Hooked on the Hunt

By Myrna White

Myrna has been a loyal supporter, friend, and customer of SaraBella Fishing since the early days of our company. She is an avid angler and truly a joy to know! In her professional life, she is a Senior Manager with Sprint/Business Customer Service and Technical Support. Since moving to Colorado, she has joined the Colorado Women Flyfishers, although she still loves to visit the South with her friends through Georgia Women Flyfishers. We are blessed to know her, and we enjoy hearing about her adventures!

I’m a native of Louisiana and grew up fishing in the area bayous, streams and lakes. We primarily targeted bass, bream and dozens of other fresh water speces. Occasionally we would fish the coastal waters offshore for a little deep sea fishing but the riches of our inland waters produced such a unique habitat there was never a reason to drift too far away.

Fast forward to many years later while living in Atlanta it was a trip to Louisiana with friends from Georgia Women Flyfishers where I was awakened to the world of the redfish. A few of the guys from the local Trout Unlimited Chapter shared pictures from a trip they had taken and we wanted to experience that action, so we booked our first trip in November of 2012 and headed south.

Four years later, my friends and I are still heading South to the marshes of Louisiana on our annual fishing trip to hunt for the bull reds.  I enjoy fishing for redfish but the bull reds are some kind of special. Once you fish for redfish like this it haunts you…. it happened to me 4 years ago in Port Sulfur, LA and I still feel it.

The weather is always a gamble trying to hit the right conditions in Louisiana in November for bull redfish. We’ve hit everything from cold, clouds, rain, wind and sun. November 2015, on day one of our trip the weather didn’t measure up to what we had ordered, with very high winds and cold temps there was no way we could have gone out so the guides called it.

It’s day two and I’m up before sunrise, checking the reports, eager to get on the water and pleased to see there is a break in the weather, it’s a go today we were all set for the hunt. The water was a little choppy and dirty but we fished on. All of the fishing is sight-fishing to individual fish, small pods or large schools. We caught fish but we worked hard for it and there were no bulls to be had today. Well it wouldn’t happen this day but there was one more day left and we were still hopeful.

Day three didn’t disappoint, it was another challenging day, but even on the tough days we were managing to sight fish to reds in skinny and very stained water.  The day was coming to a close and I had not caught a bull red yet, I
didn’t want the trip to end, I wasn’t ready. I took one last stand at the bow on the platform looking for tailing fish or a push in the water and suddenly I hear the guide call out 3 o’clock, 50 feet. He maneuvers the boat and begins poling in the direction of the fish, still too far to cast in the wind so we quietly continue our approach. I began my cast trying to get the fly right across the front of the fish so he sees it.  I must admit casting into the wind was a herculean effort on this day.  Finally a cast right in front of him and without hesitation he SLAMS and crushes the fly like he hadn’t eaten in weeks and what a sight!  We didn’t give up, kept plugging, and thankfully we were rewarded with some good action to end the trip.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to catch a bull red on a fly, you must experience it at least once, but I must warn you it may not be your last because it’s addicting.  Thus the reason we keep going back……