I had some folks that called me up last week that wanted to go out for some Redfish on a short notice fishing trip. They wanted to give the Redfishing a try, because they had heard how hard these fish fight. Jack, Aubrey, and Chuck were from Oklahoma, and they freshwater fished up there. They had something to do with the Sugar Bowl. The Alabama Crimson Tide and the Oklahoma Sooners are playing in New Orleans in a few weeks, so that’s good. Anyway, we loaded up in the boat and headed down river to an area that would give us some protection from the wind direction. I had told them that the windy conditions could make the conditions tough for fishing, but you never know unless we go. They agreed and said that they would have a good time, and that if they caught some fish that it would just be a bonus. We got down to the area I wanted to try and started drifting in a cane lined bay. We were using popping corks with a soft plastic underneath. We had low water conditions and the water was off colored. It was cold as well. I told them that Redfish were a tough fish, and that they bite in those conditions. It’s usually just a matter of whether the Reds were around. The Reds needed to be around, because with the windy conditions we could not try many places. It was slow fishing for several hours, then it happened. Chuck and Aubrey hooked up at the same time. The drags on their reels were screaming. This was in three feet of water. These guys were forced to walk around the boat while they were fighting these fish. Chuck’s big Red spit the hook at the boat, but Aubrey boated his. It weighed 24 lbs. Sometimes the big Redfish roam around in packs of 2 or three or more and you stumble on them and get them. We kept on drifting around the area and picked up more here and there. The fishing was not on fire, but we steadily found Redfish, with several more double hook ups. By noon we had boated about 18 or twenty Reds. We saw some Pelicans diving in an area, so we changed our strategy and motored up wind of where they were diving and drifted toward them. The Redfish were under the birds. We anchored upwind of the action. I did not want to get on top of them. We hooked into about fifteen more Reds, and we boated nine of them. The largest of the day went 29 lbs. and the smallest was 17 lbs.  So, after a slow morning the fishing picked up. The conditions did not look good, but we never know what is going to happen on a fishing trip. You can have some tough days fishing the Venice area, but most of the time you eventually find fish. Winter fishing for Redfish around the Venice area sure beats sitting around reading a book all winter. If you want in on a chance at some winter fishing just give me a call. I have been booking some trips for January and February, but I have plenty of days open as well. The winter months are the slowest time of year for bookings, and I am only targeting the big Redfish. The big Redfish feed in the cold water-much of the time.’