My first trip of the new year

I was able to get out to my beloved south Louisiana marsh and get my first fishing trip of the year in. Well, kind of…I never left the pier. 🙂

I got a call from a buddy of mine who said the fish had been biting off the pier of his camp in Fourchon and he asked me if I wanted to go. I replied, “Only if you’ll take an old fly fisherman with you.” He replied that it didn’t matter so naturally, I took him up on the opportunity to make this an easy trip.

We arrived after sundown Friday evening and after a cold beer, I headed out to the pier to fish under the lights. I tied on a pink Lafleur’s Charlie that I thought looked like glass minnows and after a few casts, I was bringing my first speckled trout of the year to hand.

I quickly released the 12-inch fish because I thought we would be able to catch a few larger trout that would end up in hot grease the next day. The fishing was slow. I did end up catching a half dozen and I ended up keeping three of them for the table.

Our Saturday morning began with biscuits, fried eggs, and coffee. I was told the fish had been biting later in the day so there was no need to fish the pier before sunrise. The air was cool and crisp, and the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon as we sipped the last bit of our coffee. I was eager to get some quality fish on my fly rod, so as soon as I had downed that last bit of coffee, I headed out on the pier. As I got to my spot, I could see several other fishermen casting bait in the distance. I knew it would be a good day of fishing.

I was throwing my Lafleur Charlie again and it wasn’t long before I felt the first tug on my line. I knew right away that this first fish was a nice one as it fought to free itself. I brought to hand a beautiful 19-inch speckled trout, a highly sought-after species in South Louisiana.

Soon after, I found myself lifting another chunky 16-inch trout up over the pier. I wish I could say the fishing was non-stop as we caught trout after trout, but that was the last trout I would catch that morning. The pier was bustling with other anglers, but they were not having much luck at all. There were four young guys fishing on the point to our left, however, where were doing quite well. They were the only fishermen we saw who were actually catching fish. In fact, after about 6 hours in that same spot, we watched them pick up a stringer of about 75 trout that they had managed to catch before they headed home. We eased our way to their spot after they left but we didn’t get a bite.

Somewhere around 1 PM, we decided to call it a day. We cleaned the fish we had caught and headed back to Baton Rouge to spend some quality time with our wives. The trip was not only about catching fish, but also about the experience of being out on the water and enjoying the natural beauty of South Louisiana. The sights, sounds, and smells of the area made for a memorable and enjoyable day. It was also about spending some time with an old buddy of mine whom I hadn’t fished with in a couple of years. The last time I had been to Fourchon was to help him clean up after Hurricane Ida a year-and-a-half ago. The devastation down there is still horrid, and I pray for those who are still trying to rebuild. I am looking forward to some warmer weather and a chance to get down there again to do some sight fishing for redfish.

You can’t catch fish sitting on your couch :)

To say I’ve been a little stir crazy lately is an understatement. There are only so many movies you can watch on Netflix and the Disney Channel. I am really not interested in NFL post-season (except for Joe Burrow’s Bengals). I’ve been tying flies for weeks now. So, with season-low temperatures in the air in South Louisiana, something had to give. Why not go south and see if conditions would allow me to do some sight-fishing for redfish?

I made a couple of phone calls and texts to buddies of mine and I finally decided to try Hopedale. Some of the other options I looked at were Leeville and Highway 1 between Forcheon and Grand Isle. I know the water has been very low there and there isn’t much vegetation. Chances are, the water was going to be very low and dirty. I knew that a Sunday afternoon trip would allow things to warm up. I also figured I would be able to find clean water in Hopedale because of the vegetation. Plus, I had talked to a buddy of mine who had fished there the day before in the BCKFC Minimalist Challenge.

So, to be honest, my heart wasn’t really into it. I woke up to 22-degree temps Sunday morning. At around 9 AM, I started putting my 8 wts. together with the reels and it was still around 35 degrees. About 15 minutes later, I told my wife I wasn’t going and I disassembled my rods and put each one up in its case. 15 minutes later, by buddy was prodding me on the phone saying, “It would be a good afternoon out there. And not that cold.” “Most people did not catch anything until after 10 yesterday.” “the water is 50 degrees but will warm up on the flats.” So, I changed my mind again. Yes, my wife thinks I’m crazy but she’s been married to me for over 38 years so I guess she comes to expect it by now 🙂

I pulled up to the combat launch on the side of the road around 12:20. I had quickly slipped my kayak in the water and began the mile paddle to where I’ve caught fish before. I also planned on trying out a couple new patterns that I tied this winter including a new paddle-tail fly (see this video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlg3yQ-1vEs&t=109s

After the half hour paddle to the lagoon I was going to fish, I immediately saw the water was nearly gin clear in spots. I stood in my kayak and poled around (oh, that’s another story…I guess I lost my push pole after my last trip in October). I could clearly for large stretches of water. There were NO FISH 😦 I push poled around for nearly 2 hours and didn’t see the first redfish or bass. So, I decided to try to find some deep water and work my paddle-tail fly slowly. About 10 minutes drifting in a deeper bayou, I got my first strike. It was a 13 and a half inch trout. Good! I wasn’t going to get skunked. I wondered, should I keep it? Would I catch more? I decided to toss it in my ice chest. I haven’t eaten speckled trout in a year or so. About 10 minutes later, I had another head-shaker heading into my landing net. This one was 14 inches. Things were looking up. I thought I had found a pattern. I continued to drift that canal and work the spots where I had caught those two previous fish. About 20 minutes or so later, I caught my third trout, but it was just under legal size, so it went back in the cold water to grow some more. I didn’t get another bite. I had a couple more spots I wanted to explore, so I paddled over there to see what things looked like. I did some blind casting down some deeper duck hunter ditches but I didn’t get a bite.

That is all I have to report. Like my title says, “you can’t catch fish sitting on your couch,” so I made the trip anyway. Here are some of the positives I got from the trip: I did catch fish on my new paddle tail. (I’m going to have to post a picture at the end of this) I saw some amazing wildlife, especially the hundred or so ducks (mostly big ducks) that I spooked in one spot. I got back home without swamping my kayak. (especially good with the frigid temperatures). I got a good workout in (I probably paddled over 5 miles). On the negative side. I forgot my camera, I found out I must have lost my “park n pole” after my last trip in October, and I only caught two keeper trout, which won’t feed the two of us. But it was a great day!

Tight loops and tight lines.

The bottom one saw action this weekend. It kind of reminds me of the Chicken on a Chain plastics I used to fish with. The middle is my “smoke” cacahoe version.

Making Lemonade

2020 has been a doozy of a year. Covid-19, crazy politics, record tropical season, and more. But through it all, we have learned that family is more important than anything and when life does give you lemons, you definitely have to make lemonade…or lemon meringue pie.

It’s my favorite time of the year to fish the South Louisiana coast and I was blessed to be able to find some good conditions to fish (see my previous post) a week before my son’s wedding. After the wedding, I put a self-imposed quarantine on myself to pretty much stay away from family and friends. The good news is, no one reportedly caught the virus by attending the wedding. The great news is, my version of quarantining includes lots of fishing. 🙂

So, the week after the wedding I chose to do my local pond fishing because the winds were going to be too rough for another Leeville trip. Add to that, Hurricane Zeta ripped through there and they are still without electricity 10 days after the storm passed through there. I was treated to a beautiful morning and the fish seemed to like the cooler temperatures so they were eating what I had to offer them.

Here is the first on of the morning. It ate a fire tiger deer hair diver.

Another hungry bass

It’s great to be able to fish a well-managed pond. It was definitely a stress relieving morning.

I normally don’t keep bass but the owner of the lake insisted I harvest bass under 15 inches for pond management. Additionally, my family loves fish tacos 🙂

This bass loved the LSU diver.

So, another week goes by and I’m looking forward to heading to the Southeast Louisiana marsh for some speckled trout and redfish. The wind was predicted to blow 10-15 mph on Saturday but it showed signs of improvement for Sunday morning. I checked my gear and realized that somehow, I had lost my YakAttack parkNpole, which meant push poling for redfish would be a bit of a challenge. However, it was predicted to be cloudy in advance of a cool front so I figured I would just try to focus on speckled trout.

I began the morning with a popper/dropper rig (deer-hair popper with a Lafleur’s Charlie on the bottom).

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I got a lot of hits on the bottom fly and pretty soon I was having a blast, catching small trout on nearly every cast. There were also periods when I was getting blowups on the popper but I was having usual difficulties hooking those small trout. Speckled trout are notorious for snapping at bait to kill or would it with their three larger teeth and then go back to eat their prey. I did land a couple 11 inch trout on the popper before something big broke off my bottom fly. I decided to go with my typical VOSI (Vertical Oriented Strike Indicator) setup for the remainder of the day.

I would conservatively estimate I caught about 100 trout that day. Most were 8-11 inches long so they were gently and quickly released back into the water. I did have one monster trout that I estimated to be over 20 inches that got off the hook right as I was about to net it. What a bummer, but something I could overlook anyway, considering all the fun I was having.

I actually was getting tired of catching “undersized” fish around noon and since the action slowed a bit, I took advantage of the bright sunshine and decided to paddle out to some broken marsh in search of redfish. The tide had been falling all morning long and the water inside the marsh was noticeably muddy. I did end up on a stretch where the water seemed clearer and I could see bottom. That’s when I saw a large slot (or baby bull) red as is slowly cruised the flat. I grabbed the only rod that I had available to me at the time, which was set up for speckled trout. It worked perfectly three weeks ago so I assumed I would be able to cast to the redfish and swim the VOSI and my fly right past the fish without spooking it and get it to eat. Well the redfish swam into some deeper water and I lost if for a second so I cast in the area where I had seen it last. Then it came out of the deeper water and was heading right toward me and was about 12 feet in front of my kayak. My fly was about 10 feet behind the fish so rather than pick my fly up and cast it again, which I figured would certainly spook the fish, I stripped it fast to get it out in front of the approaching redfish.

IT WAS A TEXTBOOK EAT!! With one large rush of its tail, the redfish flared its gills and gulped my…uh…??? My VOSI??? Oh no! There’s no hook in that thing! It’s just a cork! So a big redfish has just swallowed my cork and is now cruising to the right of my kayak. I think it has seen the kayak and it suspects something isn’t right, so it gradually picks up speed. In the meantime, I didn’t know what to do. I knew grabbing my other rod, which was laying on the ground behind where I was standing to throw it another fly would not be an option, so I just stood there and did nothing. 🙂 I watched as the redfish swam away with my cork in its mouth and my fly (you know… the one with the all-important hook in it) trailing behind. I watched the rod tip bend and I thought to myself, there’s no way this is going to end well. However, it didn’t end badly either. As the fish realized that something wasn’t right, it spit my cork out and it took off, leaving a mud boil in its wake. I thought it would have destroyed the cork but it didn’t and I actually used it to catch about 30 more trout that day. I did switch rods and I poled around some more “fishy” areas but I never saw another redfish. I got bored with that and I decided to head toward some diving gulls. I immediately got back on the trout bite and spent the last hour of my trip catching fish on nearly every cast!

Other than the dirty water (which meant no redfish), the trip was a perfect day. I was able to take my Musicdoc limit (18) of speckled trout home to share with my mom and dad, and for a fish fry soon with my family. Typically, the larger trout show up in the next week or two, but with all the hurricanes we have had to endure this season, only God knows. In a way, I’m glad the fish were nearly all undersized. If they had all been keeper trout, I would have been finished by 8 AM and I most likely wouldn’t have been able to laugh at that crazy redfish for eating my cork.

This 15-inch trout definitely made the “team.”