Let Mother Nature tell you where to target specks and reds this month.
Standing on the front deck of his Triton, his right foot resting on the gunwale, Capt. Andy Mnichowski had a look of consternation fixed on his face.
He wasn’t concerned about the 15-pound jack crevalle two of his passengers had been fighting with no end to the stalemate in sight. Nor was he overly worried about the waterspout that seemingly dropped down from the sky less than a mile from his boat and had approached to within three-quarters of a mile.
What, however, did have the captain bothered was the wind direction. While it had been moving out of the west all morning, it had made a switch to the east, a change he knew would impact the fishing here at the Sandy Point Rig.
“We’re going to need to get out of this wind,” said Mnichowski, stowing his trolling motor and engaging his Mercury Optimax.
In Venice, the significance of the weather can’t be overstated. Depending on where an angler is fishing, the wind could aid in congregating the shrimp and mullet — and thus predators like redfish — along a point, promoting a feeding frenzy for anglers to enjoy for hours.
But in a moment it can — and it does with regularity — change, leaving anglers high and biteless as Mother Nature, say, pushes fresh water in from the nearby Mississippi River. When this occurs, it serves to lead both prey and predators to bury themselves in the saltwater-filled marshes where anglers can’t always access them.
“The reds are going to follow that good water as far as they can follow it,” said Toby Poirrier, a Louisiana guide who knows the area around Venice and Buras well. “If that’s a foot into the marsh, that’s where they’re going to go. And usually their noses are going to be away from you.”
This is a fact Mnichowski is very well accustomed to. So when he starts out each morning, the wind direction along with news of any storm fronts moving into the area is of prime concern.
On that hot August morning last year, with the wind blowing lightly from the west, Mnichowksi began the day in one of the shallow ponds near Lonesome Bayou. This pond is lined with several canals and provides a great location for redfish to migrate into where they can then stack up and corral mullet and shrimp.
With the sun just easing up for the morning, the captain grabbed a baitcaster loaded with 17-pound-test Silver Thread, tied on a Knuckle-Head topwater bait and began fan-casting the area.
“This might look like a large plug for a redfish,” said Mnichowski, holding out the red/white lure. “But believe me, they can swallow it so fast, you want even see them. But you’d better hold on.”
The captain and each passenger in the boat made long casts with the lure, then, once the ripples settled around the bait, began a not-so-subtle twitching of the lure. This twitching caused the lure to make a gulping sound, one that apparently the reds cruising the area couldn’t resist.
With four people in the boat, it was only a matter of time before there was a hookup and one of the baitcasters was singing.
“Fish on!” exclaimed one of the passengers, Jeff Samsel, a writer from Georgia, as a 12- to 14-pound red stripped line from his reel.
For an angler not used to the tackle-busting fight of a redfish, even a rather small one can provide a physical assault. Besides the endless runs and the constant surges, there is a burning sensation that grows in the forearms as the tension builds from the pulsation of the piano wire-taut line.
The action would continue over the next two hours, even becoming so frenzied that there were often as many as three hookups at once.
But as the sun continued to blink from gathering clouds in the sky, Mnichowski decided to move a short distance to the Main Pass Rigs.
Clouds steadily built in the northeast. Several large fish thrashed the surface in front of the boat, and before the captain’s engine was off, lines were already in the water.
“Aw! Those are jacks,” said Mnichowski, his voice expressing displeasure at what he’s come to see as a fish not worth his or his clients’ time.
But it was too late. Two fish were already on, and it would be some time before the fight was over. Yet as the fight grew longer, Mnichowski — even while maneuvering the boat with the trolling motor — grew concerned.
The winds had changed, and there was a waterspout jutting up on the horizon. While the waterspout didn’t pose much of a threat, the changing winds were about to become a bane to our fishing, and the guide knew it.
“We need to get those lines in,” he said, signaling that the fight with the jacks was, for all intents and purposes, over.
The captain said that with the winds now coming out of the east, moving to the west side of Southwest Pass would accomplish two things: 1) It would get the boat out of the winds now humming at the Main Pass Rigs, and 2) It would likely allow the anglers to get in on some active fish since the east winds pushing against the rocks off the Mississippi River would clear up some of the water and activate the fish, he said.
“You need the east wind for fishing the whole west side of the river,” he said.
Heading south, it was clear now that the wind was coming on strong from the east. As the boat rounded the jetties at Southwest Pass, the waves were smacking the rocks. Mnichowski, putting the wind at his back, stopped his boat several yards off this structure.
Here, instead of topwaters, the bait of choice was 4-inch Yum Samarai Shads in the glow/chartreuse tail color. The bait was fixed onto ½-ounce leadheads.
The boat was situated parallel to the rocks.
“Cast it right to where you see the clear water,” said Mnichowski, pointing to areas where the clarity was several feet as opposed to just a foot or thereabouts. The water here was about 12 feet or so, which should have made keeping the baits on the bottom easy. But it wasn’t. As the bait fell in the water just in front of the rocks, the current would pull it back toward the boat, in many cases resulting in it never reaching the bottom.
“You’ve got to keep it on the bottom,” Mnichowski advised. “If you don’t, you aren’t going to get bit.”
How right he was. In no time at all, two of the anglers had hook ups.
And, sure enough, it was bulls this time. While over the next hour and a half everything from cobia to Spanish mackerel were taken from this location, it was the hard-fighting reds that took the cake. When all was said and done, the four anglers had boated 8 to 10 fish, all of which were in excess of 20 pounds, with the largest four being over 24 pounds each.
“For big reds, you can’t beat South and Southwest passes,” said Capt. John Taylor, who runs several charters out of Buras. “Bull reds come in from the Gulf and feed along the edge of the river.”
However, this fast and furious action likely would not have happened were it not for Mnichowski’s keen eye on the weather. The captain, with more than 13 years of experience, knew that east winds would push the baitfish against the jetties at Southwest Pass, and the big, aggressive predators, in this case bull reds, wouldn’t be far behind.
“During this time of year, any big sandbars or jetties are going to hold big bull reds,” he said. “That’s where the bait goes, all your pogies and mullet.”
To have the same level of success in South or Southwest passes, anglers need only look for the east wind, then head for the western side of the jetties-and hold on.
When Taylor’s boat leaves Joshua’s Marina in Buras each morning, his eyes are always fixed on the flagpole that stands sentinel at the location. He depends on seeing which way the flag is blowing to determine where he wants to fish for both reds and speckled trout.
He looks to put his back to the wind, and then fish wind-driven points in the area between Baptiste Collette to North California Point. Just as the wind on the jetties at Southwest Pass washes baitfish along the cover, these windy points provide great feeding grounds for specks and small reds looking to score an easy meal.
The ideal location, he said, would be a point with some wind, though not a lot, say 10 miles per hour or less.
Once he finds a suitable point, Taylor will tightline a 4-inch ReAction Lures Bayou Chub Minnow in glow/chartreuse or black/chartreuse.
“That is the best soft plastic imitation there is,” he said, referring to the bait made in Many.
If the fish won’t hit the bait bounced off the bottom, he’ll then incorporate a slow, steady retrieve to his repertoire of offerings.
“I really like to swim it,” he said. “The key is to keep it moving.”
But while wind might be key to fishing these points, just as often having no wind can yield big results as well. Even while his eye is on the wind, Taylor said he’s paying equal attention to any and all activity involving gulls at the surface.
He knows that more often that not, birds breaking at the surface are a dead giveaway to subsurface feeding, knowledge he used to his advantage on a guided trip in June.
While he and several customers left Joshua’s, he saw a congregation of gulls sitting on the surface not a ½ mile from the marina. Immediately shutting down his outboard, he approached from the upwind side of the flock, using his trolling motor to get within casting distance.
The group, using Speckulizer rigs and the Bayou Chub Minnow, saw the fruits of their efforts right away, he said.
“We caught 100 trout before 8 a.m.,” he said. “That’s pretty typical of summer fishing.”
He said that to have such success anglers need to keep their eyes on the conditions, then make the choice of following the wind or the birds or both.
But just as the weather can impact the fishing here out of Venice, so, too, can the tidal flow. Louisiana, just like any coastal area that is impacted by the fluctuations of the tide, can see the fishing hot one minute and ice-cold the next. Being able to predict when and where conditions are likely to be the most favorable is ideal, said Poirrier.
An angler who prefers the shallow ponds, Poirrier knows an advancing tide can mean everything to his fish. When the tide comes in, the reds, which will often hold in the shallow ditches off the canals in the these ponds, are typically foraging for shrimp and other organisms in water not over 5 to 7 feet in depth.
“What’s so great about these ponds is that the reds live in them year-round,” Poirrier said. “There’s almost always fish in those ponds.”
What he likes to do, however, is let Mother Nature work in his favor. Even though the fish are undoubtedly there when the tide is all the way in, they are difficult to see and thus harder to target without covering a good deal of water.
Therefore, he likes to catch the tail end of an outgoing tide, then look for pods of fish that can often be seen tailing in the shallow lagoons.
With the telltale signs of several fish clearly in sight, he starts off with topwater baits and ReAction Lures U99 in colors such as baby bass and pearl, fished on a ¼- to 3/8-ounce lead head.
Another of his go-to baits in this situation is a ½-ounce gold spoon from Johnson or Bagley, which he fishes using a steady retrieve.
“They’ll just tear into a steady retrieve,” he said of fishing the spoons. “More times than not, a Louisiana redfish is going to eat that bait.”
Should that bait prove ineffective, he’ll toss topwaters such as the Heddon Zara Spook or MirrOLure She Dog and Top Dog. But whatever he’s fishing, he’ll stay at it until the lure draws a strike. His theory is that once Mother Nature has done her part by lowering the tide, there’s bound to be a bait in his arsenal that can elicit a strike.
“You just throw what the fish want you to,” he said, echoing a common sentiment among accomplished anglers. “If you’re throwing a 1/4-ounce spoon and they aren’t eating it up, try something else.”
Whether it’s the wind, birds or tidal flow, these three guides clearly show that anglers can use Mother Nature to awesome effect this month.
