It wasn’t very hard to tell where the redfish were biting in Little Lake and Bay L’Ours a couple days ago. Captain “Papa” Joe Bush (504-689-3728) wanted to get an early start because he knew word had traveled quickly, and he wanted to get to the hot spots before everybody else.
“The reds started schooling up a little early this year,” said Bush over the drone of his motor as we moved through Bayou Rigolettes and Bayou Perot. “We’ve been seeing them grouped up about five to ten at a time, and they’re pushing around all these shorelines. All you’ve got to do is spot them and get a bait in front of them… any bait… and you’ll catch your limit pretty fast.”
Bush’s main issue with the reds is that once two or three boats get in the same area and catch a few fish it busts up the schools, which makes the fishing a little tougher. On top of that, once a boat on either side of you traps you in, you’re forced to fish one small area without the freedom to move on down the bank.
This was exactly what we rant into mere minutes after catching our first redfish along the northern shoreline of Bay L’Ours. Boats pulled in on both sides of us, and we were confined to a small area. This wasn’t all bad, though, as the redfish were moving down the shoreline in packs, and all three boats caught fish as the reds passed by.
After the action started to diminish, Bush spoke up. “Let’s take a ride over to Brusle Lake,” he said. “With this wind we’ve got this morning… man, it’s going to make them tough to spot. I think we can find a few calm banks over there where we can see them tailing.”
Every spot Bush checked was already loaded with two or three boats, and on a Wednesday morning at that. We kept moving until we found a calm shoreline, but the only problem was that we didn’t see any reds waking the surface.
“Let’s stop and give them a shot,” Bush said as he idled in closer to the bank. “There’s a lot of bait here, and you never no. I haven’t been fishing this bank much, so I don’t know what’s here, but you never know.”
It turned out that this shoreline produced only one half-hearted topwater strike, and Bush announced that we’re going to quit trying to find a place to see them tailing and hit a bank where he knew we could catch some reds.
We made the quick run around the northern point of Bay L’Ours and headed to the northwestern shoreline of Little Lake. There was a boat already working its way to our left, so Bush settled on a spot and started working toward the right.
“I’ve been trying to find a spot where you could see them tailing all morning long,” Bush said as he battled a grilling-sized redfish. “Now we’re just going fishing. We’ve got to get something in the box, and this is the bank to do it.”
Bush and I worked this shoreline back and forth for about an hour, and we landed several redfish from 17 to 27 inches. After deciding we had exhausted this spot, Bush made the run back to where we started the morning. One of the boats from earlier was still fishing the same spot where we left them, and we saw that they were still catching fish.
“Let’s make a few passes and see what we come up with,” Bush said as we began casting toward the main point. “There are still a few pushing, and we only need two more. We may even catch some by just fan casting this area. I know the reds are still here because the bait’s still here.”
We finished up our limit and caught a few more just for fun. All of Bush’s fish came on an H&H Coastal Tackle spinner with a purple and white cocahoe tail. All of mine came on a Saltwater Assassin Red Daddy spinnerbait with a black and chartreuse MirrOlure Soft Sardine, but as Bush pointed out earlier, what you throw isn’t nearly as important as where you throw.
“Just watch for them pushing down the bank and time your cast so you pull your bait right in front of their noses,” he advised. “I know you caught a few blind casting, but me? I caught all mine by casting to some kind of moving water. And all our fish were on the shore. Later this summer, we’ll start catching them out in the open water doing the same thing.”
