Calm days are best, but even when the winds blow, there are spots to catch fish in the Grand Isle surf.
Capt. Chad Billiot with Marsh Rat Guide Service (985-637-5058) answered his phone with more of a grunt than a hello. I quickly learned he was hooked up with a bruiser redfish and that I was going to have to wait. Billiot was on the tail end of a 70-trout day with 12 bull reds, and I couldn’t wait to hear about it.“There’s a lot of different stuff going on,” said Billiot when he returned my call. “We’re seeing tons of birds all over school trout off the main points and islands around Little Lake, Hackberry Bay, Pickett Bay and Raccourci. The fish and the birds are out there feeding on the shrimp coming down with the tide.”
Billiot went on to say that there have been a lot of options other than the school trout. He’s been consistently catching 2- and 3-pound fish with a few 4- and 5-pound kickers thrown in too.
“The bigger trout are in 7 to 9 feet of water,” he said. “And, of course, the bigger trout like that live bait this time of year. A big cocaho or live shrimp fished around the rigs and platforms from West Timbalier to East Timbalier and Caillou Bay will get the bigger boys.”
Anglers not wanting to mess with live bait will find that the trout will bite the Opening Night Shad Assassins and Sea Shads almost as good as the real thing because this color looks so much like a big white shrimp.
“You can do almost just as good on the plastics,” Billiot said. “I’ve mainly been tightlining them, but you can work them about 2 feet under a popping cork too. The fish have been down about 3 1/2 feet under the surface. We’ve been fishing the live bait on a Mustad kahle hook with a little split shot up the line a little — just enough to get it down to 4 or 5 feet.”
There has also been a pretty good topwater bite around the beaches from West Timbalier to Grand Isle. Billiot said topwater anglers have been pulling up some decent-sized spawning trout.
Big bull reds are being caught on oyster reefs out in front of the shallow ponds and bays once they start leaving them on a falling tide.
Billiot said the tide had been just about dead first thing in the morning. Therefore, he’s had to wait them out a little bit. Anglers the next couple of days may find the end of the rising tide first thing in the morning. Stick with it through the slack tide, though, and you’ll start working on them once it starts pulling out.