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Bull reds and trout limits

November 21, 2016
Fish, Fishing, Saltwater
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Trout wasn’t what Blake and I were originally targeting, but sightfishing conditions just never presented themselves so we adjusted  our gameplan and proceeded to wax the trout.  Trout fishing in the marsh is insane right now.  Just find moving water with bait and they will be there.  It’s been like this for a few weeks now.

The view of the sunrise on 308 was pretty spectacular until the sun got high enough to be hidden by the clouds, where it stayed hidden the rest of the day.

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We started the day on a flat that I knew has held bull reds in the past.  It didn’t take long to get a follow from a good red and then an eat on my She-Dog, unfortunately for me none of the six hooks that bait carried penetrated flesh and Blake was there with a quick follow up cast and subsequent hookset.  After a strong fight with a fish in tidal current we boated the first bull red of the day.

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It was a very distinct fish, one I’d seen before.  I even remarked to Blake during the fight that if we catch a bull red with a big dent in his head at this spot, there is a good possibility he’s been caught before.  This is the same fish Hays caught on one of our trips back in January.  He’s still sitting on the same flat, some ten months later.

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I kept throwing the topwater after that and began getting hits from keeper trout fairly regularly.  Knowing I’d be fishing with the boys from Alabama the next few days I decided to start keeping fish, just in case the rest of the weekend was unproductive for us.  Since we couldn’t really effectively sightfish, catching trout was not a bad consolation.

We drifted a shoreline picking up trout here and there, then had an unsuccessful effort in a shallow pond for reds,  at the outlet of that pond we stumbled onto a trout gold mine.  It wasn’t all keeper speckled trout, there were plenty of white trout too, but it was a fish every cast and that’s hard to beat.

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Blake was catching them on a double rig and I was wearing them out on a Matrix shad, I think you could have thrown anything though and had the same results.  That bite did eventually slow down and we drifted on down the shoreline.  Things were kind of quiet for a little bit then Blake had another big red inhale his bait.

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Almost the same size as the first red, this one, however, was much prettier, it was another fantastic fish.  We continued our drift and eventually moved into another bay.  This bay had a little island in the middle of it and water was being blown around it.  The water was pretty shallow throughout, but that didn’t matter much to the trout.  We were on them again and decided it was time to stop and count our fish.

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We needed less than 20 to finish off a two man limit and we weren’t leaving until we did that – this sightfishing trip had turned into a meat haul.  The good news was that it really didn’t take long to accomplish that.

It was a great day on the water with Blake and the start to what would be a great weekend.

 

 

 

A week in St. Bernard

November 15, 2016
Exploring, Fish, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Kayaking, Outdoors, Saltwater, Scouting, Sightfishing, Travel
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So this will be the third time I will have written this report, hopefully this one sticks.  Prepare yourself for a picture dump.

I got an opportunity to spend a week working in lower St. Bernard parish back in October.  Normally work trips to rural parts of the state are not met with such enthusiasm, but I was downright excited for this one.  Mainly because the marshes of lower St. Bernard are full of life and excellent fisheries.  Redfish, speckled trout, largemouth bass, and even flounder all share the same water down that way.  I’d have some downtime during the days, so I brought my Kraken 13.5 along for the ride.  I was able to grab some much needed seat time each day exploring just what this part of Louisiana had to offer.

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What makes lower St. Bernard such a great fishery is it’s proximity to both the Mississippi River and Lake Borgne, well, really just saltwater in general.  It is right in between the two, basically where they mix together.  This mixing of salt and freshwater creates a myriad of intermediate and brackish marsh that is some of the finest inshore fishing you’ll find anywhere.  It’s hard to beat catching reds, specks, and bass out of the same ponds.

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In the above pic you can see the amount of submerged vegetation that’s found in lower St. Bernard, most of the time I had to fish weedless baits.  One of the baits I liked to throw in the really matted up areas was a Stanley Top Toad topwater frog bait.  Seeing the red below blow up on the lure was amazing, one of the best strikes I’ve ever witnessed, such fun, I’ll be throwing that lure in the weeds more often.

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I fished a lot of different places around the parish – Shell Beach, Yscloskey, Delacroix, and Hopedale.  Each spot was similar, but they also had their own unique qualities.  I found clear water and lots of submerged vegetation in Shell Beach and Yscloskey.  Submerged vegetation, but dirty water in Delacroix and Hopedale.  As you’d expect fishing was much better where the water quality was better.  Fish were still caught at each stop though.

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Baits like topwater poppers and weedless rigged flukes and other soft plastics worked well throughout the week.  Flies worked pretty well too, especially on trout.  I used an EP-style shrimp that my buddy Hays had given me way back in January to do most of my damage.  Finding clean, moving water was the ticket.  Whether it was in a deep cut or bayou or on a flat where a cut or bayou was draining into a pond or bay – finding those conditions meant finding fish.

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It was an awesome week of fishing and yes, I did manage to get what work I had to do done.  It’s too bad these kind of projects don’t come around more often.  It was SO nice to fish during the week and have every spot I fished essentially to myself.

Hmm, let’s see, only 25-30 years before I can retire…. sigh.

Fishing the Bagwell

May 18, 2016
Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Saltwater, Scouting, Sightfishing, Tournaments, Travel
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Fished my first tournament abroad last weekend and headed over to Dauphin Island to compete in MBKFA’s Bagwell tournament.  The Bagwell isn’t all that different from BCKFC’s Paddlepalooza or Fall N Tide, except that instead of a traditional slam category, they have a super aggregate category in which you can turn in one slot red(16-26″ in Alabama) and any combination of four trout or flounder for a five fish stringer.  It places more emphasis on trout, which in Alabama is not a bad thing, as it is an inshore area that has been known to produce big trout, and more consistently than southeastern Louisiana.

In preparation I spent some time scouting Google Earth, but really relied on a fellow Jackson teammate from the area, Justin Seiffert, to impart whatever local knowledge he could to a Bama rookie like myself.  The plan was to maximize my time on the water (always my strategy with any “go anywhere” tournament) and fish the west of Mobile Bay, hoping to catch my redfish, trout, and flounder all out of one launch spot.

I launched in the dark early Saturday and was greeted with a nice sunrise as I made my way across a bay.

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As I got to my destination I started out by throwing topwater while the sun continued to rise.  I missed a decent trout early on, but managed to connect on the next one, and at 16.5″ it was a fair start to the day.  I continued to throw the topwater, but the action was very inconsistent, I switched it up with a swimbait and caught a 14.5″ trout targeting a small area of slick water.  I alternated between the topwater and the swimbait and missed one really nice fish on top that was truly a heartbreak, it was a brief fight but in that short time I could tell it was a good fish.  A few good, slow head shakes later and my line went limp.  It was a bummer to miss those few fish as I could have had my four trout that I needed, but I only had two.

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I fished my way down the shore and finally made it into a small cut that headed into the marsh interior.  One cast into the cut and I was connected with my first redfish.  He was a keeper at 20″, I knew I’d need an upgrade, but Alabama lets you keep three slot reds, so he went in the fish bag.

Unfortunately after that fish everything went quiet for me.  The action slowed down big time, despite how nice the water looked.  I finally hooked up with another fish as I saw a nice red heading my way, cruising down a shoreline.  I made a good cast with the swimbait and he pounced on it.  Immediately I knew it was too big to keep, but he made for a fun fight anyway.

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He ended up topping the 30″ mark and after a few pics I lowered him into the water and sent him on his way.

That would be my last fish on the day, but I continued to cover some really pretty water.  From healthy interior marsh to grass covered flats with good water clarity, the spot I chose to fish seemed like a good one, I just didn’t produce the results.  I think it is fair to say that the redfishing comes a bit easier in Louisiana.

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I headed back to the launch and got packed up.  I was pretty hungry at this point and was really looking forward to the crawfish boil that the MBKFA guys were planning on doing at the weigh-in.  Although I knew my fish wouldn’t sniff the leaderboard it was nice to know there would food and drink waiting for me when I got there.

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The MBKFA crew put on a first class event and although I didn’t take home any hardware I had a great time on the water and at the weigh-in.  It was good to see Justin rewarded for his efforts with a third place flounder.  I wasn’t the only Louisiana angler along for the ride.  Tyler Drude took home first place redfish and his buddy placed in the redfish category as well.  Brendan Bayard took home first place trout with 5+ lb stud caught on the East side.  That’s where all the better trout came from as the overall winner, Nick Creamer, had five solid trout pulled from that way too.

Big thanks to Justin on the solid advice and to MBKFA for hosting the tournament, really enjoyed fishing and hanging with you guys.  There is some really pretty water south of Mobile that I’d like to explore a little further.  I’ll have to make a conscience effort to start bringing the kayak on our Alabama beach trips, now that I have some clue as to where to go.