The Running of the Bulls: Finding Reds in the Buras Marsh

Recently, I took a 9 hour or so drive to the Buras Marsh Media Bash event in Buras, Louisiana, located deep in the southern part of the state’s marshlands. This event was a unique invitation-only event for media people hosted at Cajun Fishing Adventures which has incredible lodging and it is very unique from anything else located in that part of the world.

Cajun Fishing Adventures uses several guides from in and around the area. Our guides put us on some incredible fishing. The first day of the event I fished with the guys from Power-Pole shallow water anchors and got to experience an awesome line of forward thinking technology in all of their new product offerings. I caught a few largemouth bass and the guys from Power-Pole ended up with some bass and smaller eating-sized redfish throwing white Z-Man Minnowz with on Mustad UltraPoint KVD Weighted Grip-Pin Swimbait hooks. This was a deadly combination of swimbait and hook, which we rigged weedless, as it led to multiple hook ups and very few snags in the thick vegetation around this area.

The next day was simply epic. It was indeed the “Running of the Bulls” as the bull redfish bite was on out in open water a few hundred yards away from the marshes. I have fished for redfish for many years on the Texas Gulf Coast but never experienced both the size and numbers of fish that we did in this area. We started out fishing a Z-Man Shrimpz under a popping cork. Jay Harris from Mustad fished with me this second day and he started throwing a couple of top water lures from Live Target. The Live Target lures so realistically resemble real baitfish, it is easy to mistake them for a real fish in the water. They make one of the best looking mullet lures I have seen on the market and with their attention to every detail. The fish get fooled pretty easily as well. It is hard to explain the feeling you get when a bull red slams into your bait after aggressively working a popping cork on the surface. That feeling can only be compared to a redfish or other similar size species smashing a top water lure with a vengeance. The bite looks like the water is boiling and most redfish will hit and commit to a lure with one heck of an attitude to back it up.

It continues to amaze me how hard a bull red will fight you once it’s hooked. It is like being hooked to a tank on a warpath and I landed several fish that day that would qualify as fish of a lifetime. I always believe in catch and release for bull reds. After all, they are the matriarchs and patriarchs that make great fishing possible for the future. What I experienced at the Buras event was that when the right combination of quality lures, hooks, rods, reels and other tackle are used, great things can happen out on the water. They certainly did for us. Fish hard and stay safe out there!

Dustin Vaughn Warncke