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Karl and I loaded up the truck the morning of. Neither of us had been to the marsh yet in 2017, and it was January 28th. Our last trip (another forgotten post) had been about a month prior. We knew the weather wouldn’t be great this time, but we weren’t too concerned about it.
By the time we made it to Cocodrie, we realized just how much water had been pushed out of the marshes. I big cold front had blown through a few days before and it was cold. And coming back to the water level, it was the lowest I’d ever seen in Cocodrie. One good thing to do when the water level is real low is to take notes on what the bottom is like in the now-exposed shallow areas. Cocodrie definitely has a lot of oyster beds lining the canals.

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We refrained from sight-fishing most of the day, but there were definitely moments that we just couldn’t resist. My first catch was a small one, maybe around 17″ if I had to guess now. Not long after it, Karl paddled up with me and we saw a wake from a barely submerged redfish. Karl took a couple of shots at him and I got impatient and took my shot. Got ’em. Reference the title photo for the “grip & grin”. Karl was a good sport though and got some photos of the fight.

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We eventually split off and continued to pick up reds here and there. We regrouped eventually and headed for a narrow little marsh bayou I know about. I figured there could be fish stacked in there. Unfortunately, the water was so low that we couldn’t get into it.

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Lunch time rolled around and I started getting hungry. We fished a short while longer but started back toward the truck.

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It was a slow day of fishing and the majority of the reds that were caught were smallish. Barely legal and just under the slot (with the exception of the title photo).

I’ll hopefully be heading out again soon. I’ll try to be quicker in posting an up-to-date report.