Fish these Lafitte hotspots in March, and your arm will feel like you just spent six hours on your Bowflex.
Capt. Papa Joe Bush maneuvered his bay boat through the Pen and down toward the Texaco Canals as an approaching cold front hung ominously low in the sky just behind us. Every turn we made, the front seemed to follow.Bush had his sights set on a broken shoreline where he thought we would be lucky enough to find a few willing redfish. Perhaps having to retrieve his cap slowed us down just a bit too much because the calm shore in the distance wouldn’t stay calm for long.
As Bush’s bay boat settled into the water, the air around us suddenly rose toward the low-hanging clouds in great wisps of purplish-black fog. It was obvious the front was getting in a hurry. I made our first cast to the calm shore, but my spinnerbait got caught in a gale-force wind that carried it 20 yards off course.
“Should have fished yesterday,” Bush lamented as we ineffectually fished down the now brutal bank.
All we could hope for was that one of the redfish we had seen pushing just moments before would find our vibrating blades in the instantly muddy water.
Bush quickly pulled up his trolling motor, and we began to zigzag through the Texaco Canals trying to find an area protected from the wind, I believe, more so than actually finding some willing reds. If we could find the former, maybe we could catch the latter.
“If we’re going to do it, we better do it today,” Bush said as we started picking up a few marsh bass in a protected pocket at the back of one of the canals. “The way this wind is blowing, there won’t be much water left by tomorrow. I think we can find some reds, though — we’re just going to have to work a little harder.”
And that’s the way it is in Lafitte; few trips end with empty ice chests. There always seems to be somewhere to go to catch some redfish. Bush pointed out these four spots as being fantastic places to fish this March no matter what the weather throws at you.
1. Texaco Canals
As one of the busiest spots around Lafitte, the Texaco Canals offer a maze of redfish possibilities that Bush knows will give up some fish no matter the weather or the pressure. Straight canals that criss-cross like city streets come to dead ends in certain areas, and it is those dead-end areas that Bush recommended fishing.
“Many of those canals have little openings at the back, and in March those little ponds will be good places to fish,” he said. “We tend to fish the canals more during the winter and the ponds at the back of the canals during the spring.
“The water should be high enough to get in the ponds during March, and these spots will have plenty of redfish in them.”
What makes this maze of canals and ponds so alluring to redfish is that the entire area offers a haven of shallow water close to deep water that is also full of baitfish and crabs. And like patrons lining up to eat at a great restaurant, redfish crowd into areas that have good things to eat.
Bush recommended fishing these ponds with a 1/4-ounce jighead rigged with either a pearl/chartreuse, purple/chartreuse or black/chartreuse plastic body with a simple tightline presentation, that is until the grass gets too bad. Once the green stuff starts growing, it’s going to dictate a change.
“If the grass starts showing up, you may have to change to a gold spoon or a spinnerbait,” Bush added. “You can also catch reds by fishing market bait under a cork. March is a little too early for live bait, and the shrimp really aren’t there then anyway. A bag of good soft plastics, some spoons and spinnerbaits, some market bait and a cork — you can catch all the reds you need at the Texaco Canals.”
2. Bottom of Bayous Rigoletts and Perot
This area is a redfish hotspot during March because it acts as a funnel for all the fish that move from Lake Salvador to Little Lake during the spring redfish run. As the areas through which the redfish move become more constricted, the redfish become more congregated. That’s a good thing for anglers.
As redfish move through the area, they are forced to swim through a narrow area that is simply teeming with baitfish, crabs and other good things that redfish love to eat. Any time fish have to move through a smaller area, it makes them a lot easier for anglers to find and catch.
“The center part between these two bayous is getting pretty much eaten out,” Bush said. “It’s gotten to the point where you can fish in there, and all those ponds in there hold redfish during March.”
When fishing the ponds in the broken marsh, Bush uses many of the same tactics he uses at the Texaco Canals. Mainly, he fishes soft plastics on a 1/4-ounce jighead until the grass gets too thick. At that point, he’ll again rely more on the spoons and spinnerbaits.
While the ponds between the two bayous hold lots of redfish, this isn’t the top area to fish. There are rocks along the eastern shoreline of Bayou Rigoletts, and there is a new concrete wall along Bayou Perot. When reds are moving down the rocks, Bush said anglers can see them coming from a quarter mile away.
“I like to fish the rocks and the breaks in the rocks,” he said. “A lot of people anchor up here and fish market bait under a cork, but you can also catch fish on the trolling motor by tightlining plastics and throwing gold spoons. The gold spoon is always an old standby on the rocks.”
3. Lake Salvador
Although Lake Salvador is no big secret in the redfish world around Lafitte, it can be somewhat intimidating because of its large size. With so many likely pots for redfish to be, where’s an angler to start?
Bush breaks it down into three distinct areas.
“When you look at areas A, B and C on the map,” Bush said while pointing to his circled spots on a small map, “you’ve got three areas that aren’t much more than shallow spots right along a bank. The good thing about these spots, though, is that they offer a lot more for redfish than just the bank.”
Bush explained that Area C has several duck blinds with many of them being close enough to the bank that anglers can pass between the blinds and the bank when the water is high enough. The advantage of passing between the blinds and the bank is that anglers can cast out of either side and fish both. However, if the water is too low, anglers are limited to passing only on the outside of the blinds.
Area A has a lot of timber out in the water. The bank has been eaten back in this spot, so much of the timber is actually out in the water. Because of the shallow water, Bush says the only option here is to pass on the outside of the timber. The key in this spot is to look for the bait and the action, then try a few things to see what works.
“The problem with Salvador is that it can really be hit or miss,” Bush said. “If you go there and it’s a miss, you’re kind of stuck because it’s such a long way to run somewhere else. Without a doubt, my favorite lure for Salvador is a limetreuse Tsunami swim bait. I just tightline it around the bank and out to about 30 yards from the bank. You can also throw spinnerbaits or topwaters if you see fish with their backs out of the water.”
4. Northeast shore of Turtle Bay and south end of Harvey Cut
Anybody looking for bull reds only needs to fish the southern end of the Harvey Cut, according to Bush. It’s easy to spot when the bite is on because of all the boats lined up in there fishing. Even with all that pressure, though, Bush said the fish bite.
“I’ve seen 10 to 15 boats in there at times, and all of them had somebody on board with their pole bent,” he said. “The bite is mainly fishing market bait on the bottom and holding on. Depending on how strong the current is, you might need to go up to a 1/2-ounce jighead.”
Bush explained that there really wouldn’t be any need to finesse the big reds to bite because when they are on, the bulls will grab the market bait as soon as it hits the water. And if bull reds aren’t what you’re after, Bush said to try fishing all the broken marsh and cuts just south of here.
“Especially on an outgoing tide,” he said. “The reds will come out of the ponds right here, and you can catch them at the mouths. The only problem here is that the Little Lake Hunting Club will run you out of the ponds if you try to fish in the ponds.”
The outside of Turtle Bay is also a great spot to try here. Bush equated it with fishing the Texaco Canals, and he says the plastics on a 1/4-ounce jighead, spinnerbaits and market bait under a cork are the way to go.
The great thing about all of Bush’s redfish holes is that they offer great fishing just a short run from any of the Lafitte-area landings — Joe’s, C&M, Sea-Way or Cochiara’s. They also give options on getting out of the wind. No matter which way it blows, anglers can find a calm and productive place to fish.
Follow the author’s blog at www.chrisginn.com.
