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Winter Fishing in Fourchon

December 8, 2021
Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Kayaking, Outdoors, Saltwater, Sightfishing, Tournaments, Wade Fishing
5 Comments

There were three separate day trips I took down to Fourchon in January and February of this year. These weren’t extremely productive trips, which is probably why I didn’t bother to write about them, but like the Bayou Fountain trip, they were very instrumental in helping me win the fly division of the BCKFC/Massey’s kayak CPR tourney last year.

In late January I went for the homerun and made a long-ass paddle to some proven big redfish flats, but when I got out there the bulls were not there. I did manage to fool a slot red and then followed that up with a nice black drum so at least I had something to show for my long paddle.

It was a little disheartening failing to upgrade my redfish for the contest, especially because the weather cooperated for me. It just meant that I’d have to give it another shot in February and hope for the best.

I watched the weather until I saw another window to make a decent paddle in and when it came I jumped at the opportunity. This time it didn’t take long to get the upgrade I was looking for, but at 33.5″ it still left room for me to target an even bigger red.

I kept at it, but sightfishing was proving to be tough. The winds were light and favorable, but there was so much fog that it made seeing anything just about impossible. I landed one more redfish on the day coming in at 29″ and decided I’d call it a day and hope for the best with the tourney.

It was late February and I was checking the leaderboard the night before the last day of the tourney. I was sitting in first place the last time I had checked, but now I currently was not. I needed to upgrade my trout as someone had knocked me down a spot and lowered my point total. I was already planning on fishing the next day, but where I was planning to head was not known for trout so I had to hatch a new plan while laying in bed.

The wind was not as calm as the previous time I’d fished, but I had arrived at a spot that I had in mind to cover. I knew it held trout in the winter, I just hoped they were still there. After a bit of blind casting my rod came tight and after the seeing the familiar headshake of a trout I knew I had my upgrade.

It didn’t take much to best my previous trout, but it was enough to bump me back up a spot and into a tie for points, so long as other folks weren’t upgrading fish on the leaderboard.

I kept fishing hoping to run into more trout and improve my chances, but that was the only one I came across. I caught one more slot red before calling it a day. The wind was getting pretty brutal so it was getting tough to fish spots effectively.

Thankfully the one trout proved to be enough and I was able to win the fly division of the tourney. It was a pretty awesome feeling to be able to catch three upgrade fish in four trips right at the end to sneak out the W. I had fished the fly division of the CPR tourney for several years now and always come up just short so to finally win one was nice. I’ve got nothing but love for BCKFC and Massey’s for continuing to put on a tourney for us fly rodding kayak fishermen.

Where dey at doe?

January 30, 2019
Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Kayak Fishing, Kayaking, Saltwater, Sightfishing
1 Comment

I saw a good weekend day to go fishing a couple weekends back and pounced on it.  The weather looked pretty cooperative and usually if you can catch mild weather in the winter luck will be on your side.  I woke up early and got on the water shortly after sunrise.

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It was a chilly start, but I knew the day would warm up so I wasn’t too bothered by the cold.  Besides, the winds were light and the clouds were nowhere to be seen, it was looking like it could be a pretty good day to sight fish.

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The tide was low, which is normally not a bad thing for sight fishing, however this tide was extremely low.  This extreme low had the water pretty dirty.  I knew it was low when I launched, but I didn’t realize that it would continue to fall throughout the morning.  There were entire flats that were exposed that I’ve never seen exposed.  The fish were nowhere to be seen and even when I did see them it was too late for me to make a cast.  Fishing was tough.

I did manage to avoid a skunk though.  Right around lunch I had made my way to a flat where I’ve always found fish.  It is off of a deep canal, so even if the flat was mostly exposed, there was still some refuge that could be taken in the canal for the fish.  Sure enough that’s where they were.  There were a handful of big black drum (they looked white in the water) with their tails up in the canal.  I moved into position and dropped my fly in the path of one of them and he vacuumed it up.  The fight was on.

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DCIM100GOPRO

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DCIM100GOPRO

DCIM100GOPRO

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It was a hefty fish.  It gave me a couple of good strong runs and put a solid bend in the old TFO Mini Mag.  The drum was a square, nearly as heavy as it was long (35 lbs, 37 in. long).  It was a fun catch and I was glad to have caught something, even if it did slime up the boat and my pants.

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After that I tried to make my way through the marsh back to the launch, but without any water it was futile.  I headed back the way I came, through the bay, and ran into Scott from Bayou Chronicles and his neighbor on the paddle back.  We chatted and fished for a bit.  He ended up catching a beast of a redfish later in the day as I was already loading up the boat to head home.  The tide was coming back in after lunch and if  I were patient enough I probably would have had better opportunities at redfish in the afternoon.  It had been a long day on the water for me though and I packed it in.  There’s always next time I guess.