Forget fancy techniques, and get back to basics for an ice chest full of everything a marsh angler could ever want.
We’d just planed out after slowing down to pass a boat fishing near a bayou juncture when Pelayo jerked back on the throttle.No warning this time, and I was bashed headlong into the console. Spencer was sprawled awkwardly over the ice chest in the bow and hanging onto the rail for dear life.
“What the…..?!” I gasped while rearranging my glasses from my mouth to my nose. Finally I focused and saw two guys waving frantically from a stalled boat near the shore of Wilkinson Canal.
“Let’s check it out,” said Pelayo in a philanthropic tone of voice while pointing at them. “Looks like they need help.”
Pelayo’s always good about this sort of thing. Hopefully it wasn’t a tow back to the launch that they needed. We’d just launched ourselves, and had gotten a late start to begin with. But heaven knows we’ve been in their position often enough over the years. We idled toward them.
“Thanks!” whooped the portly fellow standing in the bow with his tent-like shorts. “Thank you!” he bellowed while shifting his long-billed fishing hat, the kind that always reminds me of Steve Martin’s as Engineer Dan in The Jerk. “Thank you!” he said again while clasping his hands together and raising them overhead half in prayer and half in a triumphant Rocky pose.
“We sure appreciate this!” yelled his equally grateful partner as he grabbed our bow rail. “We’ve been here over an hour!” he said while scratching at his eyes and ears with his free hand. “The freakin’ gnats ate us alive! Forgot the Skin So Soft! Never again!”
The guy had a goofy grin, a squeaky voice and his eyes rolled crazily. He was a ringer for Barnie Fife. But I kept my thoughts to myself.
“Don’t know exactly what the problem is, but I think we just need a jump,” blurted an excited Fife. “Hadn’t used the boat in a while, and we had to jump it from the truck when we left the launch this morning. Now it’s dead again. Here…” He looked at Pelayo with that crazy grin, started reaching down for his jumping cables, but stopped midway and jerked his head back up.
He was no longer smiling. Now his eyes really bulged. I looked at Pelayo, and his face had hardened. “Pelayo?! That…that you?” stuttered Fife.
Pelayo was silent. I was still looking at him. His lips were tight and his eyes had narrowed to evil little slits. Fife backed off for a second, swatted a few gnats from his eyes and tried to smile. But it came out bent. Then he held out an unsteady hand.
“Man, how, how ya been? Didn’t, didn’t recognize you with that hat and those sunglasses. Y’all moved back in yet?”
Fife’s portly partner had grabbed the jumping cables, and Spence was reaching for them when Pelayo suddenly put his foot on their gunwale and kicked mightily, pushing us away from their boat.
“HEY! What the heck…!?” Spence yelled, and he looked over frowning. The jumping cables plopped into the water between our boats.
Pelayo suddenly leaned into the throttle, and the boat jumped off like a bucking bronco, throwing a huge wake over their transom. In seconds, we were blazing back down the canal at top speed.
I was stupefied. Spence was looking over with his shoulders hunched and his mouth agape. Looking back I could see Fife and his friend waving their arms and stomping. Pelayo’s face had reddened, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel. I knew better, but Spence finally broke the silence.
“You wanna tell us what the heck’s GOIN’ ON!?” he yelled inches from Pelayo’s ear.
No reply, and we kept blazing down the canal.
After a few minutes Pelayo finally slowed down, sighed heavily and looked over.
“It’s very simple — that skinny skunk in that boat was my insurance adjustor!” he snarled. “I ain’t about to go get into all the details — God knows I don’t wanna go through all THAT again. Just take my word for it. He DESERVED it! He deserves a helluva lot WORSE in fact! I hope he spends a week out there with the gnats. Shoulda shot a couple holes in the bottom of his boat and blown up his motor with a blast from the flaregun for good measure!”
We hung a right into Lake Five, and anchored near a point with a little current moving around it just as a tern smacked the water near an oyster pole. A boat was idling past us, and the three occupants were giving that arm-extended, frowning and nodding gesture that translates into “lousy fishing.”
“Just got here,” Spence yelled and shrugged back at them. Their gestures didn’t surprise me. Conditions were abominable for fishing this area today. We caught it on a low tide and rising. We always prefer high and falling. Worse, there wasn’t much tidal movement to begin with. Worse, the water was murky from several days of high winds.
But what the heck. Like most people, we don’t have the luxury of fishing only when conditions are ideal. We get out here whenever we get the chance, conditions good or bad.
Pelayo made the first cast. He was using a highly exotic rig-up: a white sparkle beetle tipped with shrimp 2 feet under a popping cork. I was baiting up with a similarly exotic set-up, but mine was a shad-rig tipped with shrimp.
Pelayo was into his fifth or sixth pop when he suddenly jerked back on his rod and held it high overhead.
“WHOA!” he roared as a nice swirl erupted near the shoreline where his cork had disappeared. Then the ancient spinning reel (Mitchell 300) started singing its sweet music. There’s nothing like the sound of the drag on those old reels. We love it. I put off my cast and got the net ready.
“Red, huh?” said Spence from the bow.
“Nah!” said Pelayo looking over with a crazy grin. “A red makes longer runs, hits the surface more. This looks like a drum, but a nice one.”
“A nice one indeed!” I whooped while dipping the net under about a 5-pounder. “Perfect fillets for the grill.”
“On the half-shell or off,” smirked Pelayo as he plopped it in the box. “Their firm, white fillets don’t fall apart on the grill. A couple more, and we’re set up for tomorrow’s barbecue at Doc Fontaine’s.”
Spence was working the current lines with a topwater plug. He has a fetish with that nonsense. My cork didn’t last half a minute in the water. I reared back, but nothing happened on the surface. No runs either. No major lunges, just a slight but steady pressure.
“Oh-oh,” I snorted.
In seconds, I was flipping off a hardhead.
On the next cast, the cork was bouncing along in the current when I popped and it vanished. I struck and the water EXPLODED — a gorgeous eruption of froth and copper. “YEAH YOU RIGHT!” I howled, and the battle was on.
First he shot off along the shoreline, making a nice wake. Then he turned toward the open water. With pole high overhead, I savored every second of the combat. Every lunge. Every run. Every surface thrash. My spinning reel was singing sweetly. Pelayo finally netted my red, which probably went 6 pounds. Then he cast out and latched onto a nice sheepshead.
Meanwhile, Spence indulged his topwater fetish with nary a bite — whoops! I’m sorry. I mean, nary a “blow-up.” I think that’s the proper terminology for this dilettante hocus-pocus. Next Spence will be probably flyfishing out here — horrible! A simply dreadful decomposition of character.
We ended up with four fish from this spot, lifted the anchor (no trolling motor for us) and sped off to greener pastures, which appeared near another grassy point with current moving around it. Is it just us? We always do better when fishing the wave-lapped shore rather than the lee shore.
Pelayo’s first cast with his exotic rig (shrimp-tipped sparkle-beetle) landed about 5 feet from shore. A school of finger mullet erupted on his first pop.
“Saw that!?” he asked while turning to us, which meant he didn’t see his cork vanish. But he felt the tug.
“YEAH!” he roared, and the drag started singing.
The surface erupted, and the fish aimed for the open water — actually for an oyster pole on the way to the open water. Classic big red tactic. He was following the script perfectly. Not that there was much mystery. Again he thrashed the surface and flashed us his copper flanks and spotted tail. Gorgeous. How people prefer the feeble speckled trout to these suckers I’ll never understand.
“Gotta go 6 pounds!” I whistled while watching the wake. Pelayo tightened the drag and turned him before he angled around the oyster pole. I finally cast out with my exotic rig (shad-rig with shrimp) and nailed a nice flounder. That’s the thing about flounder: They always seem to hang out under a current, more so than even trout and reds. That current washes the food over them, they say. Meanwhile Spence worked the same area (fruitlessly)with his topwater gizmo.
“That’s it!” I howled on my next cast. You can’t set the hook too hard on a red it seems. This one kept thrashing on the surface, back and forth, with a few spirited runs mixed in. Classic rat red action, but he looked like a keeper. I swung him aboard, and we spread him out on the ruler … bent the tail — YEP! Sixteen inches! He stays with US!
Then Pelayo latched on to another battler. He was streaking off for the open water, too. Not as fast, but every bit as determined. Powerful runs. Bulldog lunges. Pelayo set his jaw and pumped away at his ancient Mitchell reel. The fish thrashed the surface 20 yards out, and I saw a hint of grey.
“Another nice puppy drum,” I smirked as Pelayo worked him in. You get one of these in shallow water, and they fight just like a red. And on the grill they’re identical. We love catching puppy drum. And they’re back big time in this area.
Then the fish saw the net — whoooom! Pelayo’s drag started singing again. He grimaced and gripped the rod a little higher. Now he was pumping again. Another spool-sizzling run. More surface thrashing. Finally the fish was on his side, gasping. The net slid under him, and he came aboard to a chorus of whoops and high-fives.
Meanwhile, Spence was working the same area, but with a gold spoon now, equally fruitlessly.
We lifted the anchor after another five fish. Next stop, I nailed another rat red and Pelayo another sheepshead. Then — amazingly — we boated a couple of school specks by casting away from shore toward a current line by an oyster pole. Then I finally cast out and nailed another flounder. Pelayo’s mood had brightened considerably, and he turned back up Wilkinson Canal.
“We ain’t leaving, huh?” I asked, a little concerned.
Pelayo merely nodded.
Soon we were idling up to the stranded boat with the insurance guy. Without saying a word, Pelayo backed up to where his battery was close to theirs.
“Got those jumping cables?” he asked, and Barney Fife held them up. “Well, hand them over,” Pelayo said, not smiling, but not too angry either.
“I guess you haven’t gotten the last check,” said a somber Fife.
“What?!” Pelayo jerked his head up as he attached the cables to his battery. “WHAT check?”
“Went out last week,” said Fife with a smile.
“Well, good grief!” laughed Pelayo. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tried to,” said Fife. “But, well, you shot outta here! What the heck was I supposed to do!”
“Whoo-boy,” Pelayo just nodded. “Sorry ’bout that.”
Then Fife’s portly fishing buddy cranked up their engine with a loud roar.
We headed back down Wilkinson Canal and over into Wilkinson and Raquette bays. Working grassy points, preferably with at least 2-foot depths, moving water and oyster bottoms, we ended up with a box-a-mixed — 22 fish, including, amazingly, three trout. Spence finally threw in the towel and started using shrimp-tipped jigs under a cork — and started catching fish.
Back at the launch, people were amazed at our catch. Most had gone out exclusively for trout, it seemed (typical for this area), fished deeper water with artificials and live minnows, and mostly bombed out because of the low, murky water, slow tidal movement and rising tide.
We anchored near coastlines and cork-fished with shrimp. The anchoring means we worked the area over good. On conditions like that day, fish aren’t ravenous and it sometimes takes a bit to entice them, which we also did by cork fishing (which keeps the bait in the water longer) and by using shrimp (which all fish love).
How often we’ve seen a shoreline worked with trolling motor and lures to no avail, then pulled up, anchored, bait fished and hauled out a few reds and drum. Happens often. If the trout aren’t turned on, we don’t surrender.
Work the shorelines (or what’s left of them) wherever you find 2-plus-foot depths and an oyster bottom, especially around points, and by the end of the morning you’ll have a mess — probably not limits, but a “mess.” Never fails when using classic green or white beetles, or even shad rigs, tipped with shrimp, 3 feet under popping corks.
On average, I don’t think you’ll find a better bait for our type of fishing.
