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.

The Year in Review

As the year comes to a close, I can’t help but reflect on the past 12 months of fly fishing in south Louisiana. It’s been an incredible year on the water, with numerous memorable trips and experiences. I have learned to really focus on the beauty of our local waters and the peace it brings to me sitting in a kayak and “blending in” with my surroundings.

One of the highlights of each year is to be able to make new friends and kindle relationships through the sport. While I don’t get the opportunity to fish as often as I would like with them, I do cherish the friendships I’ve gained with Chuck and Chris. I have had the pleasure of fishing with Chuck on numerous occasions throughout the year and although I haven’t been able to fish with Chris yet, I have had opportunities to share a couple of beers and tie flies with him.

In addition to trips down in the Southeastern Louisiana marsh, I also spent a lot of time this year in my neighborhood lake. This quiet little spot offers an opportunity for a quick “get away” when my busy work and family schedules don’t allow me to venture far from home. It also provides me with an opportunity to test new flies and variants on the local fish. In the coming year, I plan on exploring the many bayous and estuaries that make south Louisiana such a great place to fly fish. The variety of species that can be found in these areas is truly impressive, and each trip offers the opportunity to encounter something new. One of the goals I have set for myself is to up my species variety.

Overall, it’s been a fantastic year of fly fishing in south Louisiana, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year has in store. Here’s to hoping for more good weather and plenty of fish in 2023!

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.

Dusting off the 8wts

I had to look back on this blog to see when was the last time I made a fishing trip to the South Louisiana Marsh in search for redfish and speckled trout. I saw that I made a couple trips in June and that’s it. That’s either a sad state of affairs for me or, the fresh water fishing has been awesome and it doesn’t warrant making the 2-and-a-half hour trip down to the coastal marshes to get some fishing in. Well, luckily for me, it was the latter. However, I do love fishing our South Louisiana Marshes in the fall and I saw a window of opportunity that opened after church yesterday. Here’s what my window looked like:

The winds were going to lay down
There was zero chance of rain and 100% chance of full sun
I had no school or family obligations
My wife was in Disneyworld with her sisters 🙂

What I didn’t count on was this:

The water was high and muddy
There was zero tidal movement

Here’s the abbridged story:

I left Baton Rouge around 9:30 and headed to a spot I’ve fished for 10+years just north of Leeville. Most of you are probably aware that this area was destroyed by Hurricane Ida this past August. I saw lost of blue tarps on houses along the way and as I got closer to Leeville, I noticed buildings that had been gutted and it looked like some of those will not rebuild. There was debris all over the marsh, from empty fuel tanks to refrigerators and a lot of sheet metal.

After a quick combat launch, I made the quick paddle out to one of the spots that has produced for me in the past. Right off the bat, I had hooked into a small “schoolie” trout. About 3 casts later, I hooked into a nicer one at 16 inches

I know it doesn’t look like 16 inches but I measured it when I got home

I thought this was going to be the beginning of a wonderful afternoon, but much to my dismay, this trout must have been a loner. 😦

After catching a few more dink trout, I decided to switch gears to see if I could sight fish for some redfish. I thought surely, the storm would have brought some fresh fish inside. I guess the visibility was around 8 inches but I couldn’t see a thing. The wind was calm (too calm because the gnats were bad) and I constantly listened for the sounds of fish chasing bait along the marsh grass. I didn’t hear a thing except for the lively mammals in the area (nutria, otters, and porpoise) I just wished the fish would have been that lively. I chalked it up to the fact that there was no tide movement. About two hours into the hunt for redfish, I finally saw a huge bull red that was cruising about 15 feet from me. It was probably cruising about 3 mph while I was drifting about 3 mph in the opposite direction, so I couldn’t even get a cast off.

One of the highlights of the day were the numerous sheepshead I kept seeing. I didn’t check the time, but around 3 PM, I decided that the trout and the redfish weren’t going to play, so I tied on one of my musicdoc sheepshead shrimp flies. Of course, not that I had a shrimp fly tied on, I wasn’t spotting as many sheepshead as before and those I did see, were spooking and high tailing it to deeper water. I was casting toward a sheepshead when I noticed another large wake around the bank. That’s when I spotted my second redfish of the day. It made the mistake of staying in the shallows where I could see it and I attempted to make a well-placed cast toward it. Notice the emphasis on the word, “well-placed?” That was the original plan. My fly, however, nearly hit the redfish on its gill plate. It spooked momentarily and then it violently chased down that shrimp fly that had nearly hit its gill plate. Bam, fish on! I hadn’t felt the pull of a redfish since late June. This one had a lot of fight in it and it took a while to land this 23.5 inch beauty.

23.5 inch redfish put up a good fight on my 8 wt.

You can see just how calm the water was in this picture. It was a great day to be on the water. Like I told a friend of mine, “you can’t catch fish by sitting on your couch in the living room.” I hope to be able to get back on the water before Christmas. I’m still looking for that perfect day when everything lines up perfectly: sun, moon, water, and wind. That’s full sun, good tidal movement, clear water, and very little wind 🙂

The absolute highlight of the day was when I was able to Facetime my grandchildren to show them the “big fish” Poppie had just caught. Their eyes lit up and they shared their excitement with me. That must have looked something like this:

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.”

Fall in Southeast Louisiana

Can 2020 be over? Just over? We are now looking at our 7th named stormed to hit our coast this season! Whew…

I had to get that off my chest. Now, to the fishing. I caught a break this past Sunday and I slipped my kayak into the beautiful marsh, of my beloved Southeast Louisiana. The weather man had predicted winds of 5 – 10 and sunshine. Well, like I said earlier, it’s 2020 and you didn’t think the weather man was going to get it right, did you? The wind was blowing 10 – 15 for most of the morning and the clouds didn’t break until probably 11:30.

I got there at the break of dawn and I began throwing a deer hair popper. I got a couple small blowups early on and I realized they were probably small trout. I had told myself that it wasn’t going to be a “meat” trip; that I just wanted to catch fish…and that’s what I did. I changed rods and started throwing a Lafleur’s Charlie under a V.O.S.I. I started with some very small trout and I ended up catching 5 different species Sunday. Speckled trout, white trout (sand trout), gaff-top catfish, hard-head catfish, and redfish.

First Speckled trout of the day was small but very pretty.

Even though the wind blew hard, and the water wasn’t very clean, I was able to pretty much catch fish non-stop. My second fish was a small sand trout (most people down here call them white trout but these very small ones are probably sand trout…or so I’ve been told).

Small sand trout on the Lafleur’s Charlie.

The trout started to get a little bit larger

A little bit larger

And I caught a few that were 13 inches or better, so they got put on ice for the fish tacos Monday evening. Then I caught a slimy gaff-top catfish.

I even caught my personal best for the year, a 16-and-a-half inch speckled trout.

16.5 inch trout on the fly rod.

I probably caught about 50 trout and I had a dozen in my ice chest that “made the team” for my Monday evening fish tacos when I decided it was getting time to head in. By about noon, the sun was starting to come out and the wind was dying down. The tide had been slowly falling all morning and I thought I would check a shallow flat that was about 30 yards behind where I was fishing. I looked on the lee side of the point and I noticed a few swirls that probably meant there was bait in the area. I push poled my way over there and that’s when I spied a large slot redfish slowly cruising the edge of the marsh grass. I grabbed my fly rod and realized all I had on there was my speckled trout rig, which was a chartreuse charlie under a small VOSI (vertical oriented strike indicator).

I was afraid I was going to spook the fish with my tiny cork so I made sure my initial cast was about two feet out in front of the fish. I slowly stripped my cork out ahead of the fish and I “dragged” my fly within sight of the fish. I watched it slowly change directions and start following the fly. My heartbeat started racing when I saw it decided it was going to ambush it from behind….patience…patience… watch it! It then flared its gills and when they closed…BAM I strip set the hook home in the top of its mouth. Within seconds, the fish was on my reel and then about 20 seconds later, it was into my backing! I was careful not to try to turn it too early, but there was a big pvc pipe with barnacles on it nearby and I was not about to have it cut me off. Sometime between 7 and 10 minutes later, I was netting a “baby bull” at 27 inches.

This fish was released to go make babies.

As I sit here and watch the weather, I know that the road I take to my fishing spot will be under water for the 7th time this year, as hurricane/tropical storm Zeta heads right to Grand Isle. I am thankful that I was able to get out this past weekend and I hope the storm doesn’t mess up our marsh too much. We have lost so much and there is evidence that we have lost even more due to the previous six storms this year. It’s all good though. I love the fall in south Louisiana and I expect to have a few more good trips before Christmas. Tight loops and tight lines 🙂

27 inch redfish. Notice the sun had finally come out.

16.5 inch Speckled trout. Clouds and wind made things difficult at times.

Short Video

I created a short Youtube video made from a couple recent trips to the Southeast Louisiana Marsh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnlQvLwGzbg

Enjoy

Things are starting to warm up!

We have had one weird winter in south Louisiana. We must be the only place in America where you have to run your air conditioner during the day and your heater at night. It can be 83 degrees at 2 PM one day and 37 degrees with a 25 mph wind the next morning. And then, there’s the rain! I was looking forward to having the week off to do some fishing during my Mardi Gras break. The weather was cold, windy, and wet the entire week!

So, I’ve been filling my free time with getting some “honey do” projects done around the house and I finally found some time to get on the water this past Sunday. My plan was to head south and try to catch some trout and redfish. The weather was predicted to be sunny with a high around 75 degrees and winds from 5-10 mph. This is were I usually have to report that the weather man got it wrong again, but I have to say he was spot on this day. Well, the wind probably got up to about 12 or 13 mph at times but it was still fishable.

I met a buddy of mine around 5 AM and made the 2 hour trek to our spot. Plan A was to fish for trout. We arrived a little later than we had intended but I was just glad to be on the water and enjoy the beautiful sunrise. When we got to our spot we saw there were no fewer than 8 motor boats already around our spot. I picked up my first trout around 7:30 on a pink Charlie under a VOSI.
Right away, I thought we would get “into ’em” but that was the lone trout either of us caught that day. So, it was off to plan B to search for redfish in the shallows.

We poled off to some nearby broken marsh and began sight fishing the leeward sides of some small islands and duck ponds. I saw a good bit of redfish but honestly, they saw me before I could get my rod up to make a cast. I was spooking a lot of fish when I finally got one to slip up. My first redfish ate my gold spoon fly.
It was a nice 24-inch fish that I decided to harvest (I trade fish fillets for fresh farm eggs with a colleague of mine).

My morning continued about the same way. I lost a big one (weak hook set), another monster (set the hook too hard), and a third undersized fish before I was able to land this 27-inch beauty.
After releasing it back to the Louisiana marsh, I figured I had better try to find my buddy. I  caught up to him  about a half hour later and learned that he was having similar luck with his bait caster.  I was seeing more and more redfish so I was determined to get another one to my kayak. I was treated to one more beauty before we called it a morning.
These “Louisiana Pumpkins,” as we like to call them have a gorgeous bronze luster to them. Their big brown eyes are a sight to behold too.

It was good to be on the water with an old friend, witness a beautiful morning in the South Louisiana marsh, and have a redfish take me into my backing once again. I’m going to be unable to fish for a couple of weekends but after that I’m going to have to get down to the marsh again to get my fix of Louisiana Pumpkins.

The Year in Review

It’s time, once again, to reflect on this past year’s fishing’s memories, successes, and lessons learned. First of all, I’m so blessed to be able to enjoy the outdoors and to be able to do so very close to my home. Most of my freshwater fishing is either a short walk to my neighborhood lake or somewhere within an hour’s drive from my house. My salt water marsh trips, although a couple hours away, are still doable for a day trip. Along the way I am always treated to the God’s beauty from the moss-covered trees to the deer, waterfowl, racoons, nutrias, alligators, and otters I encounter each trip.

Here’s a pictorial review of the past year:

It began with fellow kayakers and fly fishing enthusiasts, Glen “Catch” Cormier and Sarah Giles as we fished for sacalait in Lake Cotile.

As the weather warmed up, so did the bass fishing.
Catch with one of Lake Valentine’s nice bass.

I even got some great lessons on how to cast in a kayak
That’s a tight loop there!

If I had to sum up my fishing in one word, it would be deer-hair bugs. I know that’s technically, more than one word but I have gotten good at tying them and the fish love to eat them. There were the little ones:

The big girls:

And lots and lots of fish in-between.

I was able to place in a couple of tournaments

And even put a few in some hot grease

I caught some ugly ones:

And some pretty ones.

Merry Christmas! I hope your 2019 is a good one! Tight Loops and Tight Lines!

 

 

The Fall Trout Bite Has Begun

You may have heard that the best day to go fishing is any day you can get on the water. I tend to agree. When I recently looked at my calendar, I saw that I have something to do every Saturday until Thanksgiving! AND I have to have oral surgery the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so I’ll be out of pocket for about 2 weeks after that. SOOOO, when I saw that I had this past Saturday off (no I didn’t have to judge second round of all-state auditions), I couldn’t pass up the chance.

We had a late, out-of-town football game Friday that put me back home at 11 PM and in bed by 11:30. When I woke up at 4 AM, I though that it would take an extra shot of coffee to get me moving. It’s funny that at my age, I have to forego the second cup just because I know I won’t be able to make it to the launch without having to stop for a bathroom 🙂 Well, the excitement of knowing that we finally got a cool front down here and the wind was forecast to be 5-10 for most of the morning was all the “caffeine” I needed. I arrived at my combat launch around 6:45 and was casting a deer hair popper in glass-flat water by 7. The water was still high because of Hurricane Michael and to top that off we had an unusually large tidal range predicted for this weekend. The water wasn’t dirty but it wasn’t clear either. The tide was predicted to start falling early on but the wind was also forecast to pick up to 10-12 mph around mid morning.

I got a huge blowup early on by an inquisitive redfish that didn’t result in a hookup. After about 45 minutes of no more inquisitive fish, I decided to paddle over to my “trout” spot. I didn’t get any trout to investigate my popper but I did notice some tiny shrimp leaping out of the water. I switched over to a pink Lafleur’s Charlie under a VOSI and the action started. I did bring my ice chest and planned to keep some trout for my freezer (I’m currently out of trout). I probably caught about a dozen by 8:15. I only kept those that were 14 inches or better so I threw back a lot of 12-inch trout. Anyway the bite slowed down and I did some exploring for redfish. I figured I might get lucky and find some clear water but that didn’t happen. I thought I might find some tails in some shallow back water areas but they were void of any redfish. I did manage to catch a couple nice redfish while I was fishing for trout. The redfish were not on the grass bank. They were about 6 or 7 feet off the bank in moving water. I probably could have caught more but I needed to get back to Baton Rouge for the LSU football game, so I called it a day around 1. Anyway, my ice chest (Yeti knockoff that’s made by Jackson Kayak and isn’t very big) was full. I kept the two redfish (21 and 23 inches) and 8 trout (largest measured 16.5). My battery on my GoPro died but I did get some pictures.

This 21 inch redfish ate the pink Lafleur’s Charlie. 
My largest trout of the morning at 16.5

And my largest redfish at 23.

I might have to sneak out on a Sunday if the weather allows me another opportunity before Thanksgiving 🙂