Let's talk redfishing

Gotta get into the shallows at low tide. If you really want to sight fish reds, don't cast unless you see them. Casting will either spook em or make you miss seeing them

I know that sounds redundant, but if you plan to sight catch reds, ONLY do that

It can be frustrating but worth it

Sight fishing is a rush especially if you see them eat the bait. What I look for is shallow ponds with widgeon grass, coontail, etc. I stay away from that "snot" grass that coats your bait like the plague.

I prefer smaller ponds that have one entrance. As I enter a pond, sit tight and just observe. I give it a few minutes and if I haven't seen anything I move in a little. Sometimes they aren't swimming at all, but just laying on the bottom. I find that the ones laying on the bottom are harder to catch because they really aren't feeding. I will pitch weedless soft baits without any weight on the shank of the hook. Look for v pattern wakes, bait shooting out the water, etc. If you happen to spook a red, sit tight. They will eat again as long as they haven't left the pond. I caught one today that ate my spoon and spit it out. I spotted him again a few minutes later and this time he was in the icechest a few minutes later. You have to explore many ponds and some won't have any and occasionally you will hit the jackpot.
As far as baits, I like 1/4 oz weedless spoons because they stay just below the surface and don't sink much. I also like weedless swim baits, topwater hardbaits, and inline spinners. Good luck. It's addicting!

I suck at sight casting. I fish with a friend that's great at it, ad no matter how hard he tries to teach me, it doesn't stick.

I'm decent at seeing "nervous water", and can tell a red wake from a mullet, but I CAN NOT SEE THEM.

Check this out.....he sent me a picture a couple of month ago of redfish he saw "swimming all funny/sideways". He throws at it, redfish strikes......it's then he realizes the redfish is swimming funny because a four foot long far had him in his mouth.

He's actually stopped, pointed one out, and i still couldn't see it. We've switched sunglasses, tried everything. My eyes just suck.

Get you an ice chest and put on front deck to stand on. Also, yes the wakes are a tale tell sign, but a lot of times I'll see a fin surface. Scan the places you think they should be, ie, pockets and points within the pond, but keep in mind they may be in the off the bank or even in middle of pond. Also, don't shut your trolling motor off when you see one, they'll flush in a heartbeat.

I put almost 100 hour a year on my boat and 90% of it is sight fishing. I'l telling you this, because true sight fishing is addictive. I'm not talking about throwing to wakes or nervous water. I'm talking about picking a fish out and throwing to THAT fish. Being in that moment when you pull it past him and he has three choices, to spook, to ignore it, or to SMASH IT! That's sight fishing.

It takes more than hopping in a 20 foot bay boat, throwing an ice chest on the front and picking a pond on a map.

Casting - You need to get good at it. At a minimum ring a 5 gallon bucket at 25 yards good.

Sunglasses - Get a really good polarized pair.

Baits - Let the fish tell you on the water what they want. If you get a refusal from a fish, change baits, but make sure you bring an arsenal of weedless ones, spoons, swimbaits, jerk shads, etc.

Platform - Get something tall and stable, taller than an ice chest. Early on I bought a step ladder from Home Depot and strapped it on the front deck. I now use a custom platform that's 50 inches off the deck, so my eyes are than 10-12 feet above the water.

The obvious - Find clean water. I've done really well at the outside islands in November-January, but equally as well far inland in the summer, lots of grass is a must in that case.

Boat – Need something that floats in less than 12 inches preferably. Remote trolling motor helps a ton, but a fishing buddy that can take turns running it is good enough.

Noise – talk, play music, laugh, and cut-up, but for god’s sake DON’T DROP SOMETHING on the floor or jump down from a deck constantly.

Ponds – It’s common to find reds there, but don’t limit your search to them. I placed third in a tourney by fishing a main well traveled canal. Sat there all day while other tourney boats ran around from pond to pond. My point is, reds like open water too.

Best area - I get this question often. I've fished tournaments from Lake Charles to Biloxi Marsh and all points in between, there are reds to be had in all areas as some point. I could catch 100 reds tomorrow in Delacroix, but scratch in Cocodrie the next day, then a month later the roles will be reversed. Venice in the late fall can be stupid good and has to be my favorite.

step 1) buy a yeti
step 2) stand and sight fish
step 3) ?????
step 4) profit

Sup

I don't fish any more due to back trouble, but before that I fished reds heavily for about 15 years. I found that reds behaved very differently in the different areas I've fished, but the vast majority of reds I've caught have been on blind casts. I've always thrown a 3/4 ounce weedless gold spoon (no treble) because it is easier to cast, especially in the wind, and never saw any difference in number of fish caught compared to my buddy throwing a 1/4 or 1/2 oz spoon, even though he was a better fisherman.
I fished Delacroix heavily with my brother-in-law for about 10 years, and he knew how to put you on the fish. After we slaughtered the trout, we'd head back inside and hit the grassy ponds for reds and did very well. Never saw a tailing red in all that time, but we caught a lot by sight casting to those torpedo-like wakes or swirls on the shoreline. We would always troll along the shoreline right at casting distance away from the shoreline and throw as close to the shore as possible. Delacroix reds would often bump the spoon once or twice before they hit it, and some would follow it and hit it right by the boat. I should note that my buddy would always see the actual fish, and I would rarely see the fish itself, just its wake (and we both wore polarized sunglasses and a hat). Sometimes a pond you killed them in the week before would be empty the next time out, so we always hit multiple ponds and usually found them somewhere. Of course, some ponds were consistently better than others, but you must always have several spots to hit when one isn't producing.
Years later when he remarried an evil bitch, we stopped fishing together much. I moved to Slidell and bought a 16' flat cc with a 40hp, and it was a red fishing machine. I started out fishing Bay St. Louis (the actual Bay, not just the area) since my dad has a house on the Jourdan River. The Bay is vastly under-fished for reds. In years of fishing there, only once did I see another boat hitting the shallows for reds. The reds acted very differently there. I used the same technique - 3/4 oz. gold spoon while trolling and casting the bank. I almost never saw a moving red throwing a wake. 95% of my fish were blind casts. And they would never bump it or follow it to the boat. They would either smash the spoon the second it hit the water or within 5 feet of reeling, or they wouldn't hit at all. I pulled a LOT of very nice reds out of the Bay, and I was kind of surprised at how differently they acted compared to Delacroix reds.
I live right by the West Pearl, so eventually I realized that the Pearl runs into the Rigolets right by Lake Borgne. For several years, often multiple times a week, I fished the mouth of the Pearl, little narrow canals running off the Pearl, and shallow ponds right off the lake or the Rigolets. I had one main pond that was my favorite, which you hit if you kept running straight out the Pearl and crossed the Rigolets. Again, never saw another boat fishing reds in any of the spots I hit - it was very under-fished (mainly due to the fact that most boats couldn't get where my little flat could). In this very shallow pond I would sometimes see tailing reds, or the occasional school of 4-5 big reds disturbing the water, or a swirl right near the bank. If you were lucky enough to see one of these scenarios, you throw the spoon a few feet in front and they would smash the crap out of it, but again the majority of my reds were caught here trolling and blind casting. In that pond (and I initially fished every inch of bank), the reds would ALWAYS be on two banks of the pond only - I would never catch them in any other area of the pond. Again, I had about 4 different ponds I would hit on a regular basis. While that one pond was pretty consistent, the others would be there one day, gone the next.
In general, I'd do better everywhere on a falling tide, though I'd fish any conditions if I wanted to fish. I will add that I just purely enjoyed being on the water, usually by myself, and I loved throwing a gold spoon. I fished with a Calcutta, which I loved, and I didn't mind making a thousand casts in a day to catch 5 reds. Just like some people enjoy going to the range and hitting golf balls, I enjoyed throwing the spoon. When we'd fish an area where the reds were hitting a shrimp under a cork, I'd still throw that bait caster and spoon even if they caught 5 fish to my 1. I also thoroughly enjoyed exploring the marsh and finding those little canals and ponds that no one else ever fished.
I hope you find a bit of useful information in there somewhere.
tldr - blind casting works, cover a lot of ground, have multiple spots, they don't always act the same way, never stop finding new spots

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spending hours on the water throwing cocahoes or dead shrimp under a cork and coming back with three fish.

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you need to learn what to look for...moving water, bait, and fish hitting bait.

If you want to have some fun catching reds fish with topwater in shallow water...they look like submarines chasing the bait

Yeah scratch the ice chest, go straight to SCB and buy recon tower boat with a remote trolling motor with GPS link and see is sight fishing is your thing. If not, I'll buy boat from you for the depreciated value.