I have a fishing trip planned for Vetrans day weekend with a co-worker. We'll be staying near Sweetwater marina. I'd like to target some of the larger Reds if possible. Anyone ever been or have any advice? Based on the time frame I'll be there, I've heard that I should be using live shrimp and working the grasslines, points and cuts in some of the lakes. Should I be using a popping cork to fish the shrimp? Or just a weight on the bottom? Thank you in advance!

Popping cork and most people just use dead shrimp. I'd try some white gulp shrimp too under the cork and pop the hell out of it. Less junk fish, less bait changes. That's for fishing the grass edges, points, channels of the larger lakes. Also throw some redfish magic spinner baits. I prefer to go back into the smaller ponds surrounding the larger lakes and sight fish, though it can sometimes be too shallow. You can also blind fish these as well with redfish magics, gulp shrimp or jerk shad on a jig head or just on a bare worm hook. Also can use any other plastics you prefer, cocahoe minnow has caught many a redfish over there. I've just found you can cover more water with artificial. We've had good luck around Lake Quattro Caballo - aka Lake Four Horse.

Thanks hallb! I'll definitely have to get some of those baits

I have only been after the reds two times, both were in Louisiana. Try a shrimp or piece of shrimp on a 1/2 once lead head. Shaky head or similar. Slow roll it on the bottom near water inlets/ called wears if they have them in that area. This may not work for you or they may not be close to the same pattern as I have experienced but worth a shot if nothing else is working.

What Hal said is spot on. Your spinnerbait better be tough and don't buy cheap stuff.
Gulp and 1/4 oz wide gap quality jig heads for sight casting. I have more confidence fishing spinner baits when blind casting. Pretty awesome watching one get slammed slow rolling in shallow water.
Every bank looks like it would hold fish and everything LOOKS THE SAME, so keep your GPS on at all times for tracking.
Can never go wrong with a popping cork and an LSU grub or gulp

Thanks for all the input guys! What kind of line are you using? Are the reds picky about line size?

They aren't picky over there. I use braid and generally start off using a 20lb flouro leader, maybe 25-30 depending on the size of fish you get into. But truth is, I usually just end up tying to my braid when it's time to re-rig and catch just as many fish.

We had four guys. We used anything from 10 lb mono to 50 lb braid. I didn't notice a difference, but we were not fishing artificial lures. The guy using 10 lb Pline broke off on one fish and straightened his hook on another. Other than that we only broke off on hang ups. We didn't get into the huge reds but turned probably 25 back that were from 28-33 inches.

Good to know guys. Thank you.

Delacroix used to have a big sign that said "end of the world".....

You need to define larger reds...because if you are talking bulls the above info is for "normal" size reds in the slot and just above mostly. You may catch a bull maybe not...you need to get on the outside of the big bays or passes to get bulls normally. If you haven't been there, be careful because the traffic in the river from big boats is stiff....and if there is fog...make sure you are close to Jesus before you go out !

I’ve been fishing down there for almost 20 years. (Well close. We fish around Buras). In all that time I’ve never caught a Red on a shrimp. We have always used plastics (white or white and purple). I rarely use a popping cork either. Not saying it’s doesn’t work but there are other ways. Send me an email and I’ll mark a couple spots on a map for you. It might be a little bit of a run though.
Josh@amsco-supply.com

That's what my friend was telling me.

Id like to get ahold of a bull red while I'm there. What would I need to do different for them?

Thanks! Just sent you an email

Buras and Delacroix are in whole different areas, the "river" - I assume you are talking about the Mississippi - runs down Buras/Venice, not the Delacroix area. I've caught plenty of bull reds fishing the way I described up top even though we weren't specifically targeting, the majority of the fish are upper slot 26" plus fish. If you want to catch a bunch of bull reds, go fish Pensacola pass or Perdido pass, no need to go to LA for that.

We were fishing Dealcroix several years again a 19 foot center console boat. Driver was my buddy from down that way. He mistook one turn for another in the maze of canals and ran us uo on a mud flat all the way to the motor in 2" of water. It took he and I a couple of hours to get that heavy boat turned around and out of there. But we did catch a boat load of fish.

A little bigger spool
Honestly, nothing really. Just remember they all fight hard and even more so in shallow water. A 30inch red in 20ft vs 2 ft is a big difference.
20lb powerpro at a minimum for braid. LA redfish are like Perchjerker(fat, dumb and happy).
Your bass reels will be fine, they just might get a lot more pressure on them. I would have one spinning reel setup just due to wind and light lures.

Also be prepared to never really enjoy fishing for them anywhere else cause you will hopefully be spoiled.

That's my go to. I usually fish out of there or hopedale 4-5x a year. They are killing it right now. I would fish cuts an points all along the inside with live or dead shrimp up against the bank for reds, then turn around and cast off the other side of the boat for trout. If you see a bunch of boats huddled up, they are on the trout. Matrix shad is my go to for trout. Get the guys at sweetwaater to show you some spots on a map, most importantly where not to go. It gets REALLY shallow with a west wind at low tide. Also, dont over look the oldschool gold spoon for reds.

Search youtube for Capt. Charlie and Coastal fishing concepts. All sorts of good advice for fishing the marsh and a good show.

Looking at it on Google maps it looks easy to get lost or have something like that happen. Bet yall were beat after that

I'll check them out thanks

I usually start at 4 horse and work my way around from there.

Also - you need to get you a printed satellite map, the GPS maps are mostly useless over there, especially if you get a little turned around.

http://www.standardmap.com/47-Point-a-La-Hache--Breton-Sound_p_301.html

I saw that one on the map. Might just have to check it out.

Good idea! Thanks. Yeah it would be a nightmare to have something happen to your gps out there.

You can pick me up at the Grand Bay exit on the way down.
Have fun and you are going to love it!

One tip that was passed to me, if you break down and have to be out after dark rio your carpet out of the boat and roll up in it to keep the skeeters at bay. Also several of the public ramps we used closed at sunset.

Sweetwater marina closes up pretty early, but the ramp is still open. The marsh is not a great place to be after dark if you don’t know your way around well anyway.

Also, get a cheap $50 push pole at Bass Pro. Mine has saved my tail a bunch of times. I’m prone to pushing the limits of how shallow my boat will run.

Do you light it on fire after you roll it up to smoke em off?

Heck yeah just have your stuff ready to go!

That's hard core ryano haha! We will be out of luck because his center console has no carpet

Well. Fishing was tough. A cold front moved in the night before we got there and i caught a cold the day before we drove down. I toughed it out anyways. There was 10 of us total and we prob averaged 3-4 fish per person over 3 fishing days. We fished daylight til dark. Sat it was extremely cold and extremely windy. Sun was the same way. I couldn't get a bite either day. It warmed up Mon morning and I caught the big black drum below in lake john before the rain sat it. Rained 10 til dark. Only other fish i caught was a speck and 2 reds all 12" or less. People down there said the salinity was very poor and that also had them shut off. There were fish everywhere, but we couldn't get them to take anything. Not even live shrimp, which is mostly what we used. We fished a ton of different areas looking for better water and hitting all the protected areas, but no matter what they wouldn't bite. Oh well, I guess that's just fishing. I cant wait til next time because it will be better conditions I assure you!

Awesome! It was brutal this weekend. 20-30mph winds saturday made it hard to fish anything other than little protected lakes and cuts. We started at 4 horse and it was white capping. We put 15 reds in the boat saturday and several throw back rat reds. Sunday we only put about 6 in the boat. Like you, we could see them, just didn't want to bite anything.

Nice toothdoc! You wore them out Sat for those conditions. Where did you guys stay? We probably crossed each others path a few times. We were the folks fishing out of a Xpress H20B with a t-top and power poles. I remember seeing a Robalo with a hard T-top like the one in your pic...was that you?

We stayed next door to sweetwater at Destination Delacroix. One of my buddies was staying at Sweetwater. Instead of my boat, we were in my friends 26' Robalo. I was pretty impressed with how shallow it would run it was so big.

Yeah you guys passed us idling out one day. I think we exchanged a hello. That was a super nice rig. I bet it rode like a dream too.

Nice job their Capt. Toothdoc aka "Scruffy". You know you're shallow when the top of the trolling motor is up around your tits! I'd hate to try and get that Robalo out of jam though if you got stuck in a tight spot. I've had to get out and drag my boat a time or too, that Louisiana mud will put you right up to your nuts pretty quick! I'm just gonna go out on a limb and say you caught your fish Saturday on artificials?

Lol. Push pole and a sea tow membership is all you need😂.

My little 19’ Kenner. I’ll run it till the top blades of the trolling motor are out of the water, then drop the trolling motor almost as a power pole.

We caught everything on live or dead shrimp under a popping cork. We did a lot of stick and move to hit wind blown shore and water moving across points. Wind was too bad to troll a bank and keep any consistent distance.

Some of the places we've been in, I think Sea Tow would point and laugh at you from out in the canal. Interesting on the shrimps, I've never really done good on anything but artificials over there, even though I know the local capts. all seem to use the dead shrimp. Probably b/c I hate bait fishing I've never really given it a chance. Those windy days like that generally turn into more of a beer drinking ordeal while we look at the map and pretend like some other location would be out of the wind better.

We use bull minnows a lot on the trips I have taken; red's luv em.

Congratulations JBL and toothdoc!