Our much awaited trip to chase some spot down along the Louisiana coast had finally come. This was something I had not previously done. Being a lifelong Kansan, a big bull redfish was definitely on my “bucket list”… So when we hosted some folks from Louisiana for a Canada goose hunt back in January, reciprocation was offered, and Nick and I felt obliged to accept. Of course… 🙂

In the days leading up to our drive – the goal was suck it up and make the 14-hour drive simply to pack coolers of fish home, vs flying – we made a last minute decision to leave after work the day prior to our original plans, allowing for one extra afternoon of fishing. So our itinerary looked something like this:

• Tuesday, March 24: sneak out of work a bit early – hit the road asap, get to or beyond Paris TX (near the halfway point) – and bunk up for the night.
• Wednesday, March 25: hit the road early, Make Houma, LA for a quick bite, then south to Bayou Dularge in Theriot, near Dulac, and jump right onto the boat with our buddy Ron and tighten up some lines. Dinner with a fellow named Michael and his wife, who would be introducing us to something called Redfish Couvillion…
• Thursday, March 26: Fish, Fish, and Fish a bit more. Big bull reds and speckled trout were our targets.
• Friday, March 27: Should the tide/weather permit, we’d try and get into the skinny water on the marsh side in the Harry Bourg lease area and sight-fish for big bulls. Oh, and get me some photo-ops on some gators! Friday night also held plans for all-you-can-eat crawfish at a place called Jug’s Seafood down on the bayou canal.
• Saturday, March 28: Same as Friday. More sight-fishing for skinny water bulls, then hit the road afterwards. We added a little bonus to our trip – we saw an opportunity – another “bucket-list” kind-of opportunity pop up…
• Sunday, March 29: Spend a few hours spider-rigging Grenada Lake in Mississippi for crappie before heading home.

Google “Best Crappie Lake” in the country, and nearly every site, every magazine, every place you find lists the same thing. Grenada Lake in MS. Just so happens this lake sits right along the way home. Being the crappie fools we are, it was a no-brainer. Building in a morning to hit the #1 ranked crappie water in the country was done. Nick even contacted a local on the crappie.com forums and worked a trip out for the morning.

Wednesday, March 25

So – I hate to ruin the suspense with respect to the rest of the story, but there is no question that in hindsight, our decision to leave a day early and fish Wednesday was the best decision we made all week. Because this was the afternoon that made the trip.
We hit the water and went right to our first spot. Fishing medium-heavy tackle, same as what we use for bass around here, really, live crab on bottom. Basically, my first cast, line settled, bump-bump… Bam! Hook-set, fish-on. I had – literally a minute into the trip, if not seconds – a srceaming reel with what I’d hoped we be my first big bull redfish. And it was.

Bucket list: CHECK. Done. The rest of the week was going to be all icing… LOVE that feeling.

And the icing came. Mere moments later, when I replicated this, again, and again, and again. I caught four or five in this first day – all big ones, all between 35-39″ – never boated one in the slot all week, actually. Nick caught several as well, along with a number of monster black drum, a couple of which Ron thought would push the 45-50 lb mark. We both took a couple of the big bulls on lighter spinning tackle, which was a ton of fun and even more challenging. We also had the standard/occasional line cut from a shark, and got spooled once or twice – those things that just happen out here that we don’t often see crappie fishing in Kansas…

Once our arms were sufficiently worn out we pulled a big “no-no” – we left fish to go find fish – and got into some speckled trout – which was a blast, and added a pile of those tasty little guys to the ice chest.

What an incredible day. This was good, because the weather report for the next one was not looking great. We finished up by visiting a friend of Ron’s who offered to host us for a dinner of Redfish Couviliion – which was absolutely amazing.