Slow day makes Slidell angler king of his ‘Castle’

Slidell anglers Christian and Colleen Orfanello hit the jackpot on specks and reds after struggling at their first stop Monday.

Stumbles on fish after striking out at first stop.

Christian Orfanello had some really bad fishing luck Monday, and he couldn’t have been happier about it.

The day before, the Sea Tow New Orleans owner found a chunk of marsh that was loaded with some very cooperative redfish.

“I went to this small little area, and the reds were floating high,” he said. “The water was dirty, but they were floating so high, I had my five within 45 minutes, and I just sat back there catching and releasing.”

He had such a great time, he regaled his wife, Colleen, with the details when he got home. That stoked the fire in her, so she joined Orfanello on what initially appeared to be the ill-fated trip on Monday.

“I told her, ‘We’re going to be ripping lips. It’s going to be great,’” Orfanello recounted. “We got back there, and the water was dirty. There was plenty of bait, but I saw only two or three fish I was able to pitch at, and they wanted nothing to do with it.

“Then it turned into a ghost town.”

The couple stowed away the ladder they use to gain elevation when sight-fishing, and pointed the bow of their boat toward their Slidell home. It would be a while before they’d get there, however.

The route took them through a cut that connects the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet with Lake Borgne, an area known as the Castle in honor of a fort-like camp that used to stand there.

Orfanello saw some active bait, so he decided to stop and drop down shrimp creole-colored Matrix Shads on 3/8-ounce jigheads. It was a good choice. The bottom seemed carpeted with 12- to 12 1/2-inch speckled trout, and a few white trout of similar size.

The couple was having a ball, reeling up dinner from the depths, when copious amounts of the fish they initially sought burst upon the scene.

“The redfish were everywhere,” Orfanello said. “I mean, we were reeling them in, and there were fish all over the surface. I looked out, and it was nothing but a sea of reds in all directions.

“We would cast at them, and before the 3/8(-ounce jighead) could even think about sinking, it was already going for a ride.”

The fish all measured between 25 and 28 inches, with most under the the 27-inch slot.

The redfish were feasting on baitfish on the surface.

“The needlefish were just having a bad day,” Orfanello said. “Those reds were just tearing up the needlefish. Between the birds and the fish, they just had no shot.”

There were also plenty of white shrimp in the area, and they were quite sizable, Orfanello said.

“They were good-sized shrimp,” he said. “My wife was like, ‘I wish we had brought the cast net.’”

The reds didn’t seem to run off the trout, but they did present the anglers with a unique challenge — reaching them.

“If your bait could get to the bottom without the reds smacking it first, you could catch a trout,” Orfanello said.

The anglers ended up with their limits of redfish and 27 keeper specks.

About Todd Masson 724 Articles
Todd Masson has covered outdoors in Louisiana for a quarter century, and is host of the Marsh Man Masson channel on YouTube.