Mach 10 with the Red Reaper

Delacroix, Louisiana July 2013

Stevie Nick

Stevie Nick didn’t have to blindfold us. The 180’s and G forces pretty much assured that Al “Cbreeze” Calabrese and I would never find our way back to the ponds where we would be sight-fishing all day or even be able to locate Stevie’s tournament honey-holes on a map.

Delacroix’s marshes are a magnificent labyrinth of cuts, canals, bayous, ponds, small lakes and bays that would confound anybody that hadn’t devoted a good part of their life getting lost in and finding their way out of. Turns out Stevie navigates the back-ways of this region as good as any Delacroix native and without having grown up fishing the bayous here.

From the moment we launched from Serigne’s Marina, it felt like we were in tight contention in a final day of a tournament with a $100,000 prize up for grabs. We were venturing into super-skinny waters and timing the tides back there while factoring in the wind was tricky and a real gamble.

Stevie with Red Gold. Striking it rich!

There were a few times when Al and I were white-knuckling it with Stevie winging it at high speeds and snaking through very tight channels. This is when I noticed him using his Lowrance without hesitating or breaking speed, just making instantaneous changes to course.

Note: Later safely back at the dock he disclosed that he uses the E-Card by Standard Mapping (standardmap.com). The E-Card provides him a photo map overlay of industry-standard laminated maps that many fishermen use religiously. According to this tournament angler, the E-Card’s technology blows away competition with its high-definition and accuracy. So Stevie didn’t have a photographic memory after all.

Touching in with Standard Mapping’s E-Card on his Lowrance HD-S unit

Delacroix Marsh

Sight fishing reds in the marsh, at least in this marsh, is definitely the pinnacle of light-tackle saltwater fishing in Louisiana. The water was without exaggerating clear as any water I’ve seen, much less fished in. Delacroix is at the back door of New Orleans, which some say is the northernmost city of the Caribbean. These waters fit that scenario perfectly. South LA never ceases to amaze. It has some of the clearest and cleanest water amidst the murkiest, muddiest water in the country.

But good luck seeing em! Some of sight-fishing is learnable. The rest of it is talent. If you don’t have it, you could have $5,000 Costa Del Mar’s and not see many fish. But they are there.

Stevie Nick and I in the eagle’s nest, a 5’ custom platform he had built specifically for sight fishing redfish from his boat

By afternoon, I was spotting some before Eagle Eyes or Cbreeze did. But when that happened, it was usually because those two were sizing up some fish 30-40 plus yards away and I might be seeing one sneaking by within 10.

In terms of his arsenal, besides the E-Card and the raised platform, Stevie had a remote control for the trolling motor and was winding us though the ponds and grass beds in 1-2 feet of water, simultaneously tracking multiple fish in multiple locations and placing his bait in front of the fish he wanted while telling Al where to cast, which of the fish to go for and why and telling me to keep trying.

On this trip, among the sight fishing lessons, I learned a lot from Stevie about boat handling. What you do is, when you start feeling bottom and it’s just getting shallower, you turn on some Bob Marley, back out about 30-40 yds then punch it. You get the boat up to mud-plane and you might make that flat. Worked for us several times.

By end of the day, I had several nicknames I could kid Stevie with.

Speed Racer meets Dukes of Hazard:If anybody had been tailing this tournament champion, they would have crashed and burned many times, either launching themselves into the marsh at the hairpin turns, ripping off lower units on sub-surface debris and old forgotten dams or just getting plain old stuck. His Blazer Bay turned into an airboat with afterburners when called for. No smoke screens or oil slicks needed here.

Rain Man…bears some explanation. First of all, Stevie simply is a savant of sorts when it comes to sight fishing. Secondly, he shared everything he saw or knew throughout the whole day from start to finish and hardly anything was repeated. He was overflowing with explanations and insights, tirelessly teaching and it was fascinating. I know he wasn’t counting cards but something was going on that I couldn’t explain.

Red Reaper: By the end of day, with an effortless stealth and great economy of action, Stevie had pretty much hand-picked the tournament-class redfish of the area, catching what he wanted, passing up what he didn’t. I think the redfish knew when his gaze fell upon them.

Stevie Nick holding a red with the “burnt-copper” color distinctive of the reds living in the clear shallows

I left Delacroix feeling I’d just had another “once in a lifetime trip.” Every fishing trip is different and some stand out for one reason or another. The combination of serious and fun was a blast.

Who Dat Releasing Dat Fish?(the reflection knows)

I left with the memory of hearing Bob Marley as G forces took hold.

Article and photos by:Bruno PragerCo-Publisher-New OrleansBruno@coastalanglermagazine.comCoastalAnglerNOLA.com