Gold spoons are hard to beat for marsh action this month
They say memories grow sweeter with time. Most of my memories of fishing stem from the 90s, catching redfish in the pipeline canals near Myrtle Grove. It was what I lived for. Cold, raw days with air temperatures in the 50s. Water pouring out of a duck pond canal through an old broken-down bulkhead. My father would anchor on the outside of the bulkhead, launch his gold Wob-L-Rite spoon and reel it across the opening. There was nothing like feeling when the boat wobbled and the drag chirped when he set the hook on that first fish. I would net the fish and hand it over to him so that I could start casting. It didn’t take us long to catch our limit and move on to catching specks.
The art of catching redfish
John Guillot of Kiln, Miss., has similar memories originating from the same area. As a child, Guillot recalls fishing the leftover pilings that lined Wilkerson Canal as a result of Hurricane Betsy.
“Growing up in the Myrtle Grove marsh, we had one of the only two camps that made it through Betsy,” he said. “I would cast shad-rigs tipped with shrimp up in the pilings and catch rat-reds for fun.”
As a teen, Guillot ventured away from the dock into Bay Laurie, where he would catch keeper redfish.
“The hard clay point of land in Bay Laurie across from the camps always held big redfish — I mean, these were line strippers!” he said. “I loved playing tug-o-war with my old Mitchell 300 and half-rotten monofilament line.”
To say Guillot has graduated from “half-rotten mono” from then to now would be an understatement.
Over the next 45 years, he perfected the art of catching redfish and even customized his own spinnerbaits for redfish.
“I started cutting and shortening the blade arm way back, close to the knot point on the frame,” he said. “Then I added a split ring, swivel and a No. 3 ½ gold Colorado blade.”
Changing the arm’s length was the kiss of death for redfish. By shortening the arm, it put the blade right on top of the bait, which turned the entire lure into one target.
“Those redfish felt the bite of my new redfish spinnerbaits — I was making myself deadly — just deadly,” he said.
Guillot began using his spinnerbaits to catch redfish in the Biloxi Marsh.
“I spent so much time there that a map was no longer needed,” he said. “I knew every bayou and bay from Lake Borne to Lake Eugene and from Bayou La Loutre to the Mississippi Sound.”
Fly fishing
As Guillot sank into the world of redfishing, he sought out a more challenging way to catch redfish. He was introduced to fly fishing by Mr. Jim Roddy. Roddy used a 9WT Orvis & Sage Fly Rod and other expensive performance fly rods to target redfish.
“Jim had enormous patience with me in the beginning,” he said. “He wore an extra wide-brim hard hat so when I hit him with a fly on the back cast, the hat protected him from getting hooked. Those memories we made I will take to the grave.”
As he developed into a deadly fly fisherman, Guillot designed a spoon fly which consists of a Worth 3 ½ brass Colorado spinner blade with a No. 4 saltwater tinned hook soldered on with low temperature gunsmithing solder. An HD Worth split ring was used to attach a Sampo Swivel to the hook eye.
“I could cast straight into a 15 mph wind and land that heavy homemade spoon fly gently in the path of a redfish that was cruising the shoreline,” he said. “With a gentle tug on my line, I would hop the spoon up off the bottom right in front of the bull red’s mouth. It was like hand feeding my spoon to her and getting heart-pounding excitement as she expanded her gills and my spoon disappeared.”
Guillot’s weapon of choice
This month, Guillot has been targeting redfish with traditional gold spoons. He likes these spoons because he can cover a lot of water using them.
“You can cast a gold spoon a mile reaching water too skinny for a pirogue,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I saw tailing reds, some with their backs completely out of the water. I couldn’t get the boat close enough for any other lure, but I could send a gold spoon back in there and walk it back right under her nose.”
The 63-year-old prefers the Johnson Silver Minnow — ½-ounce or ¼-ounce.
“Hands down the best spoons for the job out here,” he said. “Strong, durable, affordable, and they just flat-out work.”
When fishing the marsh, Guillot opts for the weedless spoon with a hook guard in order to keep the spoon clean while fishing the grassy flats in the marsh. He uses 10 to 12-pound test with a 15 to 20-pound fluorocarbon leader, rigging them with a small HD split ring and swivel.
That looks like a log!
February is Guillot’s favorite time to target redfish with spoons. With overnight lows in the 30s, the water is frigid.
“The water is cold, clear, and all the blooms are dead,” he said.
With the reduction in grass comes the ability to spot more fish. It’s during this time that Guillot does a lot of drift fishing.
“If I spot one, I’ll try my best to drift to her instead of using the trolling motor,” he said. “If that propeller hits an oyster shell, it will spook everything in there.”
On very cold days, you can spot big bulls hunkered down in the mud.
“You can see them in water under 3 feet deep,” he said. “They look like logs laying on the bottom.”
Sunny days are the best days to spot them with overcast, windy days being the toughest. On days with high winds, Guillot recommends fishing leeward shorelines.
Mild February
For the rest of the country, February is a part of winter, but with this month comes the very real possibility that we’ll be dealing with spring-like temperatures. In this case, Guillot recommends looking for cruising redfish.
“If we’re having a warm month, you’ll be able to spot those big girl bruisers in the shallows,” he said. “They’ll be throwing a wake on top of the water. When you see that, you know something’s fixin’ to happen.”
Here’s where the ability to cast far with a spoon comes in handy. Guillot preaches good presentations early and often.
“I like to put the spoon right in the path of the cruising fish and let it drop to the bottom,” he said. “As the redfish approaches, I’ll lift my rod tip up high and begin to retrieve the spoon. If I see a change in the surface wake towards my spoon, I just maintain the retrieval speed until I feel the thump of a bite.”
During a mild winter, Guillot targets drains in the marsh, lagoons and inshore structure. His favorite areas are Magnolia Lagoon, Stump Lagoon and behind Drum Hole, as long as the area isn’t full of grass. Guillot cautions anglers to be careful in this area during low water conditions as there are numerous dams and weirs in and around Magnolia. Another spot that Guillot likes to fish during a mild February is Bayou St. Malo.
“There are numerous areas of broken marsh that redfish inhabit this time of year since the bayou bypasses the MRGO Dam,” he said.
As the calendar turns from February to March, Guillot said the bull redfish will start to move towards the outside edges of the marsh again and he’ll begin his transition from fishing with spoons to spinnerbaits. But for now, he will continue to launch spoons and wreak havoc with his Silver Minnow Spoon.
