Papa Joe Bush (504-689-3728) had to cancel his trip on Wednesday because of the strong winds and rain that were predicted to move through New Orleans during the early morning. The day before was a different story, though, as Bush and his crew caught a box full of trout and reds.
“We actually could have got our trip in yesterday morning,” Bush said speaking of Tuesday morning. “The weather didn’t come through until a little bit later. Now I expect everything is going to be muddy for a couple days until the wind lays down and the temperature warms back up.”
The places that Bush expects to clear up the quickest are Bay Loures, Brussels Lake, Bay Round and Bay Laurie. These were his most productive spots on Monday, and he says they probably didn’t get beat up by the wind as bad as places like Little Lake and Turtle Bay.
Bush started catching fish as soon as the sun warmed the air to the point that jackets had to be taken off. His trout bite lasted until about 11 a.m., from which point he moved to the shorelines to try the redfish. Ten reds came aboard between 11:30 and 12:45.
“We caught the trout on Old Bayside glow/chartreuse shrimp under a popping cork,” Bush said. “And the reds bit a black/chartreuse Old Bayside Skeleton Shad. I like that bait in the cloudy water because these fish are going after a silhouette anyway, and the black Skeleton Shad has such a big silhouette. We caught the reds under a cork and on 1/4-ounce jigheads, and a couple came on a spoon.”
Bush and his customers finished the day with 35 trout, 10 of which were throwbacks and 10 redfish, four of which had to be tossed back. Considering the tough weather and up and down fishing conditions around coastal Louisiana the past few days, this was a pretty good trip.
“The keeper trout were really nice looking,” Bush said. “They were good sized, and really pretty. I imagine as we move toward the weekend, we’ll get to see a lot more of them.”
