Grand Isle pier fishing heats up

Dora Lambert poses with a big bull red she landed last week at the Grand Isle fishing pier adjacent to Bridge Side Marina. In addition to reds, Lambert said she and other pier anglers also caught specks and white trout last weekend.

Action pretty good despite slack tides last weekend

Fish are definitely still biting on Grand Isle — and right now you don’t even need a boat to get in on the action.

Monster reds — and some nice specks, too — currently can be caught night and day from the lighted pier next to Bridge Side Marina.

Just remember to pack the right rod and reel combo with heavy enough line to get the job done: I use a Penn Battle II 6000 series with 50-pound braided line, and take along a pier net to haul up the fish.

The tide was slack Friday evening when the bull reds hit.  The first run occurred around 4 p.m. until 5:15 on a rising tide. Then just as the tide started falling, the bulls came into the bay from deeper water and hit steadily from around 2 until 3:45 a.m.

The bite should be the same this weekend, except pushed back a few hours according to tidal charts.  During both runs, the redfish bit freshly-netted cut mullet and whole pogies caught via cast net.

Along with the redfish bite, large speckled trout and hordes of white trout also were put on ice.

I had success with D.O.A. Lure’s C.A.L. Shad in purple haze on a 1-ounce jighead, and a 1-ounce silver spoon with a medium-fast retrieve.   Other anglers on the pier caught with a 3-inch Tsunami Tough Tail Shrimp in gold glitter, with and without a popping cork.

Larger specks lurked around the edges of the pier lights in 10 to 12 feet of water, while white trout schooled directly under the lights.  Most often, white trout devoured any live bait intended for specks, so I would recommend throwing artificials.

Several pompano and a few undersized spadefish were caught shallow with live shrimp, and inadvertently in cast nets around sunset.

Shrimp were pretty scarce around the pier, but live bait caught included glass minnows, mullet, pogies, eels and ladyfish.