It seems that spring has finally sprung, at least if you are fishing for redfish near Delacroix.
“We caught our limit of redfish all weekend,” said Capt. Corey Gradwohl of Hook & Reel Charters. “We are finally starting to see some baitfish, and the redfish are schooling up.”
Capt. Casey Brunning of Hurricane Bay Charters said, “We crushed ‘em. We caught early limits. It seems like the April we normally get is backed up a little, and the fish are showing up now like they normally do.”
Both guides were fishing 1½ to 2 feet below popping corks. Gradwohl used live and dead shrimp.
“We were catching (fish) on the grass beds and along the outer edges of Delacroix marsh,” he said.
“We fished with Campo’s dead shrimp,” Brunning said. “That’s usually our go-to.”
Where to find the reds
The fish were “piled up in certain areas,” he said and those areas moved as the weekend progressed.
“Friday,” Brunning said, “we got on them early, catching them every cast until about 7:30. After a lull that lasted until about 10:15, the fishing picked back up again.
Saturday, the fish were stacked up along windblown points where the grass stops along their sides as they extend into the water. Sunday, they seemed to be on grass-line points and current lines.”
“Things are looking like they are squaring up,” Gradwohl said. “In April, we would have to change spots after catching one or two fish because they were not schooling, but now that we are starting to see baitfish, we are starting to catch numbers at every spot.”
Brunning said the quality of the fish has improved.
“This weekend, we caught more of the bigger redfish than we have been,” Brunning said. “Lately, it’s been a lot of 17- to 18-inch fish, but this weekend, they were running 18 to 30 inches everywhere we went.”
