This Venice hotspot was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, but the monster specks have shown up there on cue, and there aren’t nearly as many anglers fishing them.
The ride to Venice was both eye-opening and heart-breaking.It was my first trip down the Louisiana peninsula since the eye of Katrina came ashore and ravaged that fragile finger of land. Mere words are inadequate to describe the vast scope of the destruction.
From Port Sulphur south, the damage is incredible, seeming only to worsen the farther south you travel. Not a single home, business or building escaped.
The residents who have returned all live in FEMA trailers while the slow and laborious rebuild transpires. The fact that anybody at all lives there and dares to rebuild in an area so susceptible to the whims of a moody Gulf is a testament to the human spirit.
Or to lunacy.
The occasion for my trip was a call from a good friend, Capt. Dan Dix of MLC Charters (225-939-3525), who invited me to fish Blind Bay with him. It had been several years since I fished Blind Bay, and Dix said the big body of water was absolutely “on fire” with big trout. I was eager to get into some of that action, and it was a good excuse to drive downriver and check on the progress since the storms.
Only a half-hour after daylight, I pulled into the parking lot of Venice Marina, and workers were already on the job, hustling to rebuild a larger-than-ever new store and headquarters, and hoping to have it done by summer. It was good to see so many signs of activity. The fuel docks were operational, and the marina was selling ice and bait.
The docks were rebuilt, and quite a few boats were lined up to launch. Behind the new construction a half-dozen charter guides were prepping their boats and passengers for a day on the water.
Dix had the 24-foot Gravois idling at the dock, and after introducing me to Willie James, one of his old buddies, we stowed my gear aboard and got under way.
Most of the boats and houseboats that lined the docks at the marina are gone. Some were sunk or washed aground, or simply disappeared. Dix said it took months for all the debris to be removed, and it is evident that a lot of folks have done a whole lot of work since the storm. I noticed that the boathouse condos were badly battered but remain standing, and will undoubtedly be rebuilt.
There was some spotty fog hovering over the water as we left the dock, but once we headed downriver, it closed in on us. Fortunately, Dix has radar on the Gravois. We headed east into Pass a Loutre, where Dix zig-zagged down the pass, traveling for awhile down one side of the pass, and then crossing over to travel for awhile down the other side.
“Avoiding sandbars,” he said.
Dix says there is another entrance into Blind Bay from Flatboat Pass (also known as 27 Pass), but several boaters have reported hitting a submerged obstacle in the narrow pass, so use it with caution.
Southeast Pass has a couple of openings into Blind Bay also, but like Pass a Loutre, the route is meandering and the openings into the bay are very shallow. Dix says anglers unfamiliar with the area should follow a boater who is familiar with the route, “and it’s always good to have two boats when you’re that far south anyway,” he commented.
We did some more twists and turns following a meandering path through the canes, and eventually came out into Blind Bay. Dix says the water gets real shallow at every entrance into the bay, so anglers should keep their boats up on plane until they move past the shallows into deeper water.
The first thing I noticed was that Blind Bay seemed much bigger than I remembered it.
“It is much bigger,” Dix said, confirming my recollection.
“This actually used to be two bodies of water, and it still shows up that way on older charts. But the land that separated the bays is long gone, and it’s one big, open bay now,” he said.
Dix believes the marsh area surrounding the bay eroded by at least 20 percent due to Katrina, and the charts on his GPS confirmed it. We were running in wide open water where the charts showed us running over marshland. The shorelines are pushed back dramatically, and many familiar points are either completely gone or they’ve receded by 20 to 30 yards. Eventually, Dix believes Blind Bay will erode to the point it just becomes part of the river, and everything will look wide open just like it does on the west side.
Until that happens, it is fired up, turned on and producing some of the best catches in years, Dix said.
He killed the outboard about 100 feet from a nearby point, and we began casting our baits toward the shore and on both sides of the boat.
“Generally, you want to sneak up to a point,” Dix said, “so you don’t run all the fish off. I see anglers roar up to a point with their outboards running, and then shut it off and splash the anchor over, and start fishing. They wait all of 15 minutes, and then, disgusted because they didn’t get any bites, they pull up the anchor and roar off to another spot and pull the same stunt all over again. It’s amazing how clueless some anglers are, yet I see this all the time.
“Cut your motor off at least 100 feet off the shoreline. Drop the trolling motor over and move into casting range quietly. Big fish don’t live to be big by being stupid, so they spook easily.
“Start casting from 100 feet out, because the fish aren’t always right up against the bank. Often, they’re 50 feet off the shoreline, or more. Work your way up to within casting distance of the shoreline, throwing forward, behind you and working both sides of the boat.
“Keep in mind, trout will school up. So if you catch a trout on one side of the boat, get everybody to cast to that side. Most likely, that’s where they’re schooled. Throw your bait where the fish are and you’ll catch more fish — that’s just common sense.”
I knew exactly what he was talking about, because I’ve fished with stubborn people before, and I’ve occasionally been one. These are the people who absolutely refuse to switch baits to a different color or type, even though they’re catching nothing, and the others aboard are wailing on fish. Yep, I’ve been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt.
Now, I’m usually eager to switch to whatever bait is producing. And what was producing on this day was Dix’s specialty — DOA shrimp in the near-clear color, with red flecks.
After watching Dix bag several very nice trout, I decided to switch to his DOAs, and that’s when I started getting in on the action.
“These baits are working great right now,” he said, “but by summer these trout are going to want live shrimp. You’ll still catch fish on plastics, but woe unto you if somebody pulls up nearby and starts casting live shrimp. They’re going to take all your action. You might as well pull up and go fish at another spot.”
Dix’s technique is to look for points with some good current moving around them.
“If the water isn’t moving, the fish aren’t biting,” he says.
But if you happen to be fishing in a slack period, there is a way you can compensate for the lack of tide.
“Move closer to the river,” Dix said. “There is always good current flowing from the river off either Southeast Pass or Pass a Loutre, and that water movement will make up for a lack of tide. Fish points closer to the river, and always look for signs of baitfish — mullet, minnows, pogies, shrimp. If you spot bait in the water, fish there.”
Besides the DOA Shrimp, Dix likes to spool up with Power Pro braided line or Stren braided line, preferring 50-pound-test.
“Just make sure it’s the round braided line, not the flat line. The flat stuff will dig into your spool and cause you all sorts of problems,” he said.
And the heavyweight line is because his customers were losing so many good fish in the canes.
Dix ties his line directly to a jig head, and then wraps a weighted snap-on cork up some 2 1/2 to 3 feet above his jig.
“If you’re fishing with live shrimp, tie directly to the hook (don’t use a jig head), and then add a split-shot weight about 6 inches above your hook to help keep the shrimp down,” he said.
“And here’s something many people still don’t realize. That cork on your line does much more than simply suspend your bait. It is a fish call,” he said. “Just like duck hunters and turkey hunters use a call to attract game, so do trout fishermen, especially in the summer.
“That cork, when snapped — not dragged or pulled through the water but snapped or popped — makes a noise that exactly duplicates the sound of a trout popping a shrimp off the surface of the water. It’s like ringing the dinner bell!
“Trout are excitable, and they will come to that sound and devour your live shrimp or DOA, or just about any other shrimp-imitating lure. They actually start competing with one another over the food supply when they get excited, so pop that cork and call those fish in.”
We moved a couple times to other points in Blind Bay, and on each move we put very nice trout in the boat.
Dix says if you want to target redfish, simply troll along the edges of the canes on the south side of the bay, and toss dead shrimp under a cork.
“You should never leave the dock without a pound or two of dead shrimp on ice,” he said.
“Insurance,” he calls it, and that’s a word most South Louisiana residents are all too familiar with these days.
“Work along that south shoreline, and you’ll catch all the reds you can keep,” he said. “If you catch one that is 18 to 22 inches or so, work that spot thoroughly, because that size fish usually congregates together, and you can probably limit out in that one spot.
“Often they’re over 27 inches, and when that happens I pick up and move elsewhere unless my customers want to play catch and release.
“Blind Bay is really on fire right now. Anglers fishing early with topwater baits are catching 6-, 7- and even 8-pound trout. There is a lot of shrimp and baitfish in here, and that is going to keep the fish here until the summer just gets too hot, driving them to deeper water, like the near-in rigs off Pass a Loutre in 10 to 12 feet of water.
“Right now, you want to try to catch your fish early, say, before 11 a.m., because after that they just get lethargic.
“And here is what makes Blind Bay even more attractive right now: There isn’t a lot of pressure on these fish because there aren’t as many anglers and boats out chasing them. Currently, there’s probably only a dozen or so guides fishing out of Venice Marina, and whereas there used to be 150 to 200 recreational boats out here on weekends, now it’s maybe 50 or 60, if that.
“So there’s lots of fish — big fish at that — and very little pressure on them.”
The bottom line: Blind Bay action has probably never been better, and it may never be quite this good again. Get out and get in on it, before the opportunity passes you by.
