Along the Intracoastal Waterway, big reds often hold on flats bordering deeper water. Photo by Ron Sinfelt.

Spanning the entire Louisiana coastline and intersecting brackish marshes and salty bays along the way, the Intracoastal Waterway supports some of the best spring redfish opportunities in the world -- and two primary factors account for that bounty.

First, spring is extremely windy along the Louisiana coast, and the Intracoastal Waterway offers protected areas that are easy to fish in even the strongest winds; second -- and perhaps more important -- it's simply loaded with redfish.

The Intracoastal Waterway and its surrounding marshes are so full with redfish that they've become one of the most popular areas for anglers fishing the prestigious Redfish Cup tournament circuit. In 2007, Texas anglers Tim Young and Jason Catchings took first place at the circuit's Sabine Lake, landing two fish totaling 15.84 pounds by targeting marsh ponds just off the Intracoastal Waterway in Louisiana.

"Our fishing just kept getting better, and to tell the truth, even if we hadn't won the tournament, we would have had an unforgettable fishing experience," Young said. "We caught probably 150 fish. There were just tons of fish in there."

Young fished with a 1/2-ounce Hopkins spoon, while Catchings used a Johnson Spoon. Both anglers used weedless rigs attached to braided line. "We wanted to get those fish in the boat and stress them as little as possible, so we were using 30-pound braid," Young explained.

Catchings, who located the fish during pre-fishing excursions, said that the number of fish in the area was just amazing. "There were just tons of fish in the 16- to 18-inch range all over the place," he observed, "but there were some nice ones too. The key in fishing these shallow marsh ponds is to spook the fish and get them moving -- but not really spook them. It's a fine line you walk, and once you figure it out, it makes a big difference in your fishing."

Perhaps the most interesting detail of Catchings' and Young's experience on the Intracoastal Waterway was that most of the anglers fishing that particular tournament had a hard time finding fish because of wind and murky water. These two anglers knew of a hotspot along the Intracoastal Waterway (also known as the "Intracoastal Canal"), so they went home with more than $60,000.

The marshes they fished are loaded with redfish, and many times the action is literally within a stone's throw of the canal itself. Catchings and Young targeted areas midway between the Sabine River and Hackberry. I frequently fish this zone of the waterway during the spring using trophy flounder tactics, and I've found that most of the big fish come from the shallow flats along the Intracoastal Waterway that border deep water.