Speck fishing can get no easier than this short trip to the Rigolets.
Long distance relationships never work out. The problem comes when you finally fly out to meet her only to find that she has fallen for a more convenient other.
If he’s also eager, you may as well delete her from your contacts forever.
There’s something to be said for convenient and eager.
Slidell anglers in love with speckled trout are getting the best of both right now.
Convenient? Fishing doesn’t get any closer than Geoghegan Canal.
Eager? Trout aren’t biting shrimp creole Matrix Shads right now — they are swallowing them.
Be sure to watch the attached video.
I jumped in the boat with Claude Jolicoeur and Kris Rice on Saturday (Dec. 1) to get a firsthand look of what the two local anglers inadvertently stumbled onto a few weeks ago.
“Usually I’ll come in here when the water temperature goes below 50 degrees down to around 43,” Jolicoeur told me after putting a few early morning fish in the box. “They usually bite pretty heavy in Geoghegan.
“This year we happened to get stuck in a storm. We couldn’t get out, and a good north wind kept us in Geoghegan. Nobody was in the pond. We came in here and we knocked them.”
Jolicoeur and Rice went back the next few weekends and found the trout thicker with each trip.
We threw 3-inch shrimp creole- and tiger bait-colored Matrix Shads rigged on 1/4- and 3/8-ounce jigheads on this foggy morning.
“You really want to pop it heavy,” Jolicoeur advised. “If you’re slacking just a little bit, they won’t grab it. When you pop it, you want to pull it up about a 3- or 4-foot pop and let it drop.”
Just about every trout we caught bit our baits on the way down. More often than not, they were sitting on our baits as we made another pop.
Jolicoeur and Rice were a little surprised that we put so many fish in the box so early in the morning because most of their bites had been coming a litter later in the day.
“As the sun comes up, the bite gets a little stronger,” Jolicoeur noted.
We anchored the boat on the side of Geoghegan Canal and cast out toward a shelf in the middle of the canal.
Although we stayed in one place, Rice said that it didn’t really matter where in Geoghegan Canal anglers choose to fish.
“Every cold front we get is just going to bring more and more fish in here,” he said. “They’re not just here; they scatter all the way down the bayou. You’ll catch them all the way to within 100 yards of Rigolets Marina.”
We started just picking at the trout around 8:30, so we moved to the back of Geoghegan Pond to yank on few white trout.
They were stacked in the deeper water right at the back, and Jolicoeur pointed out that they were a lot larger than what he typically catches.
Not wanting to go home so early, Rice and I convinced Jolicoeur to go try the redfish just south of the Hospital Wall.
Our day ended under a flock of birds on a school of bull reds.
At no time were we any more than two miles from Rigolets Marina.
This time of year, especially, there’s no need to run a long distance when what you’re really looking for is conveniently located right under your nose.
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