This port’s oyster reefs hold trout and reds in April.
Biologists are dorks.Don’t believe me? Ask one. Most will readily admit it.
While the rest of us are content to pull fish-and-game theories out of thin air to assuage our bruised egos because of poor performances afield, biologists actually study facts and data to the nth degree to draw their conclusions.
Because of that, they speak a language all their own. Have a conversation with a biologist, and after the pleasantries, he might as well be speaking Swahili. The rest of us use complicated words like “and,” “the” and “but,” while biologists can’t help but pepper conversations with “fecundity,” “biomass” and “spawning potential ratio.”
Because of that, I would almost never recommend a book written by a biologist.
But Jerald Horst is no ordinary biologist.
Fans of Horst’s Creature Feature column know he has a unique way of interpreting facts and data and relaying them in terms that make sense to individuals without PhDs in biosciences.
Horst has done that in spades with his new book, “Trout Masters: How Louisiana’s best anglers catch the lunkers.”
All of us who fish south of I-10 love trophy trout. One-pound trout taste great, and we love them for their tenacity, hard hits and schooling tendencies, but there is absolutely nothing in fishing that quite compares to hooking into a mule. They are, quite simply, the coolest fish God created.
In his new book, Horst shares the tips and tactics of Louisiana’s 14 most successful trophy trout anglers. All of us luck into big trout here and there, but these are the anglers with the skins on the wall to prove that catching trophy trout for them isn’t a matter of luck. These anglers know what they’re doing, and Horst spent months fishing with them to learn the intricate details of how they put the logs in the boat.
But that’s not all. Being a biologist, Horst pored over scientific data to learn what makes trophy trout tick. Quite simply, trophy trout are so different from little trout, they might as well be a different animal. In the first chapter, Horst tells readers why trophy trout behave the way they do, and most importantly, when and where anglers can find them.
The fully color-illustrated book is incredibly good, and is a resource trout anglers will refer to often. It’s available for $24.99 (plus s&h) at www.lasmag.com or by calling (800) 538-4355.
