Catching a variety of fish near Deepwater Point this time of year is a no-brainer
It’s easy to outrun those huge tankers when they’re chugging upriver. They’re like us after a huge champagne brunch. You can almost hear them groaning as they churn slowly upriver, fully-laden, low in the water, every yard gained an agonizing effort.
On the way down, it’s a different story. Now they’re booking!
We were crossing the river to the Ostrica locks, and one such tanker was bearing downriver at awesome speed. Did Pelayo see it? Didn’t seem like it to Eddie. His eyes looked like cueballs as he grabbed Pelayo’s shoulder and pointed at the steel behemoth throwing the huge wake not 200 yards upriver from us.
Pelayo responded by jamming the gas forward as the boat got on plane.
“Are you nuts!” Eddie screeched.
Pelayo seemed hell-bent on passing in front of the ship.
“See it?!” Eddie wailed as he moved in front of the console to stare Pelayo straight in the face. “See it?!?”
Eddie’s eyes were wild and his lips trembled as he beseeched Pelayo to see reason while pounding the console to make his point.
“Yeah, I see it!” Pelayo shot back, grinning like a lunatic. “Big sucker, ain’t it! Haulin’ too, ain’t he!”
Eddie looked at me for support, his eyes like saucers, his mouth agape. In truth, I was petrified myself. But I also knew that protesting was hopeless. I knew that look in Pelayo’s face — seen it too many times. Not that I stood around helplessly, resigned to my fate. No sir. I did grab a life vest, and even offered one to Eddie.
“Ever read PT 109, Eddie!” Pelayo cackled as we roared along and the tanker closed the distance. “Or see the movie!”
Pelayo whacked his karate hand into the console for effect. “Sucker got karate-chopped in half!”
“I can’t believe this!” Eddie yelled. “I mean … WHY?!”
“Because the locks are closing — see!” Pelayo pointed ahead.
Sure enough, the last boat was pulling into the locks.
“We’ll have to wait another 15 minutes for the whole process — to hell with that!” Pelayo said while shaking his head at Eddie, and cranking up the gas a couple notches.
“What’s 15 minutes!” Eddie wailed.”’So what?!”
“You lived up north too long, Eddie!” Pelayo laughed. “Sounds like you turned into one a dem metrosexuals!”
“I wanna stay alive!” Eddie shrieked. “If that makes me a metrosexual or a wimp or a faggot or whatever — fine! Call me whatever you want!”
And he reached for the gas himself.
Pelayo grabbed Eddie’s arm with a death grip and pushed him away. Now his face was grim.
“MY boat! GOT THAT?” he roared.
Whoo-boy, I thought. Here we go. I hadn’t seen Pelayo talk to Eddie that way since that famous night at Tiger Plaza after the Ole Miss game, all those years ago. The party was cranking, Cheeseburger in Paradise blaring from the boom-box, the girls were all pink-cheeked, giggly, very affectionate — and a dispute over bedroom rights erupted.
That turned out splendidly, for all. Why be greedy, they finally decided. Though to this day, the girls refuse to acknowledge the solution.
But this looked grimmer. I could see the huge lump of water the tanker was pushing in front of it. I could see myself trying to swim my way out of it after the boat was karate-chopped in half by the huge steel bow…finally making it with my last ounce of strength, totally exhausted, sitting there gasping — then the huge propellers suck me under and dice me up like a waterlogged onion.
I could already hear the news: “This is Eyewitness reporter Heather Waguespack reporting from Buras. A boat with three fisherpersons collided with an oil tanker this morning just south of here in the Mississippi River.
“‘Those fellows had to be crazy!’ gasped the ship’s captain, Lars Johanssen. ‘They could see me coming. They had to know I can’t just turn or slam on my brakes — but they kept on coming. I couldn’t believe it. It’s a terrible shame, but there was nothing I could do.’
“Eyewitness reporter Elaine Fontaine caught up with the tragically-deceased fishermen’s wives at Louis Armstrong International Airport on their way to Cancun.
“‘These may not look like mourning clothes,’ said one of the brilliantly-clad widows as she adjusted her floppy sun hat, ‘but we felt we had no choice but to depart on this vacation to relieve our terrible stress. Right girls?’ And her two companions quickly agreed, then resumed sucking on their frozen margaritas.”
A hideous vision, but looking very probable as the tanker and our clearly-doomed boat closed the distance on each other with terrible speed.
Turned out, we made it, and with a good 100-foot “safety zone” as Pelayo called it.
Eddie was laughing maniacally now. Always happens when you just squeak by a catastrophe. Then he looked at the locks. The last boat had entered and the steel doors were closing fast, looked like barely enough room for us to slip in. But Pelayo was bent on shooting the gap. Eddie was bug-eyed again.
I didn’t think we had a chance, but Pelayo’s aim looked good. But not good enough! WHACK! We smacked the left lock with the bow, careened off it and slipped in, where — WHACK! — we plowed heavily into the back of a shiny new bay boat, leaving a nice gouge mark on his Yamaha 250.
The huge brute who seemed to own the bay boat had actually watched it happen. His enraged bellows turned every head on every occupant of every boat in the locks quickly in our direction. The menacing gestures from the brute’s balled fists and muscle-rippled arms added more urgency to the scene. Then the lockmaster himself emerged from his office, waving his arms, yelling and spraying spittle too. He sided completely with the bay-boat brute, as did everyone else in the locks. All were pointing at us, yelling and frowning. Many shook their fists.
We were in the Roman Coliseum, it seemed, the blood-lusting crowd all wanting our heads, all pointing their thumbs downward. We were surrounded by ugliness.
Eddie could only nod and shrug helplessly, an awkward smile across his face. Pelayo nodded and waved calmly at the fury around us. Then he turned, opened an ice chest and pulled out a brewskie, casually popping it open. Then he pressed a button on the console, and out boomed Born to be Wild.
“Getcha motor runnin’, get out on the highway!”
The decibel level was ear-shattering, and Steppenwolf quickly drowned the din from the enraged boaters and frantic lockmaster.
Pelayo quickly offered the brute a beer and — somehow — in seconds they were exchanging phone numbers. The situation was somehow defused.
“Don’t worry,” Pelayo smirked. “We’ll get you squared away. I’m insured. Plus my brud-in-law owns an outboard shop. You’ll come outta this like a bandit.”
The lockmaster and rest of the boaters seemed dumfounded, even dismayed, at this amicable resolution. The fun was spoiled.
Soon we were roaring toward Quarantine Bay, the ugliness behind us and anticipating the fishing feast ahead.
Fish this marsh (roughly from California Point on the north to Deepwater Point on the south) on a high (the higher, the better) and falling tide, and you can’t go wrong — especially for reds. Also throw in some puppy drum, flounder, sheepshead and a smattering of specks.
This is classic marsh fishing. When fishing out here, do yourself a favor and leave the gold spoons, Top Dogs and fly rods home, please.
Instead, bring the white or purple beetles, popping corks and market bait. Cast them toward the flooded coastline wherever you find 2-foot depths or so, and moving water close to the bank. Add an oyster-dotted bottom, and you can’t go wrong.
You’ll find such places all along the north shoreline of Quarantine and Bucks bays, along the southeast shore of Bay la Mer and in the broken marsh in between. But be sure to catch it on a high tide.
This is shallow, oyster-studded marsh, which is why the reds love it. Open their stomachs, and you’ll find mainly crabs — not blue crabs but tiny stone crabs. These infest the nooks and crevices in oyster reefs. The reds prowl the reefs, sucking them down.
Most people who launch from Venice and cross the river fish up to Taylors Point, maybe Deepwater Point. Those who launch from Pointe a la Hache, fish down to Spanish Pass or California Point. Those who launch from Riverside Marina into the river at Buras generally cross the locks and keep heading out to Battledore or the Black Tank.
Fine. Be my guest. That’s the beauty of this section of marsh — no crowds.
And this is a pretty big section of marsh to fish almost unmolested. A marsh that features big open bays (Quarantine, Bucks), smaller bays (Allen, Denesse, which stay fairly calm and clear even with blustery east winds) a maze of bayous and canals to aid access, and a stretch of coastline bordering Breton Sound featuring points (California, Raccoon, Deepwater), which on calm days offer classic cork-fishing for trout, often under birds.
Most of this area features oyster bottoms — hell on props but better, on average, than mud bottoms for catching fish. That’s the beauty of this area —the options. You can go from casting live bait or plastic around a well in Breton Sound, to corkfishing with tandem beetles under birds around a point or island, to fishing around the oyster poles in Allen Bay, to casting for reds and flounder along the grassy shoreline of Cuselich Bay — all in a couple of hours without traveling more than a few miles.
If the trout in Breton Sound aren’t turned on (as usual), head in for the classic cork fishing in the marsh. Out here, something always bites someplace.
I was dropping the anchor along the north shore of Quarantine Bay when Eddie sent a shrimp-tipped beetle 2 feet under a popping cork to the grassy tip of a feeble cordgrass island. Ten years ago, it had been part of a long spoil bank. Now you could see the current washing around the point. The place had redfish written all over it. The cork splashed about 2 feet from an oyster pole, and never reappeared.
“Hey what the …?” Eddie was frowning, mumbling something “WHOOA! That’s him!”
He reared back on the light-action rod, and the sweet music started. No tight drags and stiff bass rods here my friends. We like to play fish, to feel those lunges, to savor the screeching runs of a berserk red in shallow water. And mostly, to listen to the scream of a loose drag on a spinning reel. For us, there’s no other music to compare — not even Steppenwolf.
Eddie’s pole seemed on the verge of splintering. His spool was emptying. Eddie’s face was a mask of sheer delight as that bronze torpedo blazed through the shallows. From its wake, you could tell it was beauty. Probably 5 to 7 pounds.
Say what you want my friends, there’s just nothing like a red in shallow water on the end of light tackle on a Saturday morning to put a smile on a man’s face and a glow in his breast. No sir.
I grabbed the net just as Pelayo let out a whoop. He was on one too. But after two spirited runs, Pelayo’s started tiring.
“Must be one of those 15 9/10-inchers,” I remarked as he appeared at boatside, with that blue sheen to his tail. “The marsh is full of them.”
I netted Eddie’s fish to a chorus of hurrahs accompanied by high-fives as Pelayo placed his along the Cajun Computer, stretching him, closing his tail for that extra half-inch.
“AHA!” he beamed. “Sixteen and one-quarter inches. A keeper!”
These rat reds, as we all know, fry best.
I finally cast out about 10 yards from the bank in slightly deeper water. I had a white beetle “sweetened-up” with half a shrimp 3 feet under a popping cork.
The current was taking it, and on the third pop it plunged. I struck back, and he hit the surface thrashing that yellow mouth.
“Trout!’ I bellowed. “We’re on ’em!”
Within seconds, two corks landed just yards from my trout. And within a few more seconds, those two plunged. Three trout were now thrashing on the surface, and a wild chorus of whoops erupted from our boat. It’s crazy, but after almost 30 years, three school trout and a few reds still unhinge us. We were beaming as we swung our three trout aboard. No monsters, but chunky school trout in the 14- to 15-inch range.
The box was looking pretty. I opened it to admire its contents during a lull in the action.
We finally cranked it up and headed east to an eroded pipeline canal that runs parallel to the coastline with Breton Sound below California Point.
Instead of a spoil bank, you had long, narrow islands separating what used to be the canal from the open bay to either side. The tide was moving, and you could see the little eddies around each point — hot-spots for sure.
I peeked astern, and made out the bottom of the prop through the hazy water. Perfect redfish water. Just then, a tern smacked the water around the little eddies formed by the outgoing current about 20 yards astern.
“Saw that.” Pelayo said as his cork sailed toward the action. I turned to see another tern smack near shore, then heard Pelayo’s grunt. A red exploded in a copper froth on the surface as his pole bowed.
Eddie was on the bow tussling with a trout that hit the surface in a gill-rattling frenzy. I cast where Pelayo had been a second before, looked back and felt a tug. I looked back. No cork anywhere. Another tug. So I reared back. YES!!
Is there a more magnificent sensation, my friends? I felt a solid WHUMP, then a sharp lunge as the reel started screaming. Gimme a red any day.
“RED!” I howled just as he erupted in a foaming copper swirl. “A monster!”
My line was sizzling out, then it suddenly went flaccid. What the…?
“He’s swimming in!” Pelayo howled. “Reel in that slack!”
Indeed, the brute was aiming for the open water, but the boat was in the way. The bigger ones do this a lot.
I cranked furiously and tightened it just as it plowed under the anchor line. Somehow I passed the pole under the anchor rope and breathed a sigh of relief when I felt his bulk on the end of the line.
Then he went on another run. I stood on the bow, pole overhead, savoring every sizzling second of the maniac’s run. Looking over for applause, I saw Pelayo beaming as he swung in a flounder.
Working around another point with shrimp-tipped beetles, we limited out on reds, and added a half-dozen school trout, three puppy drum and four gorgeous flounder to the box..
When I say “working a point,” I don’t mean passing through with a trolling motor and making one or two casts. If a point looks good (depth, moving water, oysters), we anchor and work it over.
Sometimes the reds don’t show up right away. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes or so. Fine. We’re in no hurry out here.
Humberto Fontova is author of The Hellpig Hunt (discounted copies available at www.louisianasportsman.com) and the newly released Fidel; Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant, described as “Absolutely devastating! An enlightening read you’ll never forget” by David Limbaugh.
