” Vegas said.
The birds chased the bait past the boat, and soon, Chouest’s line was moving, too.
Again, he allowed the fish to take the bait before setting the hook hard.
Ten minutes later, another bull had been landed and released.
That’s when Chouest noticed piles of bait splashing on the other side of the sandbar.
The anchor was quickly pulled off the bottom, and Chouest motored off the sandbar and into about 8 1/2 feet of water.
“It’s minnows,” he said.
They were everywhere, with birds dive-bombing them from above and predatory fish hitting them from below.
There weren’t any bulls smacking the surface, but it was obvious from the small minnows’ nervousness that they didn’t want anything to do with the depths.
Baits were put out, and the wait began again.
Soon, a group of bulls began feeding on the surface, pushing water in front of them as they gobbled up the small fish.
“They’re coming toward us,” Vegas said.
Two more strikes followed, with Vegas and Chouest once again dancing around the boat.
Vegas would switch his rod from arm to arm, so he could rest.
Chouest simply dug the butt of his heavy Ugly Stik into his gut, reeling whenever his fish took a break.
That’s the way the morning went. Hectic battles interrupted by quiet waiting.
After only a short time, eight bulls had been wrestled to the side of the boat.
The largest went just over 20 pounds.
All were quickly released.
It’s the thought of catching fish too big to hold that attracts anglers to the passes of Grand Isle.
On this day, there was even a 14-foot flat being used to hunt for aggressive redfish.
Chouest’s favorite area on Caminada is outside the actual opening between Grand Isle and Elmer’s Island.
He focuses on the west side of the channel, preferring to start almost a mile out, where the green buoy marks the turn into the pass.
“I want to get to the end of the sandbar,” Chouest said. “That’s where I’ve had the best luck.”
While he began this day on top of the sandbar, Chouest said he usually likes to be where the bar drops into the depths of the pass.
That allows him to catch bulls that are feeding onto or off of the sandbar.
There are times, however, when he is forced to move into the pass or even tuck in behind the tip of Grand Isle.
“Sometimes it gets so rough out here,” Chouest said. “The waves out here will get twice as bad as they get in there because of the depth.”
But Vegas explained that having to make that move doesn’t mean fishing will suffer.
“When that water gets rough, (some) fish will move in,” he said.
Chouest agreed.
“They catch bulls at the bridge,” he said.
But it has to be very rough for Chouest to look for calmer water.
“The rougher it gets, the better they bite,” he said.
That’s a particular key when he’s fishing for rodeo prizes because most anglers don’t want to deal with sloppy seas.
“When I’m fishing a rodeo, that’s less competition because there are a lot of fair-weather fishermen,” Chouest said.
Chouest said bulls will feed even when the water isn’t very pretty.
“Clarity isn’t important,” he said. “They’re bottom feeders anyway.”
Finding fish is a matter of watching for slicks, feeding birds or crashing bulls.
“They just move back and forth,” Chouest said.
The key is to be flexible.
“Sometimes they’re on the drop, sometimes they’re on top of the sandbar and sometimes they’re on the other side,” he said.
One of the great things about Caminada Pass is that it’s so close to Bridgeside Marina.
However, those who prefer to drive to the east side of the island to launch their boats have two very good options.
The first is Barataria Pass, another area that is within minutes of the launch.
This big pass is the only Grand Isle-area pass that is maintained through dredging.
Chouest said there are two hotspots.
The first is on the western end of Grand Terre Island, right off of Fort Livingston.
“There’s a good spot because the sandbar gets deeper out in the pass,” Chouest said.
That means anglers can begin fishing near the rocks, and then work their way out because the pass isn’t a sheer drop.
But his favorite stretch is farther outside the pass.
“There’s a sunken trawl boat. You can just see the mast,” he said.
Chouest explained that the shrimp boat sank years ago, after the captain veered too close to the shallow sandbar marking the eastern edge of the channel.
“You can see the water breaking on the sandbar,” he said.
Whereas Chouest will venture right over the bar in Caminada Pass, he said he doesn’t try to do that when fishing in Barataria Pass.
“I cast toward it,” he said. “It’s shallow.”
He said where he anchors strictly depends on the current.
Farther east is Pass Abel, or Coup Abel as it’s shown on some maps.
This smaller pass can be very productive, but Chouest recommended fishing in front of the pass.
“I use my depth finder and stay in deep water until I get about a mile out,” he said. “I’m going to fish the west side of (the channel) just like we did today in Caminada.”
Once Chouest gets about a mile out, he begins easing into the shallower water.
That’s where he finds big bulls prowling.
All of these passes attract more and more bulls as the summer ages toward fall.
“At this time of year, they’re coming in to spawn,” Chouest said. “In the latter part of August into September, you’ll see them on top of the water.
“The water turns red, they get so thick.”
These schools can be massive.
“Can you imagine, a half mile wide, as far as you can see, the water turning red like that?” Chouest said. “It’s incredible.”
That makes it easy to catch bulls.
“A lot of times, when you see them like that, you can just idle up to them,” he said.
And the fish will be voracious.
“You can take a bare hook and catch them,” Chouest said. “They just hit anything in the water.
“You’ll see 30-pound reds come out of the water chasing those little crabs.”
That can lead to frenetic fishing.
“You can have five lines with reds on, and I tell you it’s nothing but a mess,” Chouest chuckled. “When the water’s clear, you can see five or six bulls swimming with the fish you’ve hooked.”
Bait choices are varied, but Chouest prefers live offerings.
“They’ve got all kinds of plastic and artificial lures, but I like live bait,” he said.
His favorite is croakers or crabs. Ideal croakers measure about 4 or 5 inches, and crabs are even larger at 6 to 7 inches across the shell.
When the croakers get too large during the late summer, Chouest said he switches to crabs or even shrimp.
“All you need is a shrimp,” he said. “They’ll eat that, too.”
When he’s using crabs, however, he doesn’t follow conventional wisdom.
“A lot of people break the pinchers off, but I don’t do any of that,” he said. “You’ve got to present it to him naturally because he’s going to eat it like that in the water.”
And he never uses cracked crab.
“A lot of people crack the crab in half, but I find that you get a lot of catfish sucking the meat out of it,” he explained.
The key to effectively fishing any of these baits is to get to the bottom.
His standard rig calls for a 4-ounce egg slip sinker on his heavy casting setup, or a 1/2-ounce lead on his spinning rig.
However, he’s always prepared to upsize or downsize.
“It sort of depends on the current,” Chouest said. “I’ve got different leads on the boat.
“You want just enough weight to keep the bait close (to the boat) and not drift away from the boat with the current.”
He likes the slip sinkers because they allow him to rig his live bait Carolina-style.
“It lets the bait swim around some so it’s more natural,” Chouest said.
The only exception to his bottom-fishing rule is when the schools gang up.
“When they’re thick like that, I just throw out a croaker on a hook, and let the croaker do all the work,” he said. “It won’t stay out there any time.”
After landing a fish, Chouest said it’s important to be careful with the fish, if they are to be released.
“If the fish has swallowed it too deep, you can just cut the line,” he said. “That hook will rust away.”
Hooking fish deep can be avoided by shortening the amount of time between the strike and the hook set.
“Don’t wait as long to set the hook. If you wait just a few seconds, you have a better chance of lip-hooking them,” Chouest said.
The last tip is to take a few minutes and be sure the fish is alive before letting it go.
Each fish Chouest and Vegas released on this trip was held by the tail and pulled back and forth to circulate water through its gills.
“You want to hold the fish upright so it gets its equilibrium,” Chouest said.
Capt. Bobby Chouest of Bon Chance Charters can be reached at (985) 787-2602, and Buggy Vegas can be reached at Bridgeside Marina at (985) 787-2419.
