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Timbalier Time
Boats stream across Timbalier Bay as the weather warms up and dreams of big trout draw anglers to the barrier islands, but guide Chad Dufrene doesn’t follow the pack.[…]
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Cover: May 2005
From Sabine to the Rigolets, anglers will be chasing big speckled trout this month, and we’ve got some of the hottest spots mapped out.[…]
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Cover: May 2005-Reds
Red hooks and baits are all the rage, but do they actually put more bass on the end of your line? We investigate.[…]
Bass Fishing
Tinkering with confidence
I had to look on the package to see if this would be OK or not. I mean, remove the hooks and put on red ones? Bend something, tweak this, and change that? Is it legal? No one ever told me I could do this before.
Well, the manufacturer did not say to keep away except for tying it on and casting it out, so it must be allowed, right?
Modifying your current stock of fishing lures may just be the most-important thing you do, ranking right up there with changing your line and cleaning your reels.
Sure, fishing is fishing, but we’ve all been there on days when our favorite lure just didn’t quite get the job done.
The idea of modified lures came from a good friend, Scott Louviere, who presented me with one as a going-away present last summer. Like me, Louviere likes to fish for bass in the Acadiana area.
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The Lafitte Lowdown
Maybe it’s just me, but it sure seemed like a long winter. Some of the poor folks up north dubbed it “the winter that wouldn’t die,” which sounded more like a pathetic plot in a Grade B movie than a weather condition.
And even though this winter finally lost its frosty grip on the thermometer, it left behind these blustery, nagging, unending winds specifically to pester and harass us fishermen.
But the long winter drought is over, the sun has steadily warmed up the water, the shrimp are beginning to make their annual appearance, and the trout are slamming baits all over the Southeast Louisiana coastline.[…]
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Red Rage
Red is hot. Red is a strong color that conjures up conflicting emotions from passionate love to violence and warfare. […]
Bass Fishing
Prehistoric Pearl
As the Pearl River flows past the town of Bogalusa on its way to Lake Borgne, the winding path provides a state line for Louisiana and Mississippi, but the scenic beauty offered by the river is boundless.[…]
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Offshore Omniscience
Louisiana offshore anglers are spoiled, with a fishery that is arguably the best in the country. It’s absolutely the best in the Gulf of Mexico.[…]
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Not a Novelty
The small cove on the eastern end of Calcasieu Lake looked much like any other stretch of uninhabited shoreline. It wasn’t so much of a cove as a dip in the largely featureless stretch of bank.[…]
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Map Feature: Sabine Lake
The heavy fog, which had inundated the extreme southwestern part of the state, was just beginning to break when the 9-pound redfish began its assault on the southern end of Sabine Lake, trying in vain to render the colorful MirrOlure useless for the remainder of the day.[…]
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Flooded Felines
The sky was a gorgeous dark grey — almost black — as we pounded into Breton Sound. Lovely little white caps topped the waves like frosting on chocolate cake, the swells between them heavily rippled by the savage gusts that had kicked up just seconds earlier.[…]
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False Bottom
The bass rod bowed as if I’d hooked a big largemouth and was trying to wrestle the fish out of thick lily pads.[…]
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Blue-Collar Cats
“Come on, come on, don’t play with it. Yeah baby,” Christine whooped.Swinging my seat around to watch the action, I was just in time to see her give a non-lady-like, lip-ripping yank.[…]
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Cover: April 2005
ON THE COVER: You don’t need crickets to lure strikes from hand-sized bream, like these caught by Gabby Crawford, Taylor Masson, and Andy Crawford.[…]
Bass Fishing
Living the Dream
I admit, when it comes to bass fishing I am only a novice at best. That doesn’t keep me from daydreaming, however, that I just might be able to hang with some of the pros if the conditions were right.
Like most fish stories, this “hanging with the pros” stuff sounds like stretching a 14-inch fish into another category. But isn’t a guy entitled to his dreams? Moreover, I realize that if I were a betting man, I certainly wouldn’t be betting on yours truly. Yet, note that I said, “I might be able to hang … if the conditions were right.”
My first condition would be to fish the canals south of the Intracoastal Waterway and east of Bayou Sale Bay. It is in these canals that I dream of going pro.
The second condition would be making sure I was ready to start fishing the moment the tide started to fall. The short time frame where the tide sort of stands motionless is when you should be running to the canals to rig up your favorite bait.
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Cover: April 2005-Specks
ON THE COVER: Sportsman Editor Tadd Masson caught this big trout in March. What’s in store for speck anglers the rest of this year? Find out in this issue.[…]