If you’d rather reel in fish than fight crowds, point your bow to the shallow-water rigs in the Ship Shoal area.
There’s universal agreement among coastal anglers from the Pearl River to the Sabine that speckled trout fishing is just about as good now as it’s ever been. Anglers with skill levels ranging from greenhorn neophyte to know-it-all super pro are heading out of their favorite ports, and if conditions are decent or better, they’re returning back to the dock — if there is still a dock after Katrina and Rita — in just a few hours with ice chests so full of trout the hinges are busting.
Biologists don’t know exactly why this is happening. Some theorize that tropical cyclones fill the marshes with so much organic matter collected from the Gulf and stripped from the very marshes themselves that the entire ecosystem just booms.
Others theorize that tropical events limit fishing activity for a certain amount of time, and that reduces pressure, which leads to a larger number of fish being available to the fewer anglers who are chasing them.
Certainly Katrina and Rita knocked an incredibly large number of anglers out of commission, so it makes a lot of sense to think that fishing pressure is only a fraction of what it was before those awful days last August and September.
But even as good as the fishing is, it ain’t much to brag about when the Wicked Witch of the West blows 20-knot winds across the marsh, and turns yesterday’s green minestrone into today’s chocolate soup. And that hag of a witch always seems to know when it’s Saturday and Sunday.
But don’t let that get you down. Just take off during the week. That’s right, the next time you’re scanning the weather page at louisianasportsman.com on, say, a Monday, and the forecast for Tuesday calls for light, variable winds, go ahead and schedule a trip. You’ll be glad you did.
We’ve compiled a top-10 list of excuses you can give your boss that he’s sure to believe. Pick one, and run with it.
Oh, and be sure to wear plenty of sunscreen. Nothing worse than coming in the day after calling in sick looking like George Hamilton.
10. Our cat just had kittens, and my wife’s making me clean up the afterbirth.
9. I have a stomach virus and just ran out of toilet paper. Can’t get up long enough to even make it to the store.
8. I didn’t think the effects from Viagra were supposed to last this long.
7. I tried to tell my wife that glass of milk was a little chunky.
6. Remember your mom told you not to do that or you’d go blind? Well, it’s true. Doctor says it’s only temporary, and I should be seeing fine by Wednesday.
5. Yesterday’s dinner didn’t agree with me. That’s the last time I eat at “Joe’s Chicken Palace: Home of the Medium-Rare Drumstick.”
4. My fever is 103, and I took it rectally, so I know it’s accurate. I’ll be happy to bring in the thermometer if you want proof.
3. I just figured the meatloaf was that color because it was made with that Heinz green ketchup.
2. I’m serving a self-imposed one-day suspension for laughing at your “Hurricane Preparedness Plan.”
1. I’m going fishing. Want any fillets?
