Duck season is still a month away, but Southwest Louisiana anglers will bide their time chasing bass, reds or speckled trout.
A stiff easterly breeze pushed the 16-foot aluminum boat briskly across the stunningly beautiful pond.
Though the late afternoon sun was beginning to cause me to squint even behind protective lenses, it was much more instinctive than a conscience thought. Catching more than 20 bass in an hour has a way of doing that.
“That man’s got another one,” cheered Capt. Ronny Doucet from the front of the boat, referring to Kyle Broussard who was manning the south end of the drift.
A stiff easterly breeze pushed the 16-foot aluminum boat briskly across the stunningly beautiful pond.
Though the late afternoon sun was beginning to cause me to squint even behind protective lenses, it was much more instinctive than a conscience thought. Catching more than 20 bass in an hour has a way of doing that.
“That man’s got another one,” cheered Capt. Ronny Doucet from the front of the boat, referring to Kyle Broussard who was manning the south end of the drift.
The dark-green, 1 1/2-pound bass vaulted from the water with a small spinnerbait secured snugly in the corner of its mouth, and then dug deep for the tangled mass of seemingly thousands of different types of aquatic vegetation present in the Calcasieu Cardinal Club’s impounded tract of freshwater marsh.
“This place is really going to something next year,” said Doucet of the still-growing bass population.
The drought of several years past had decimated the marsh, which is now surrounded by levees, with saltwater, turning a stunning green wetlands into acres of dying vegetation.
Through intense management, the impoundment should be holding bass up to 8 pounds in the next several years, Doucet says.
“It’s stocked only with native bass. The Floridas and the Florida hybrids get to be too hard to catch, and we’re mainly after numbers for our guests,” said Doucet.
Bass fishing can be a viable angling opportunity for Southwest Louisiana anglers when the winds contained in the cold fronts — which all duck hunters “get religion” for — turn the water of Calcasieu Lake into a churning mess.
Moments later, with me in a separate boat brought by the Broussard father-and-son team, Kyle and Ronny had emerged from the south out of the thickest strands of cattails imaginable.
After exchanging catching, not fishing, info, I noticed the portable trolling motor was in the bottom of the boat. Ronny’s shirt and the vessel’s bow were replete with cattails as well and a few noticeable scratches showed on his tanned arms.
“We’ve been playing more than fishing,” smirked Doucet.
The pair had strangely disappeared 30 minutes into the trip after putting several bass in the boat and back in the water. A review of the boat by Doucet, the manager of the Calcasieu Cardinal Club, was in order, and the mere fact that they were back in one piece was a strong endorsement.
The same freshwater fauna and bass action can be found if one a) braves the Grand Bayou weir and b) goes deep enough into the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge to find it.
Capt. Jeff Poe of Big Lake Guide Service used to frequent the marsh in the refuge until the powers that be decided that guides weren’t allowed to make money off of public land.
For now, the poling platform on one of Big Lake Guide Service’s Action Craft flats boats is only used for their vacations to the Appalachicola, Fla., area in search of tarpon.
“I used to do quite a bit of redfish fishing back there in the widgeon grass ponds and the canals, but if you go far enough into the property, it turns pretty fresh,” said Poe.
So fresh, Poe says, that the water ceases to be influenced by the tides. The area past the Grand Bayou Forks is such an example. Not much fishing for bass is done by fishing cuts in the marsh as no water exchange takes place.
The ponds really shine when the wind blows and small spinnerbaits are tossed over the vegetation. Calmer days require a more subtle approach with Flukes (soft plastic jerkbaits) being a proven winner.
Anglers are loath to give away specific locations of productive ponds, but Poe says there is plenty enough water and fish back there to reward anglers willing to do a little prospecting.
Entering the area from Big Lake requires a trip through the Grand Bayou Weir. Poe says he’s seen much damage caused to boats attempting the crossing when they shouldn’t. The current is often rolling through the control structure at a brisk pace.
“It can be a little dicey. The weir is only about 10 feet wide. If you’ve got an 8-foot-wide boat, that leaves very little room for error,” said Poe.
Another pitfall involved is the volatility of the current.
“It doesn’t always come right at you. When it’s coming at an angle, it’s a good idea to be going pretty good. And that takes doing it several times to be comfortable doing it,” Poe said.
Redfish are still plentiful in the saltier water, Poe says, with good numbers of fish much larger than what is normally associated with marsh fish.
“We used to get plenty of fish over 10 pounds back there, even some 20-pound fish,” he said.
Although the marsh reds are an excellent option this time of year, speckled trout don’t take a backseat to anything. Reefs and historically productive shoreline stretches are solid producers of trout, but in October, the easiest fish are those attacking the vast bunches of white shrimp.
The slightest breeze intermittently rippled the northern end of Calcasieu Lake as Capt. Freddie Beard’s Kenner bay boat skimmed toward Turner’s Bay. Though the 10 a.m. glare had me squinting behind my Costa del Mar sunglasses, my companion on the sprawling expanse of water did a rhythmic sweeping of the water ahead without a bit of protection for his eyes.
“I never have worn sunglasses. Just seems like I’m missing something with ’em on,” Beard had told me earlier as we worked one of the myriad shell bottoms.
It’s hard to imagine a fishing guide in South Louisiana doing his job without the aid of polarized protective eyewear. But that didn’t much matter relative to effectiveness as Beard eased back on the throttle as quickly as safety merited when he spied a single tern circling the slick water to the right.
“There’s a ‘liar bird’ looking around … and there’s a trout under him,” said Beard, bringing the vessel back up to a fast idle.
I soon picked up the frantic shrimp performing their dance that is the dream of most inshore anglers.
I instinctively reached for the rod upon spying the action and chuckled at myself, realizing that the action was still three casts distant. Beard had cut the engine upon spying more busts a little closer, and was dropping the trolling motor as three sizable trout became clearly visible in mid-streak a foot and a half under the clean water.
“Isn’t that just the way?” said Beard as he leaned into a solid fish on his first toss. “I sure hope we can stay on them after we get these in.”
Fishing the birds on Big Lake in the fall is one of the best ways to score big on the waterway’s famed speckled trout population. The succession of cold fronts — even minor ones — serve to push the white shrimp population out of the marsh and into the open water where anybody with decent eyesight — or good binoculars — can cash in.
I also connected soon after my first cast hit the water and — as a lifelong Southeast Louisiana resident — was stunned by the size of the trout making a rapid-fire charge toward the boat, the near 4-pounder staying halfway out of the water while leaving a trail like a small prop wash with its shaking head.
Beard deftly swung his 3-pounder into the boat without a net, flopped it on the floor and jumped on the trolling motor in an attempt to catch up with the school, pausing briefly to net my fish.
This month presents an interesting situation to most Southwest Louisiana outdoorsmen. They’ve had a taste of duck hunting with the early teal season, and big duck season is still a ways off.
But Beard says October offers outstanding fishing when the weather allows.
“You start getting a little rougher with the fronts coming down, but those fronts do a lot as far as pushing the shrimp out,” said Beard.
Beard, recent winner of the biggest trout in the Calcasieu Guide’s Cup benefiting Hackberry High School (the overall prize, consisting of trout, redfish and flounder was won by Capt. Lena Touchet), is not quite as pumped for duck season as he once was. Though he’s more of a deer hunter, he always had a duck lease to offer his customers during the season.
“I let it go two years ago. I got tired of spending $10,000 on it and then calling and canceling trips because there weren’t any birds,” said Beard.
Regretfully, despite our best efforts to relocate signs of the school (a five-minute distracting photograph session did us in more than anything), there was only one more 19-inch fish taken from the school and the breeze kicked up just enough the knock off the action.
“The fishing can be great when the birds are picking, but you’ve really got to be aware of what’s going on around you,” said Beard. “You’ve got to stay off the school as much as possible if you want to really get on them.”
Staying off of a school of fish can provide extended action, even when the birds lose interest or are distracted or run off. Simply dropping a bait to the bottom near the area where the school was feeding can provide solid, if less frenzied, action.
Bird action should remain strong on the northern end of the lake throughout this month. Frequently, Beard says, the large bunches of shrimp will show up on the southern end of the lake, where it’s difficult to get past the lake’s decidedly second-class citizen.
“Up north, there are mostly trout, but (this time of year) down on that end, it’s generally all redfish. You’ll get them mixed in up here, but it’s all big reds down there,” he said.
Beard says that another benefit of fishing birds this time of year is the absence of the annoying hordes of ladyfish that work the bait schools in the late summer.
“They’re usually done with a few good fronts. They can make things real hard for customers,” said Beard, referring to the understandable lack of discipline people have for not recognizing and setting on a “banana fish.”
“This month is almost all plastic as well. There are still plenty of people out there with live shrimp, but this is a time when we don’t use it and you really don’t need it,” he said.
