Opening of Duck Season 2002
Page 2
There are some things you never forget.  For me, certain fishing memories are entrenched in my brain. Like the time Joe first took me fishing out of Port Sulphur and brought along Evan (Williams).  I ended up dancing in the bait well (and even caught a few fish).  Then there's the time Joe, Theresa and I caught 55 trout in Bay David to go along with the 14 reds we caught earlier in the day in the dammed off canals at Bayou LaMer.

Catching spanish mackerel at the mouth of Southwest Pass is a fond memory.  I can still see that big mackerel jumping out of the water, grabbing my lure after I had just retrieved it and jumping over the stern of the boat, taking all my line as he went.  It was a spectacle to behold!

Then there's the time at LaMer pass when Joe and I loaded the entire boat full of trout.  And catching huge speckled trout at the West Delta production platforms during teal season a few years ago.  And more recently, the time Dick, Joe and I sight-fished big redfish on the sand flat in the Gulf of Mexico where I caught my 24 lb. monster.

Well, Friday afternoon on November 8th, 2002, was another one of those memorable fishing expeditions.  This time it was again on the sand flats inside the reefs in the Gulf of Mexico.  The wind had died down and it was calm.  The weather was a warm 70 degrees on a perfectly clear and beautiful day.  The water was completely flat and the tails of giant bull redfish were all over the place.  It was sight fishing at it's best.
As we got a few hundred feet from the shoreline, the tails were everywhere.  We could have stayed and fished for another hour or so, but it was getting late and Joe and I needed to go fix up the duck blinds. We decided to go back to the camp.  Dick headed back to the redfish while Joe and I fixed up the blinds and set out the decoys.  Dick said when he got back to the sand flat, the fish were gone.
The tail of a huge red drum.  A 30 lb. redfish waiting to be caught.
The spectacular sight of a bull red strking our bait.
We started drifting in from the reefs, flowing toward shore with the rising tide.  The reefs are about a mile offshore.  At first we didn't see much.  But the closer we got to shore, the more tails and swirls we saw.  I don't remember how many redfish we caught that afternoon.  I know Joe caught at least 5 and Dick caught at least 5.  I might have caught one or two.  But each one was huge and took several minutes to land.  Joe was fishing with top water lures with no leader so we lost all his fish except one.  But it didn't matter, they were far too big to keep.  We released all but two smaller reds, which were around 10-12 lb.

The fish were a little finicky.  We had to throw the bait right on their snout in order for them to strike.  Dick and I were using dead shrimp and corks.  On several occasions the fish would strike the cork a few times before they found the bait.  It was an awesome display of fierce redfish power.
Dick shows off another nice redfish.