Trolling for speckled trout came late in Chuck and Zelita “Z” Cristina’s fishing lives.
Most of their years they have been live bait fishermen, largely because Z has severe carpal tunnel syndrome and repetitive casting causes severe pain.
“It doesn’t hurt when I reel fish in, though,” she confessed. “I guess it’s the excitement.”
Chuck said he was inspired to try trolling after reading the chapter on master speckled trout troller Harry Hildebrand in the book “Trout Masters: How Louisiana’s Best Anglers Catch the Lunkers.”
“I read the chapter a few times, and his dedication intrigued me,” Chuck said. “Then I went fishing. You gotta go to know. We didn’t catch a fish until the third or fourth trip.”
“I didn’t like it at first,” Z said with a shrug. “It was kind of boring. Then when we caught that first fish, it was panic. That rod bent over and we had to get the other lines in. We didn’t know what to expect.”
“The good thing is that if they hit the bait trolling, they are caught,” Chuck said. “Those lures have two or three sets of treble hooks, so no hook-setting is involved.”
“I kind of love it, now,” said Z with her $1 million smile. “It’s relaxing and it’s exciting. And I’ve never caught a throwback.”
Both agree that speckled trout caught trolling are larger than those caught other ways, and Chuck thinks he knows why.
“Big speckled trout eat more fish and less shrimp,” he explained. “The plugs we use imitate fish. Plus the lures are bigger than plastics on jigs.”
They do most of their trolling along the Causeway bridge, although they will work the bulkhead at the Lakefront Airport in New Orleans.
“The little bridges (the Trestles and the Highway 11 bridges) have too many boats casting to troll along them,” Chuck explaine. “A lot of them are anchored and I don’t like messing them up.
“The Causeway is so long — 24 miles, that you have plenty of room to troll, even if there are a lot of casters on the water.
