Few things are dirtier than a teenaged boy’s mind, but Jefferson angler Jonathan Ryan and I found something that was during a recent fishing trip deep into the marshes of Plaquemines Parish.
Less than two weeks after the passage of Hurricane Zeta, and immediately on the heels of a strong cold front, we set out to find redfish swimming in skinny-water marsh ponds. Ryan’s favorite fishing technique is to stand atop his ice chest, and peer into the water through polarized sunglasses, looking for fish that are probing the shallows for crabs, shrimp and baitfish.
To make the quest even easier on this trip, I brought along my casting tower, which we strapped to the bow of Ryan’s boat before scooting back into the marsh.
The only problem was that in order to sight-fish to redfish you need water that’s at least a few shades clearer than the dirt in your vegetable garden. The water we found absolutely everywhere on this day wasn’t.
We could have beaten our heads against the wall trying to make the sight-fishing deal happen — and here and there we certainly did — but we relied on other techniques to put fish in the boat.
Ryan also, remarkably, ran across a non-piscatorial species he always seems to connect with whenever we fish together. We were able to capture some incredible footage of the beast before letting it swim away to terrify everything else living in the area.
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