Redfish Fishing Near New Orleans

If there’s one species that defines inshore fishing in Southeast Louisiana, it’s the redfish. Hard-fighting, available year-round, and willing to eat on most days if you know where to find them — redfish are why anglers from all over the country make the trip to the marshes around New Orleans. Captain Jimmy Corley has been chasing them in St. Bernard Parish his whole life, and he knows this fishery the way only a local can.

Shell Beach, Lake Borgne, Lake St. Catherine — the water around St. Bernard is some of the most productive redfish habitat in the Gulf. Thirty-five minutes from downtown New Orleans, and most people driving through the city have no idea what’s out there.

Redfish — also called red drum — are built for the Louisiana marsh. They’re a fish of the shallows, pushing into the grass with the tide to root out crabs, shrimp, and baitfish. Sight fishing to tailing reds in skinny water is one of the great experiences in inshore fishing anywhere in the country. You see the fish, you make the cast, you watch the eat. It doesn’t get more exciting than that on light tackle.

They’re also just a tough, powerful fish. A slot red on light spinning gear is going to make long runs and test your drag. Bull reds — the big fish that push through in fall — are a different level entirely. Twenty, thirty, forty pounds of redfish on an inshore rod is a fight you don’t forget.

And they’re excellent table fare. Blackened redfish put Louisiana on the culinary map in the 1980s and they haven’t come off it since. Most of Jimmy’s clients who want to keep fish are taking home redfish.