Louisiana’s two most-productive trophy trout destinations — Lakes Calcasieu and Pontchartrain — are, ironically, about as different as a one-dish fast food outlet and a buffet line.

Go to Calcasieu — the buffet line — and you’ll be almost overwhelmed at the options. No human could ever count the number of productive oyster reefs that carpet the lake bottom, and surrender speckled trout that seem big enough to swallow a small child.

But go to Pontchartrain — the one-dish fast food outlet — and you won’t have to think long and hard about where you’re going to fish. Let’s see, you’ve got a few rigs, a handful of artificial reefs, some shrinking seagrass beds and, oh yeah, the bridges.

That’s about it.

Given the dearth of structure, it’s amazing Pontchartrain anglers are able to have as much success as they do with the lunker specks.

But lack of structure may not be the lake’s limiting factor for long.

Renowned fishing guide and lure manufacturer Dudley Vandenborre is part of a small panel of individuals who are pushing the state to do something good with what Mother Nature destroyed when she pitched her temper tantrum in 2005.

Vandenborre, along with representatives from the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation and the Coastal Conservation Association, want to see the concrete harvested from the existing Interstate-10 bridges turned into artificial reefs when the new bridges are completed in 2010 or 2011.

“Right now, there’s just so little structure in the lake,” Vandenborre said. “There are schools of trout roaming around the lake that we just never see. You look at how much concrete there is on the bridges — that could go a long way to really making some great fishing spots.”

Vandenborre and a team of other experts have already begun to consider where to put the concrete.

“There are two rigs off of Goose Point that are going to have to come down,” he said. “They already have good shell pads there, so those would be good places.”

If everything falls into line, they should have enough concrete to also put a reef between the Highway 11 bridge and the train trestle as well as on the east side of the new I-10 bridge. They’re also talking about putting an intermittent rock wall to protect the grass beds that run from South Point to Little Woods.

These artificial reefs won’t be anything like the ones found elsewhere in Lake Pontchartrain. According to Vandenborre, each will be emergent, almost like isolated jetties.

“We want something that’s really going to stop the current, and give the fish a place to hide,” he said.

Boh Brothers has already been awarded the contract to remove the first 500 feet of the bridges on each side of the lake, according to Tim Osborn, regional manager for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is acting as a facilitator in the process.

This section will have to come down first to allow the new bridges to be tied into the interstate.

As usual, the only stumbling block in the process is money.

“Concrete has a lot of value,” Vandenborre said. “They crush it, and use it to make roadbeds and other things. There are also millions of pounds of steel rebar in those bridges. That’s got a lot of value as well.”

But the state needs to do whatever it can to make these reefs a reality. A little money spent now will provide many decades of benefits.

And the opportunity — we hope — is once in a lifetime.

Anglers interested in making comments on the proposal can do so by emailing tim.osborn@noaa.gov.