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Fishing in St. Bernard

July 14, 2015
Exploring, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing
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On Saturday I fished in the 2nd annual UP21 foundation Fishing for a Cause tournament, which was held out of Fort Beauregard Estates, down in St. Bernard Parish. The event is a fundraiser for the foundation; whose mission is to provide support, resources and education to families of individuals with Down syndrome and the community to foster an environment in which individuals with Down syndrome achieve their full potential in their community.  Fishing a charity event like this is a no brainer – I get to fish and my money is donated to a great cause, t’s really a win-win for everyone involved.

Fellow Jackson teammate Cole Landry and the UP21 fishing team help to organize the event and in their second year met their goal and had just over 100 folks registered!  They really put on a first class event too.  After a long day on the water it was nice to be greeted with a bowl of shrimp creole and a cold beer.

I haven’t spent a whole lot of time fishing in St. Bernard Parish, opting to usually fish down La. 1, but all that may change after the day I had Saturday.  On a recommendation from a friend I headed to an area I had never fished and hoped for the best.  This is not a new thing for me, I love to explore when I’m out on the water, I just usually don’t do it while fishing a tournament, but I honestly didn’t have that tournament mindset when I set out to fish on Saturday, I just wanted to fish some new water and try to get on to a few fish.  It was no pressure fishing and it paid off.

I got on the water just as the sun was rising, which was later than I probably should have been on the water, but I’m not much on paddling in the dark.  The weather was perfect, wind wasn’t a factor and cloud cover was scant.  The water clarity was excellent as well, submerged vegetation had a lot to do with that, but I think it would have been good had their been no grass either. I began my trek to a spot I thought may hold some trout and stopped to fish several good looking spots on the way.

I picked up my first fish working a She Dog alongside a cut in some rocks when a 21.5″ redfish sucked it down.  I threw him in the fish bag in case I didn’t catch another red all day – it was a tournament after all.  The tournament had three categories to place – biggest slot redfish, biggest trout, and leopard red.  I continued on my way and while navigating my Kilroy through a bayou I made a cast into a cut that opened up into a big pond, as soon as my Matrix Shad hit the water I had a fish on, must have landed in his mouth.  To my surprise it was a decent bass.

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I knew it was possible to catch bass and redfish in the same spot in certain areas of St. Bernard Parish, but I still had yet to do it from a kayak, so it was a bit of a surprise to me.

After that bass I continued my paddle toward the supposed trout spot. As I got there I discovered that this spot was pretty popular with th boaters.  To say it was crowded would be putting it lightly.  So I made a few casts and  then decided to suck off into a nearby pond.

The pond had a large mud flat at it’s entrance and it didn’t take long to spot an out of place redfish.  His back was completely out of the water, after a well placed cast and a short fight he was in the boat. With 6 spots he went in the fish bag too – I’ve seen leopard red categories taken with less, so he was coming with me.

Continuing into the pond the clarity began to increase as the amount of grass increased as well.  With mats of vegetation along the shoreline, I decided to work the edges of the grass with the Matrix shad and not bother to go totally weedless with my rig just yet.  Not too long into the float I stuck a good fish I thought was a red.  When it jumped out of the water though I was clearly wrong, it was a big marsh bass!

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At 18″ and very fat, it was the biggest bass I had caught from a kayak all year.  I was definitely stoked to catch this beast of a marsh bass.  These things are like footballs, short and fat.

This pattern of working the edge of the mats of grass continued to produce for me throughout the day on both bass and redfish.

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If I didn’t feel the redfish we’re going to make the grade for the weigh-in they got tagged and released.  Bass that were big enough to get a good fillet off of were harvested.

It wasn’t all blind casting either, I was able to sight fish for both redfish and bass and had an interesting moment when trying to pick off a bass the lure got nailed by another fish, an 11″ trout!  That got me thinking, there can’t be a whole lot of places where you can catch bass, redfish and trout in the same pond.  To take it further on my way out of the pond I paddled over a flounder at the inlet.  Gotta love St. Bernard!

I continued to sight fish reds as the bass bite slowed down.  The biggest red I could muster was about 24″, I didn’t think I had much of a shot at big red so I left the pond in search of trout.  I had spent nearly all my time in one big pond and had a blast doing it, but it didn’t leave me much time to catch anything else.

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By now the trout spot was empty so I tried my luck and quickly picked up a 13″ trout and a couple throwbacks.  It wasn’t much, but at least I had a trout in the bag and could weigh-in a fish in each category – if I could make it back in time.  I pushed it to the limit because the fishing was so good and didn’t leave myself much time to pack up.

I made the long paddle back to the launch, loaded everything up in record time and arrived at the weigh-in with five minutes to spare.  Looking back at the day now I covered at least eight miles, tagged and released nine fish, kept six and released many more.  It was a really productive day on the water.

The weigh-in atmosphere was great, lots of folks enjoying a beautiful summer day in South Louisiana.  The food and drink hit the spot for a tired angler like myself.  It didn’t take long to get the final results tallyed and Cole did a great job addressing the crowd after it was all said and done.

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As it turns out the fish that put me on the leaderboard was the little ‘ol 13″ trout caught late in the day, that weighed in at a massive 0.76 lbs – 3rd place trout never looked better!

I had an awesome time at UP21’s Fishing for a Cause tournament and plan to do it again next year.  Summer time is a great time to fish St. Bernard parish, looking forward to getting back out there.

Always learning

May 4, 2015
Exploring, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Saltwater
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Last weekends weather forecast was too juicy to pass up.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday all looked good on paper for the kayak fisher.  I managed to get away on Saturday and fish with my buddy Steve – the 2014 Hobie Fishing Worlds champion who lives right down the road in Prairieville.  Steve had big trout on his mind and I was listening.  I can readily admit that I don’t know enough about catching trout, so getting the opportunity to fish with Steve and learn a bit about trout was worth it.

We had a plan of attack before heading down, but a slight change in the wind direction made Steve call an audible.  I was game for the change, it meant more paddling, but the forecast allowed for it and I didn’t have a deadline to be home so I was uniquely prepared for a long day.  I didn’t know it would be a 12 hours on the water type day, but it ended up being well worth it.

We set out from the launch at sunrise and were hardly out of sight before Steve spots the first redfish working some bait out in front of a cut.  He made a perfect cast with a topwater plug and soon we got to see what happens when a redfish sucks down a floating lure.  It was a great start to what would be an incredible day.

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Redfish weren’t really a morning target for us, partly because we were focused on trout, but also because the tide was high and incoming, we thought it would be better to wait until the afternoon to target reds, but when an opportunity presents itself you take advantage.  No sane kayak fisher can pass up a tailing redfish.

We pushed on to speckled trout water, ignoring cuts into the marsh that no doubt led to redfish Valhalla.  Not really, but sometimes it feels that way when passing good water to hopefully get to better water.  On the way we see gulls working some bait.  Some of the birds are sitting on the water, Steve mentions that can be a good sign, so I head over to investigate, while he checks out another spot.  After a few boils under a topwater I finally hook a 12″ trout.  The birds dispersed shortly after and I moved on – it was worth investigating, but we were after a better quality trout.

I met back up with Steve as he was fishing around a small island.  We met up at the back side of the island where water was being swept around and converged.  A few casts into the moving water and my She Dog was nailed.  A fat 17″ trout joined me in the Kilroy.  We caught a few more trout behind that island and missed a few more we should have caught as well.

We moved on after the action cooled.  Steve had no shortage of places to try and at each stop we ended up catching at least one trout, sometimes we’d catch more than that.  We were catching them a variety of ways too.  Topwater plugs worked, so did suspending lures, shrimp imitations under a popping cork, and even my trusty Matrix shad were producing the occasional trout.

By mid morning I was ready to change it up so I started sight fishing for reds along the shore.  The tide was still up and the water was high way up into the grass.  It was making things tough, but eventually one red gave up the ghost.

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While I wasted my time looking for reds, Steve was busy fishing points and pockets for trout and having some success.  It caught my attention when he landed one that was near 20″.  I joined him and was rewarded shortly with a solid fish as well.  Steve was keenly aware of what has happening beneath the water and I was starting to pick up on it.  He was seeing things that I just didn’t notice, or had never really thought to notice until that day.  We had a blast for the next hour or so, leapfrogging each other fishing points and pockets in the marsh with topwater lures and catching quality trout.

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The action slowed down and eventually Steve and I parted ways.  I wanted to try and sightfish reds on the falling tide in some of the areas we had passed up heading to fish trout.  I’m a sucker for exploring new territory and I spotted some ponds I had never fished before that were calling my name.  The action was slow at first, but as that tide kept dropping and the shoreline kept receding the redfish began getting more aggressive and you began to hear them crushing bait on shorelines.  One bayou I entered had redfish cruising the shoreline like ants in a line.  Me, being the glutton I am, couldn’t help myself and I had to attempt to double up.  I had a popper tied up on the fly rod, thinking I might fool a speck with it, but I never really committed to using it while speck fishing.  It wasn’t ideal for reds, but I put a good cast in front of the first fish and he crushed it.  I laid a solid hookset on him, tightened my drag and put my fly rod between my legs, picked up the Matrix shad (I typically have both rods ready in front of me when sightfishing) and put a cast on the second fish.  It was a terrible cast and he paid no attention to it, no big deal, I’ll try again with the third red.  This time my aim was true and he pounced on the lure – the double was on.

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What I didn’t realize at the time was that the first fish I hooked was a good 24.5″, a fair fight in his own right.  The second fish though ended up being 27.5″, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I fought a fish in each hand.  I’ve caught doubles before but I had not caught one with two mid-upper slot reds like this.  It was a riot!  As you could imagine, both lines tangled in each other, I missed netting the fish once or twice, just a massive cluster.  I did get them in the boat once they wore down though and decided I didn’t have to do that again that day.

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The hot and heavy redfish action continued as they continued to cruise the shoreline with backs out of the water.  That is exciting in itself, throw in getting to watch them eat a popper fly and you’ve got some Ebert & Roeper approved action.  Gotta love redfish!

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As you can imagine it was hard to call it a day I was having so much fun.  It is gonna be really hard to top a day like that, but that certainly won’t stop me from trying.  Big thanks to Steve for letting me tag along and teaching me a good bit about trout fishing.  Hopefully I’ll be able to better spot productive water and establish reliable patterns to catching more fish.  I’ve still got a long way to go to become a good trout fisherman, but I think it is safe to say he helped shorten the learning curve.

 

Reds in the grass

April 30, 2015
Exploring, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Saltwater, Scouting, Sightfishing
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Got out again in the Kilroy this past weekend and with favorable conditions on the coast I made the long drive south to fish for reds.  I hit an area that is new to me, but was recommended by a friend at Paddlepalooza.  Another benefit to an already long list of reasons to attend a BCKFC tournament and stay through the weigh-in is just talking to and learning from your peers.  There is a lot that is lost in translation if all your research and knowledge-base comes solely from the internet.

I arrived at sunrise and worked a topwater early, but to no avail.  I was hoping to stumble upon a few trout, but that wouldn’t be the case as the day progressed.  Working Gulp under a cork began producing small redfish.  They were tagged and released and hopefully in the future Tag Louisiana will give me an update on these fish.

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Conditions were pretty good throughout the day.  As you can see, winds were calm and it was very overcast – seemingly perfect conditions to walk the dog, but I didn’t have any luck.  It didn’t much matter as the water clarity was pretty good in the grassy areas and I was able to sight fish reds with either the fly rod or on spinning tackle using a good ‘ol tight lined Matrix shad.

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The reds went from 13″ up to 23″, so no big upper slot reds or junior bulls were had, but it was a lot of fun just catching consistent fish throughout the day.  Most of the fish I caught came on the fringes of the grass or around cuts and points, I didn’t mess around with any of the thick grass.  A few of the fish I caught were pulled from schools, which are always fun to see and hear.  You’ll just be minding your own business when all of the sudden around a point comes a wave of red terror, with bait popping out of the water in front of it, looking for any escape.  It doesn’t matter what you throw in front of the red mass, it just matters that you throw something.  It was a lot of fun trying to pull of the double by throwing the fly rod first, getting a hook set, then picking up the paddle tail and pitching it in the area.  I wasn’t able to connect this time around, but it is always a hoot to have the opportunity.