Finding Fish Isn’t Always Easy
But the right Captain and the right bait will put fish in the boat
by Joe Gibson
(This article is from Louisiana Outdoors Magazine, August 2004 edition)
It wasn’t what I would call a “perfect” day for chasing speckled trout, but sometimes you have to fish when you have the chance. At 5:30 a.m. it was already hot and to make matters worse, even in the dark pre-dawn sky we could see a thunderstorm cutting across the channel just a half-mile from the marina. Needless to say, Capt. James Wilson and I were not about to leave the Lafitte C-Way Marina as scheduled.
Wilson, a member of Capt. Phil Robichaux’s Fishing Team, and I were planning on hitting a couple of spots that had been holding decent numbers of speckled trout. “We’re not finding the number and size of trout we normally expect for this time of the year,” Capt. Robichaux told me, “But Capt. James has been consistent. When no one else is finding fish, he is.”
Relatively new to the charter captain business, Wilson earned his captain’s license and went to work full time for Robichaux about three years ago. In that three years he has earned a reputation as being one of Robichaux’s top captains.
As the storm passed to the east of Lafitte and the morning sun starting peaking through, we loaded my fishing gear in his boat and headed down the channel. Like all of Robichaux’s captains, Wilson provides top quality fishing tackle and lures for his customers at no additional charge. Wilson preferences runs towards Tsunami rods and Shimano reels loaded with Power Pro line. He also carries a wide assortment of soft plastics on his boat and will generally start out fishing with either H&H shrimp or cocahoes in what ever color has been most productive. For our trip he decided to use a glow shrimp with a hand-dipped chartreuse tail.
I took two rods for the trip: a 6-1/2-ft. Tsunami medium heavy spinning rod with a Red Dot Gulf Series 4000 reel and a 6-1/2-ft. Tsunami medium heavy bait casting rod with an Abu Garcia Ambassadeur D-Series reel. Since we were primarily fishing for speckled trout, the Red Dot was loaded with 10-lb. test Power Pro. The Ambassadeur was spooled with 20-lb. test Power Pro for use when we started looking for redfish. My primary bait was the new five-inch Tsunami Trout Mauler.
After our weather-delayed start and a 20-mile run from C-way, we dropped the trolling motor along the bank of the first little island we would try. Wilson looked at the water and immediately knew that the fishing would be tough in this area. We rigged egg-shaped corks about 12-inches above the lures and started casting anyway.
“The run-off from the rain we’ve been having lately must have reached this area,” Wilson explained. “Yesterday I found good (clean) water here and good size trout. We’ll try our luck here for a few minutes and then we’ll move to another spot that may be holding fish.”
When asked about his choice of corks and the shallower depth, Wilson said he liked the action the egg-corks provide and that many of the areas he fish are shallow, so hanging the lure 12-inches under the cork keeps the bait off the bottom. This technique has worked well for him so it is how he starts out each trip.
True to his prediction, we had maybe two “bumps” but didn’t hook a trout. So, we made a short run to his next “hot” spot. The water was cleaner in this area and we managed to put several keepers in the ice chest.
“You can’t tell by looking at it, but there used to be a small island here,” Wilson said. The erosion had washed away most of the island except for several “high” spots that would also be gone in the next year or two.
“I hate to say it, but if something isn’t done to start fighting the erosion effectively then it won’t be long before we lose all of our good fishing spots in the Barataria Bay system,” he continued. “Just a couple of years ago we were fishing the shoreline at this spot. Now we are fishing over the top of what the island.”
While we caught a few 13-inch trout, the action was very slow and Wilson decided we would try the shoreline of another small island that held nothing but promise because of dirty water. Another short run and we approached two more islands separated by about 30 yards of water.
“Last year, that opening was only about 30 feet wide,” Wilson said as we tossed our corks towards the larger of the two islands and started working towards the opening. The water looked better at this spot though and we picked up a couple of trout that were too small to measure. Wilson then decided to let the current take us through the opening and once we drifted to the other side of the island the fishing started picking up – and so did the competition.
The good news was we had finally found some good trout. The bad news was that was knew we were in fish because of the porpoise that kept circling around us. “It figures, we find fish and the porpoise have to come to lunch,” Wilson said.
Surprisingly, the trout kept biting and while many were measured and put back in the water, the action stayed steady. Wilson was fishing off the front of his boat while I stayed in the back and kept throwing a chartreuse Trout Mauler under my cork. After about 10 trout I started checking my lure and decided it was time to change lures and color. I switched to the pink/gold/red tail Trout Mauler and decided to test it out on the bottom – five cast, five trout, and three of them were over 13-inches. We still hadn’t found any monster trout but working that Trout Mauler over the shells did put more fish in the ice chest. Wilson, noticing the success I was having, said, “I’m going to have to get a few packs of those to try out.”
While the combination of heat (90 degree by 10:00 a.m.) and dirty water kept us from finding enough keeper size trout to make our limits, we did catch and release twice as many as we kept. This was something Wilson said had been predicted by biologists for this year. “The scientist have been saying that this wasn’t going to be a great year for speckled trout and so far they have been right,” he explained. “We are in a cycle now where we are finding a lot of trout in that 11-1/2 inch range but as long as everyone keeps releasing them, then we should have good fishing later this year and all of next season.”
Since Wilson had another charter the following day, we decided to stop fishing for trout and start chasing reds. Wilson had another stretch of shoreline closer to Lafitte in mind and we made another 20 minute run. The spot was already taken by three other boats, so we moved on to another piece of marsh and dropped the trolling motor. I stayed with my Trout Mauler but put the cork back on the line and started working the shoreline.
What happened next is a reminder to constantly check your line when fishing over oyster beds. Still using the spinning tackle, I aim for a spot about a foot off the bank and the cork hit the water and went straight down. I set the hook and felt a red pull back and take off down the bank. We played tug-o-war for about five minutes and then it was over. My line broke and I figured it was mostly my fault. For one thing, I forgot to check my drag and it was set tighter than I like for redfish. Secondly, I hadn’t check my line recently and it was worn from fishing over the oyster shells.
I cut about 12-inches of line off and to try something a little different I hooked a spinner on the Trout Mauler and started casting towards the bank again. It only took a couple of casts before a red chased down my lure and hit it like a freight train. This one didn’t get away though.
Our trip was cut a little short right after Wilson pulled about a 26-inch red to the boat when we noticed another thunderstorm building behind us. We made it back to C-way Marina and were cleaning fish before the rain started. We didn’t have a “great” fishing day because the conditions were against us, but we did have 15 good trout and three good reds.
©Louisiana Outdoors 2004
