I’m no expert on fly fishing for redfish but I’ve fished them in Florida, Texas and this marks my second trip to Louisiana in the last year. For me, the ideal set up is a 9 foot 9-weight rod with a floating line. I keep things further simple and tie on a size 1/0 chartreus and white colored Clouser minnow to a leader of straight 40lb fluorocarbon. Ready to rock!
I absolutely prefer to spot redfish and then cast to them. This entails actually seeing them swimming in the water or spotting a tail protruding from the water. Unfortunately there are times like today when the water is muddy and there’s poor light to see into the water. On these occasions we blind cast whether we like it or not.
This “Monsoon Currier” thing is getting out of hand. Even I, the man who explains to folks all the time that the weather is out of your control, so relax, is not so relaxed. A huge front has fallen on the redfish flats of Louisiana!
Thank god for Simms however, even in bad weather we can still go fishing. Today was Landon Mayer’s and my second day of practice fishing with Capt. Jim Dietz for the Yeti Invitational Ambassadors Redfish Tournament before it begins tomorrow. As we left the dock from Venice, Louisiana all you could do was laugh or cry. Though I cringed a little bit, we opted to laugh.
Remarkably the rain stopped around 11 AM. It was by no means nice and we couldn’t see fish for the life of us. But we didn’t give in. We fished poppers blind. I fished the first session with the popper for about 20 minutes. Nothing. I handed the rod to Landon and in less than five minutes he was hooked up!
This stunning beauty put up an outstanding fight. Landon’s Winston was bent to the max for a good few minutes. Eventually he eased the fish to boat side and we grabbed him. We thought then the popper was our answer to blind fishing!
Apparently not. We fished that popper for the next five hours and got one more bite and it wasn’t a redfish. I caught my first ever hardhead catfish (Ariopsis felis) on the fly. I’ll take the new species for my list but a couple more reds would’ve been nice.
It was a fun day nonetheless. The weather wasn’t nearly as bad as the forecast said it would be but that’s the “News” for you. A little drizzle, light rain and clouds, but it wasn’t too bad. We’re off to the Yeti Invitational Redfish Tournament kickoff party. Competition starts tomorrow!
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