Barely a ripple tickled the surface on this tranquil June morning before the large floating attraction landed in a pocket along a grassy shoreline. The bait rested motionless as the concentric rings it created dissipated.
The calm ended abruptly. The angler popped the lure once. Its concave nose gurgled, sending water droplets hurtling through the air. Without warning, the surface erupted as if someone threw dynamite into the once placid marsh pond.
Few fishing experiences in fresh or salty inland waters can compare with the brutal savagery of a large redfish smashing a topwater bait in shallow water. Most often, reds don’t simply hit a bait. They attempt to obliterate it with vengeance. The shock pumps adrenaline on turbo mode through the body of even the most experienced angler.
“I love catching redfish on topwater baits because it’s so exciting,” said “Cajun” Phil Broussard, who operates Cajun Paradise Charters (337-540-5530, cajunparadisecharters.com) in Hackberry with his son and longtime tournament partner, Kevin. “I like to fish topwater baits for redfish in the hotter months from June to September. When redfish want a bait, they will explode on it.”
Sight fishing
Spot-tailed marsh marauders frequently cruise weedy shorelines and shallow flats looking for shrimp, minnows, crabs or other morsels to devour. They commonly stake out ambush zones near points and in pockets dotting irregular banks. In many ways, catching redfish seems more like hunting than fishing. Anglers first need to spot them and then stalk them. Throw baits past the fish and work them to it.
“We like to sight-fish for reds and throw topwaters at them,” Broussard said. “When it’s calm, we go down the shorelines very slowly looking for any type of wave. With good, polarized sunglasses, we can see fish. If we see a redfish, we can catch it. We throw the bait three or four feet in front of it and barely twitch it because we don’t want to scare it. Make really subtle movements so the lure looks like a wounded minnow. When a redfish takes an interest, it goes beneath the bait and watches it.”
Redfish do not always hug shallow shorelines. Sometimes, they hold around oyster reefs in open water. With most anglers focused intently on the grassy shorelines, some little-known reefs could yield great coppery treasures.
“In many ponds, people might not even know an oyster reef is there,” said Billy Jordan with Cajun Comfort Charters (225-806-3719, Facebook) in Montegut. Customers can also stay at Timmy and Terese’s Cajun Paradise Lodge (573-230-4695, Facebook) in Montegut. “People might be surprised how many redfish they can catch in open water around shallow oyster beds. If an area has shallow oyster beds, it has redfish.”
Topwater fishing is an art
When not crunching crabs or slurping shrimp, redfish love to gobble mullets. The succulent delicacies (to redfish) commonly thrust their heads above the surface. Walking or “walk the dog” baits probably imitate mullets more than other floating temptations. Worked with short, brisk flicks of the wrist, walking baits slither across the surface with scintillating zigzag motion.
“Topwater fishing is an art,” said Bill “Wild Bill” Hancock with Reel Outlaw Charters (601-807-5811, Facebook) of Gulfport, Miss. “My favorite topwater bait is a Matrix Mullet walking bait. My two favorite colors are prom night, which is pinkish. The other color is Bengal tiger. It’s green on the sides with an orange belly. That’s my go-to bait.”
Sometimes, redfish like a pause in the retrieve, which could encourage curious fish to strike. Move the bait a few feet and stop. While sitting motionless on the surface, the lure still makes a mullet-like silhouette. At other times, more aggressive redfish prefer steady side-to-side action with occasional pauses. Experiment with different retrieves to see what works best that day.
“We work walking baits with a slow, steady cadence,” Broussard said. “We pause the retrieve periodically. We might work the bait two or three feet and then stop it for a while. After the pause, we don’t immediately start the cadence again. We just bobble the bait in the water because a fish might be watching it. The first move after a pause needs to be very subtle. After we move it a little bit, we speed up the cadence.”
Easy to master
Poppers displace water with curved blades or concave nose surfaces. When jerked, they gurgle and splash water ahead of them, making a considerable surface commotion. Simple to use, poppers make excellent lures for beginners or anglers who can’t quite master the finesse of walking a bait.
Toss a popper to a likely spot and let it sit briefly. Then, jerk the rod. Repeat. Popping and stopping these baits keeps the enticements in the strike zone longer and could provoke hits from non-aggressive fish.
Also easy to master, propbaits come with nose and/or rear propellers. The harder an angler jerks them, the more the propellers thrash the surface and the more noise they make. Anglers can work propbaits like poppers or reel them in a constant retrieve.
Although technically not a topwater bait, floating jerkbaits work like a cross between a true topwater and a crankbait. The long, slender minnow-like lures with small lips dive very shallow. Pop it so it dives a foot or two and floats back to the surface. Anglers can also wake them with a wobbly retrieve just under the surface or slightly deeper.
In some areas, such as the Mississippi, Sabine, Pearl and Pascagoula river deltas, plus freshwater diversions like those near Delacroix and Lake Salvador, grass grows in dense mats. Nothing goes over thick grass better than soft-plastic frogs. People don’t think about frogs as redfish food, but spot-tails eat anything they can gulp down their throats.
Some frogs float and some slowly sink. Buzz frogs steadily across matted grass tops. With sinking frogs, stop the retrieve at small openings so it sinks a foot or two into the pocket. Work floating frogs like poppers. Frequently, redfish will erupt through the grass to attack frogs.
“One time, I saw a redfish and the other angler threw a frog behind it,” said Mike Gallo of Angling Adventures of Louisiana (877-4AAOFLA, www.aaofla.com) in Slidell. “He brought the frog steadily toward the fish. The redfish lowered himself in the water so it could tilt its head upward and look behind him because it could hear the frog coming. The redfish waited for the frog to pass over it and then attacked it from behind.”
Soft approach
For more subtle action, slithering soft-plastic baits combine the attributes of exhilarating topwater action, the fish-finding abilities of buzzbaits and the weedless characteristics of worms. Pull the bait across the grass tops a couple feet at a time. Like with sinking frogs, let them drop into pockets.
Not a topwater bait, but one that does produce ferocious surface strikes, buzzbaits can run through broken weed patches and other cover. The churning blades sputter on the surface, causing quite a commotion. When a redfish holds up in cover where other lures cannot reach it, buzz past its nose until it can’t stand it and tries to annihilate the annoyance.
“I work topwater baits or buzzbaits around any little trenasse (small ditch) or point,” Jordan said. “When a redfish is back up in the weeds and we can’t reach it with traditional topwater baits, we throw buzzbaits at it. Keep the rod tip up to get the most surface action from that buzzbait. That big commotion a buzzbait creates infuriates redfish and makes them want to attack and kill it.”
Don’t react too quickly
Redfish make explosive strikes, but they don’t always connect with their prey. With downward-turned mouths better suited for slurping morsels off the bottom, redfish must turn to grab something above them. Resist the urge to immediately set the hook. That could pull the lure from its mouth. If the fish doesn’t make a solid connection, keep moving the bait. It might attack again.
“When someone sees a big explosion on the surface, our first instinct is to set the hook immediately,” Hancock said. “Many people make a mistake by reacting too quickly to a strike when the fish doesn’t quite have that bait yet. Often, I’ll wait to feel that fish on the line before setting the hook.”
Hancock fishes both Louisiana and Mississippi waters. Anglers can catch redfish the entire 62 miles of the Mississippi coastline. Marshes between East Pearl River and Bayou Caddy near Waveland and in the Pascagoula River delta hold redfish. Anglers can also fish Bay St. Louis, the Back Bay of Biloxi and their tributaries as well as beaches, artificial reefs and barrier islands.
“In Mississippi, we have many choices where we can catch redfish,” Hancock said. “The Bayou Caddy area is a great place to catch redfish on topwater baits. The LaFrance area just east of Pearl River is another good place to fish. All the islands have good fishing around them.”
Regardless of bait choice, seeing the viciousness of redfish smashing lures on the surface hooks for life any angler who wants to stay on top of the action!
