In my experience, a live croaker ranging from 8 to 12 inches is the very best big redfish specific bait. The croaking sound gives reds an audible target and a large live bait keeps away most gafftops and hardheads. Croaker is not well-known bull redfish bait, but I have had far better luck on it than anything else. If I cannot get croaker, I use a whole crab with the top shell broken off.

Although they do not look like they are useful for much of anything productive, circle hooks provide anglers with a higher chance of actually hooking a fish and not hooking the fish in the throat. This increases the chance of survival upon release.

Daiichi has a hook called the Tru-Turn that acts in much the same way as a circle hook but it looks a lot more like a standard hook. I use it and standard circle hooks exclusively while seeking bull redfish.

Most of the time Tru-Turns and circle hooks lodges themselves in the corner of the red's mouth. If you have never used these kinds of hooks, I would recommend setting the rod in a rod holder in the boat and allowing the fish to hook itself.

Do not try to set the hook as you would with a regular j-style hook. After the rod starts bending over give the rod a slight tug and start reeling in.

Another great way to score on reds around the rigs here is by fishing them with green lights at night. Green lights have soared in popularity among Lake Borgne fishermen over the past five years. Green lights come in two basic types: floating and submersible. Most of my green light fishing is with a floater, and it works great. Submersibles seem more popular and may be a tad more effective since they penetrate deeper into the water. A 12-volt battery powers these lights for many hours.

Effective night fishing requires knowing where to fish, proper boat positioning, and bait selection. When fishing a wellhead or rig, position the boat at the corner of the down current side if possible.

Get as close as possible and face the bow into the current. In mild current and no chop, try hooking up backwards with the transom to the rig.

Positioning is also very important over more subtle structure like oyster beds. Lower the anchor up current and let out enough line to put you over the structure.

An overlooked area in the Lake Borgne system are the ship channels running along the north and west quadrants.

Anglers targeting the marker buoys along the channel can catch some big reds many anglers quite simply never think about fishing.

"Vertical Trapping" is a method I am experimenting with in such areas. It involves using a Rat-L-Trap and dropping it down over deep holes and simply reeling it up. This is something anglers use for smallmouth bass in channels along the Great Lakes, and I am experimenting with it for redfish and other coastal predators in Gulf Coast waters.