The first time I pulled a baby nutria out of a redfish’s belly was on November 10, 2007. My partner, Capt Matt Tusa, did it again on the 28th of the same month. We labeled ourselves the “Rat Pack,” but not much else came from it. I even called a few of my buddies that guide down in south Louisiana just to brag. One of them from Venice, LA shut me down quick. He said, “We find those all the time in reds down here. Call me back when you pull a baby duck out of one like we did last week.”
We found a few more nutria over the years and finally thought to have some fun with their unusual diet. Not that getting redfish to bite has ever been a problem, you just want a challenge after a while. Kind of the same reason a rifle hunter picks up a muzzleloader or bow and arrow.
We toyed with the idea of getting a toy mouse or rat and rigging up hooks on it. A mouse trap! Even though we did not have to break out the drawing board, I am sure you could have some fun with experimenting on the design.
We found what we were looking in a freshwater tackle catalog. Bass anglers use frogs and mice over lily pads for explosive topwater strikes. Most of these baits are no more than rubber cylinders with hooks on the top of the bait. One look at the new line of Live Target Field Mice and I was on the phone ordering a box of them. It truly looks like a real live mouse (eyelashes, paws, whiskers, tail, etc.).
A few days after they arrived, Capt Alex McIngvale and my “Rat Pack” pal Capt Matt Tusa were weaving our way through the labyrinth that is the Biloxi Marsh. It was late February and it was cold. Matt and Alex spent the entire ride out giving me Hell about the lifelike mouse lure I had on my spinning rod. It did not help matters that I named him “Mr. Jangles the Circus Mouse,” a tribute to the little vermin from the 1999 movie “The Green Mile.” However, when we neared the first pond, we all put our game faces on. It was time to “put your money where your MOUSE trap is.”
I did not get hit on the first cast, but my fishing partners knew they were in trouble. They both watched the bait come back to the boat with its lifelike “walk the rat” retrieve.
Capt Matt looked down, almost feeling sorry for the little mouse, “Dude, that thing is gonna get smoked.” The strike came off the second cast and it took us all by surprise. The fish just slurped the mouse down and kept on going.
For the first part of the morning, Mr. Jangles and I jumped ahead of the other two captains. I think once they quit watching the mouse and started paying attention their own lures they started catching. Honestly, they caught more reds than I did that day, but we had more fun watching that little mouse get annihilated.
Plain and simple, the rubber mouse is just a topwater bait but it is a very, very cool one. The bait serpentines through the water, due much in part to the tail it drags behind it. Knowing that you are throwing an imitation of a small animal instead of a fish just adds an element of fun. Over the years, we have pulled fish, shrimp, eels, crabs, nutria, oysters and baby stingrays out of our of redfish’s stomachs. Now we’re kind of wondering what we will try next to catch those insatiable red fish.
Captain Sonny Schindler
Shore Thing Fishing Charters
Bay St Louis, MS
228-342-2295
www.shorethingcharters.com