We averaged 30 redfish per day, averaging 7 pounds, and took reds up to 18 pounds, black drum to 10 pounds, seatrout to 4 pounds and sheepshead to 4 pounds. All were taken on lures, even the black drum and sheepshead!

Shoreline catches will be mostly reds, with an occasional black drum.

“The key to this fishing is falling water,” explained Kim. “When the tide is high, redfish go so far back in the marsh that you can’t get to ’em even with the shallowest-draft flats skiff. Redfish scatter during high water, too, so it’s hard to find schools. But when the tide falls, reds line up at creekmouths to feed on crabs and baitfish, and you can catch just about all the reds you want, as well as flounder, some black drum and the occasional spotted seatrout.”

Timing your fishing to tide phase is vital because the region experiences diurnal tides, that is, only one high and one low in 24 hours. Hard-running tides around the new and full moons are choice times, because of the increased flow.

Kim’s father Don was a dedicated largemouth bass fisherman until he sampled east marsh redfishing over 40 years ago. Now he rarely fishes for bass, instead saving his free time for multi-day trips to Louisiana from his Mississippi home. “I don’t think I’ve ever fished the marsh when I didn’t catch a dozen or more redfish,” he said later that night over dinner in Chalmette. “And catching several dozen reds a day is not unusual.”

IF YOU GO Chalmette is a good home base for a trip to Louisiana’s east marsh. There are good restaurants and motels, and there are boat ramps there, as well as at marinas in nearby Hopedale, Delacroix and Shell Beach. At the end of Highway 624, beyond the little town of Yscloskey, you’ll find Breton Sound Marina (504) 676-1252, which is pretty much Grand Central Station for east marsh fishing. Most marinas have lifts that work with boat straps, so sturdy boat rings aren’t necessary. There is a good public ramp on Highway 624 right at Breton Sound Marina with a canal running from the ramp to the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal, which cuts through the heart of the marsh. Guides can be booked out of Breton Sound Marina, but no boat rentals are available in the Chalmette area. Anglers who trailer their own boats should fish slowly and take their time, and use maps of the region purchased from area marinas should have no trouble locating all the redfish and seatrout they want. Standard Mapping (www.standard map.com; (985) 898-0025) has an aerial map of Shell Beach that will be of great help. I would advise that you do your initial exploring during low tide to better see the sloughs, canals, cuts and oyster bars. This way you’ll know where to run your boat when the tide floods. Use a fathometer to locate deep holes, an electric motor to quietly move along while casting, and be sure to have a pushpole in the boat to stalk fish, and get out of trouble in skinny water. The Lousiana daily bag limit on redfish is five fish per person per day, with only one fish over 29 inches long. The seatrout limit is a generous 25 per person, but use discretion and take what you really need. —B.M.

While Louisiana has outstanding redfishing in many areas, the Chalmette region is particularly productive, with tens of thousands of acres of marsh less than a 60-minute drive south and east of New Orleans. Rarely has Kim or Don Norton had to run more than 45 minutes from the marina to get into the thick of them. Although the fertile marsh sprawls for miles over St. Bernard Parish, the Nortons are unfamiliar with most of it, simply because they’ve never had to fish more than a few miles from the boat lift. During three days fishing I rarely saw another boat in the area. Many anglers worked deep open bay waters for seatrout, but few entered the marsh for redfish.

Chalmette is easy to reach by highway, and its labyrinth of inshore creeks and marshes is not difficult for anglers to work on their own—fishing from shallow-draft bay boats, flats skiffs and johnboats.

The best redfishing begins in April and lasts until freezing weather, which usually doesn’t arrive until February, and sometimes not at all. Freezing temperatures push reds out of shallow marsh creeks and bays into deep water, mainly pipeline canals dredged by the oil and gas industry. This is prime time for spotted seatrout, and for anglers who fish jigs in holes 10 to 20 feet deep, the numbers can stack up.

Warm-weather seatrout fishing can be exceptional, too. Generally, the best trout action is in more open, salty, clear water than where redfish are found. But trout are so abundant that any shell bar or tight cut between islands or around points are prime spots for waylaying fish with grub-tail jigs. Standard 1⁄4- to 3⁄8-ounce jigs with colorful grub bodies work well, and many Louisiana anglers tie them in tandem. Fishing jigs or soft- plastic shrimp imitations a few feet under a popping cork or float also is highly effective.

Many oil rig platforms are near shore, and daybreak fishing from May through August is often productive for limit catches of seatrout. Jigs and plastic shrimp work around the rigs, but live croakers and shrimp are most commonly employed by local anglers wanting to fill coolers with fat trout. The fishing can be so good around rigs in summer that anglers can collect limit catches of seatrout (25 per person) by midmorning, and then switch gears to fish inside the sheltered marsh for redfish.