Catching bull reds out of Venice is as easy as throwing these massive poppers in the right spots.
The topwaters were ridiculously large. They measured 5 inches long, and were as big around as the largest, nastiest stogie imaginable.
And the jointed baits weighed in at a 1 1/2 ounces apiece.
Andy Mnichowski, who received a shipment of prototypes as part of his Creek Chub sponsorship, couldn’t believe these Knuckle-Heads would be of much use in the waters surrounding Venice.
“I was like, ‘They’re too big a bait to be throwing,” the owner of Fish On Charters (504-415-4099) said.
But the more Mnichowski looked at the lures, the more he began seeing a use for them.
“They’re the same size as a pretty big finger mullet,” he said.
Thoughts of bull reds started dancing through his head. Still, he stored them away in his boat, not quite ready to put a charter trip on the line with the massive lures.
And then, one day, Mnichowski was fishing a group of anglers around a platform in West Bay, near Tante Phine Pass, and he began thinking about the Knuckle-Heads.
“We were actually catching trout, when I saw a couple of bull reds busting the surface,” he explained.
He watched for a while before his curiosity finally won out.
“I told the guys, ‘I just want to see how these new baits work,’” Mnichowski said.
After tying one on, the veteran guide sent it shooting out.
“I threw it out there and popped it one time, and a 30-pound red hit it,” Mnichowski said.
He couldn’t believe it: The fish had engulfed the super-sized lure on the very first try.
In fact, it was the first time the lure had been used anywhere.
“I had the first ones even made, and the first time it hit the water, it caught a fish,” Mnichowski said.
As soon as his charters saw the huge explosion, they clambered for Knuckle-Heads of their own.
That was the beginning of a frantic few hours.
“For three hours straight, we caught bull reds on every cast,” Mnichowski said.
That was three years ago, and Knuckle-Heads now hold a special place in Mnichowski’s tackle box.
“I think it’s the best bait for bull reds,” he said. “They hit it better, and they don’t miss them.”
And targeting such big fish is in keeping with the original design of the lure.
“Primarily, it was produced for stripers,” Creek Chub’s Chris Gulstad said. “It took off in the striper market with the surf casters.”
So to have other big predatory fish slam the lure wasn’t all that extraordinary.
The key is to work the bait properly, which doesn’t mean walking it or blasting it across the water’s surface.
“The baits are not moving real fast,” Mnichowski said. “It’s like a huge Pop-R.”
And just like those more-diminutive bass lures, Knuckle-Heads produce the best results when slowly popped along.
“They’re a bait that can be worked a lot of different ways,” Mnichowski said. “You can twitch it fast, you can even walk it a little.
“I don’t do that because I think they just work better when they’re popped slowly.”
In fact, Mnichowski said the lure is sort of like a cork with hooks in it.
“All you’ve got to do is act like you’re popping a cork,” he said. “I give it two or three hard pops, and then let it sit for five or six seconds.”
It’s during the moments of inactivity that the fish usually slam the lure.
“Anybody in the family — a 5-year-old — could work this bait. It doesn’t take any fishing ability,” Mnichowski said.
This action is particularly important because of the waters Mnichowski fishes.
“I’m looking for 3 feet of water on a sand flat or a big point that has mullet,” he explained.
That’s very shallow water for topwater bulls, since their mouths are oriented more for crashing feed on the bottom.
“If you fish with a Spook, the fish will miss a lot of hookups,” Mnichowski said. “You see a lot of times that they hit the bait and send it flying. That’s because they can’t catch the bait.
“You can catch some fish with Knuckle-Heads moving it quickly, but it’s nothing like when that bait is actually sitting there.”
And when a bull hits the bait, there’s no mistaking it.
“It’s like driving a truck over a bridge,” Mnichowski laughed. “I could take the hooks out and do that all day.”
Gulstad, who has made several trips to Louisiana to perform “field research” on the bait’s efficiency, said he just loves to watch the topwater action.
“It is so violent what they do to the bait,” he said. “I threw Pencil Poppers and all kinds of baits, but there was nothing that was as effective as the Knuckle-Head.”
Mnichowski said the big splash is often just part of the show.
“Sometimes you’ll see half the fish flipping out of the water,” he said. “Your hit/catch ratio is going to triple compared to any moving bait.”
In fact, there’s only one real draw-back to the fish’s affection for the big lure.
“They’ll actually swallow that bait way down; sometimes you can’t even see it,” Mnichowski said. “That sometimes makes it hard to get out once you’ve landed them.”
While many anglers catch bulls in the passes of the Mississippi River, Mnichowski said the Knuckle-Head isn’t very productive in those waters.
“It’s not very often that the reds will move up on the rocks,” he explained. “A lot of times, you go down there, and you have a foot or 2 feet of dirty water on top.”
The murky water combined with the fact that bulls tend to hold deeper make it almost impossible to catch the big reds with surface lures.
“You can catch all kinds of other big predatory fish, but you won’t catch many bull reds,” Mnichowski said.
Instead, he looks in the bays and beaches on the edges of the marshes.
One of his favorite areas is a sandbar in West Bay found just outside the second spillway of Southwest Pass.
“Right there is the No. 1 spot for bull reds,” Mnichowski said.
That’s because it generally has everything Mnichowski looks for when hunting bruiser reds — shallow, clear water and mullet.
“If the mullet are there and the water’s clean and it’s not a windy day, the bulls will be there,” he said.
If he can’t get consistent action there, or if the waters are too dirty, Mnichowski heads north to the beaches stretching from Sandy Point to the Shell Island.
His modus operandi is to make a run through the area he’s targeting, never pulling the boat completely off plane until he’s seen signs of activity.
One way to know there are reds in the area is to watch for huge swirls as the fish crash bait.
Looking for crashing fish can sometimes be a little misleading, however, because it’s hard to tell the difference between crashing reds and exploding jack crevalle.
“Knuckle-Heads will catch jacks,” Mnichowski chuckled. “If you see a jack busting and throw out there, you will catch it.”
However, Mnichowski said bull reds can quickly take over the show.
“When you see jacks busting, don’t worry — the reds are there,” he said. “When you start catching a bunch of reds, the jacks will move out of the way.
“The reds will actually push the jacks out.”
Searching for baitfish also is a very effective way to get hooked up.
“I look for baitfish jumping,” he said. “What I’ll do is just run the beaches. I’ll run and run until I see the bait.”
While it’s easier to see congregations of baitfish when they’re jumping out of the water, Mnichowski said he pulls back the throttle and grabs his pole even if he just spooks big schools of baitfish as he motors by or sees “herds” of mullet pushing water in the shallows.
“You don’t have to see reds busting the bait — if there are mullet, I promise the bull reds are there,” he said. “If you find bait and concentrate on that spot for a half hour and fish all over that area, I promise you’ll catch bull reds.”
It doesn’t take long to find out if the West Bay sandbar is holding bait, but it could be quite a run to find prime areas on the beaches.
“There’s no specific spot I run to on those beaches,” Mnichowski said. “The fish move wherever the bait is.
“They might be one place one day and move 200 yards down the beach the next.”
Although he likes to get close enough to see what’s going on in the water while making his bait-observation runs, Mnichowski keeps his distance from the beaches.
“There are shallow spots, so you don’t want to get too close,” he explained.
So while he’s running, Mnichowski keeps his eyes sharp for telltale signs of shallow water.
“You can see the waves breaking and color changes where the water gets shallow,” he said.
Once a likely stretch of water is found, Mnichowski said it’s pretty easy to get hits.
It’s harder to keep them from taking off with your bait. That’s why he recommends fairly heavy tackle.
“I wouldn’t fish with anything lighter than a medium-heavy 7-foot rod,” he said. There’s two reasons for this.
First, the heavier action allows more pressure to be put on running fish.
But the length of the rod is equally as important.
“They always go under the boat once you get them in,” Mnichowski said. “When fish are that big, you can’t horse them. So if they want to go under the boat, you can’t stop them.”
Longer rods allow anglers to let the fish run without putting critical pressure on the rods.
“I’ve had so many clients break shorter rods when the fish run under the boat,” he explained.
Of course, Knuckle-Heads shouldn’t be fished with line that’s too light, either.
Mnichowski likes braided line, although he doesn’t rule out heavy mono.
“I prefer braid mostly because I just don’t want to keep losing the bait,” he said. “But if you do fish with mono, don’t fish with anything less than 20 pounds.”
The real problem with monofilament is that it is more likely to break when a fish engulfs the bait.
“Bull reds have teeth, I don’t care what anybody tells you,” Mnichowski said. “When they swallow a bait, those teeth are rubbing against that line, and it’ll break.”
But there’s also another problem with mono — its diameter is much larger than braid of equal test.
“You can just spool more braid on the reel,” he said.
And that’s important.
“Bull reds are going to spool a lot of line off your reel,” Mnichowski said. “So you want as much line as possible.”
The extra line allowed by braid also helps with casting distance, which can be incredible with the 1 1/2-ounce baits.
“You can cast a country mile with them,” Mnichowski said.
The lures come in a variety of colors, but Mnichowski said he really only uses one.
“I’ve caught bulls on every color, but the No. 1 color is red/white,” he said.
The reason for this is pretty basic.
“They look like a mullet,” Mnichowski said. “The white looks like a mullet swimming on top of the water, and the red gives you the bleeding head.
“How many times do you see a mullet swimming by with a big gash on them? That’s what the red head resembles.”
And when a bull falls for one of the big Knuckle-Heads, Mnichowski said there’s a very real possibility of getting multiple hook-ups before that fish makes it to the boat.
“When one person hooks a bull red, get ready: There might be 10 or 12 of them trying to get that bait out of the fish’s mouth,” he said.
So he always councils his customers to cast around the fighting fish.
Multiple hook-ups can be challenging, though.
“We call it redfish dancing,” Mnichowski laughed. “We’ll be running around all over the boat fighting fish.”
So when Mnichowski or his clients want big, hard-pulling fish, Knuckle-Heads are the bait of choice.
And bull reds aren’t the only game fish that fall for the lure.
“I’ve caught 5-pound trout on them,” Mnichowski said. “You don’t catch many trout with it, but when you do, it’s going to be a big one.”
Knuckle-Heads aren’t readily available at local tackle stores yet, but they can be ordered from www.basspro.com or lurenet.com. They cost $9.99 to $11.99 each.
