# Cocodrie report 2/18/16



## Copperspoonfly (Oct 26, 2015)

My buddy Joe and I headed to Cocodrie for a couple days of fishing. The winter fishery over there is a little different from TX. In Louisiana it is common to find bull redfish in the marsh and with the right conditions you can expect double digit shots at sightcasting to oversized reds. 
I asked our guide why the bulls don’t come into the Tx flats as much. He said the bulls like to be close to deeper water. In Louisiana, then entire marsh opens into the gulf. In Texas, the bay systems only have a couple of passes that connect to the ocean, so many of the bulls stay in the surf. 

The first day fishing on our own was a bust. We got to the boat ramp only to realize that the kill switch lanyard had fallen off during the drive. Joe went to the marina to see if they any for sale. I noticed his landing net had a rubber lanyard that looked about the right size to fit around the kill switch. I cinched it down and fired up the outboard. Meanwhile, Joe was walking back from the marina with his head held down low. I revved up the engine and gave him a thumbs up. We thought it would be safer to stay in the marsh close to the marina. That ended up being a bad decision as we were unable to find any clear water. We covered a several miles of the marsh by poling, drifting and using the tolling motor. We hit every marsh drain and point we could find and tried everything from plastics, gold spoons to topwaters without even spooking a fish. 

We ended the day at Sportsman's Paradise lodge. While eating dinner we saw new Instagram post by our guide. His clients had a double hook up & the caption read: Bull reds all day long! When I called him up, he said we should have kept moving until he had found clean water.

The next day the clouds had started to roll in. We still had an unfair advantage over the local redfish, because we were being guided by Jeremy Chavez. He took us to lakes in the outer areas of the marsh. It did not take long for us to spot fish. 
We were poling along a shoreline when we saw the first tail break the calm surface of the pond we were in. This fish was pushing 40 inches. I had a redfish crack pattern tied on to my leader. I dropped it right in front of the fish. I could see the red searching for my fly in the off colored water. I stripped in slowly and saw the red tracking my fly. It surged forward and I felt resistance and set the hook hard. The shallow water erupted with a massive wake. It looked like a torpedo had been fired off in this pond. At the end of my fly line was a 2 ounce oyster instead of a 30 lb redfish. 

Most of the fish we saw were cruising in deeper water. The lack of sunshine made sightcasting difficult. Fish would come into view only a few feet from the skiff. They would either see the boat and spook or they would see a rod tip during a false cast. We had to learn to make short deliveries with the fly rod using one false cast. Another problem was the water depth the fish were in. Even with lead wrappings and lead dumbbell eyes, the flies could not sink fast enough in front of these close fish that were cruising along the bottom. Many bulls would swim underneath my flies. The Full moon may have had an effect as well. We had a ton of refusals even with well placed cast.

We saw well over 50 bull reds during that day. A few were real tankers that would have been over 40 inches long. We ended up landing three bull reds on artificals and I hooked one on a fly rod that threw the hook after a few minutes. If the conditions had been sunny it could have been an amazing day. Cocodrie is a long drive from Austin, but knowing the numbers and the size of reds out in the LA marsh, I will definitely return. Next time I'm waiting on sunny weather.


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## Copperspoonfly (Oct 26, 2015)




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## WillW (Dec 6, 2012)

Copperspoonfly said:


>


Nice report. Where y'all be in Tx. Chavez is good folks


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## Copperspoonfly (Oct 26, 2015)

I live in Kyle, just south of Austin. We were fishing in Cocodrie, LA w/ Jeremy Chavez. He also guides in Galveston.


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