Nighttime trout bite on fire out of Dularge, guide says

Redfish limits routine on day trips in the marsh

Speckled trout might be hard to come by during the day out of Dularge right now without live bait, but the nighttime bite on plastics is solid offshore on just about any lit rig,  according to a fishing guide.

Capt. Marty LaCoste, with Absolute Fishing Charters, said that’s a pretty routine scenario for the middle of summer around Dularge.

“This is a typical pattern that happens this time of year. The trout bite slows in the daytime unless you have live bait,” LaCoste said. “We can’t get croakers over here unless you can get lucky and stop a shrimp boat that’s picking up its nets in the morning. Other than that, no one sells live bait over here. You just can’t get it.

“But if you fish at night, you can murder them on plastic and limit out.”

Specks are biting at night under any offshore lighted structure on double-rigged Matrix and Vortex Shad in avocado and purple haze.

If it’s lit up, LaCoste said the fish will be there near the surface.

“The only thing you have to do is position your boat outside of the light. It doesn’t matter which way the current is going or anything,” he said. “The bait is attracted to the lights and the trout are attracted to the bait, so it doesn’t matter.

“ None of that (boat position and casting in relation to the current) comes into play at night.”

Redfish-wise, LaCoste said the bite was “off the charts” right now with weedless gold spoons and Vortex Shad in purple haze on a 1/4-ounce jighead with a gold spinner.

“We limited out on reds Thursday morning by 8 catching on every cast, and we left them biting,” he said. “All of our marsh right now is chock-a-block grass. It’s all grassed up, so we’re basically having to fish the grass lines in the marsh.

“They’re right on the outer edges of the grass, and there’s also been a lot of redfish on the banks of the lakes.”

He suggested trying ponds north of Sister Lake, Lake De Cade, Lost Lake and Lake Mechant for redfish.

Except for a slight chance of spotty afternoon storms, LaCoste said the weekend weather forecast looked pretty good.

“They’re calling for pretty calm winds and only a 20 percent chance of rain,” he said. “We’ve been dealing with storms around us just about every day, but for the weekend they’re saying 20 percent.

“That’s the least we’ve had in the last couple of weeks.”

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Patrick Bonin is the former editor of Louisiana Sportsman magazine and LouisianaSportsman.com.