Crappie/Bream
August’s Best Bets
Saltwater
Where: Grand Isle: Caminada Pass, Barataria Pass and Elmer’s Island beach
What: Bull reds and jack crevalle in the passes, and trout on the beach[…]
Crappie/Bream
Crappie/Bream
Louisiana crappie fishing getting national attention
Having fished crappie tournaments all over the nation, Ronnie Capps has seen more energy for the professional side of crappie fishing the last couple of years than he has ever seen in his entire 30-year fishing career.[…]
Crappie/Bream
A crappie hot dog
Very few people can tell you the exact day they got serious about fishing, especially one with 70 years tucked under his belt.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Tip of the day
Dave Pizzolato discards the plastic pegs that come with his corks and replaces them with the tapered tips of wooden chopsticks. “If the peg comes out, plastic sinks but wood floats,” he grinned.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Pizzolato’s Top 7 tips for Old River
1) Learn to tight-line. Using a cork doesn’t allow fishing to be done deep enough to fish the 12 to 14 feet needed on the most important fish-holding structure — piers and pilings in front of camps.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Be on the lookout for Rios
Rio Grande cichlids are an invasive species that has spread throughout the metropolitan New Orleans area. Found in fresh and brackish areas, they are becoming a more common catch by anglers fishing for bream and sunfish. Rios are more aggressive at defending their territory, and the concern is they could possibly totally displace native bream. […]
Crappie/Bream
Slick tops and spiders for Ouachita crappie
This time of the year, fishing has slowed down quite a bit, but it isn’t the fish — it’s the fishermen. You’ll find crappie fishing the Ouachita River.[…]
Columns
So what’s a sunperch?
Louisiana’s bream fishermen have a pile of fish to choose from. Tops on the list are bluegills and redear sunfish (also called lake runners or chinquapin). And fat-bellied goggle-eyes are always in the mix somewhere. In a lot of places, you can throw in some green sunfish (slick perch) or red-spotted sunfish (stumpknockers). […]
Crappie/Bream
Push-poling for slabs
With the advent of today’s electronics, this national champion crappie angler says old-fashioned spider-rigging is a thing of the past.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Jigging up Old River slabs
Determining when to fish Old River isn’t guesswork. Dave Pizzolato watches river gages, specifically the Mississippi River station at Baton Rouge.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Hit the Basin now for beastly goggle-eye, bluegill
Darren Cooper and I sat in Doiron’s Store at 6:30 a.m., waiting for an early morning thunderstorm to pass over the lower Atchafalaya Basin. It had been several years since we had gotten together to catch bream in the huge swamp — and a slowly falling Atchafalaya River gave great promise to our day.[…]
Crappie/Bream
The man and his boat
In spite of having lived a high-powered life, Leonard Kleinpeter is living proof that effective fishing doesn’t demand investment in an expensive fiberglass bass boat.[…]
Crappie/Bream
The plaque in the swamp
Bass, crappie and bream fishermen who frequent the canals of Crackerhead can’t help but to have seen a solid brass plaque mounted on one of a pair of modest-sized cypress trees standing in the water off a canal bank.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Tip of the day
He smelled so good I wanted to lick him.
Leonard Kleinpeter has just sprayed himself with bug repellant, but not the stinky stuff in a can.[…]
Crappie/Bream
Geared up and ready to go
With tackle stores full of a thousand sizes, shapes, styles and colors of crappie jigs and fishing equipment, you could spend days or weeks just trying to figure out what to fish with. Or you could just let Bobby Phillips tell you his favorite go-to gear, and copy this veteran guide’s success.[…]
Crappie/Bream
The Ouachita’s long and winding path
There are more than 90 miles of Ouachita River between the Arkansas line and the Columbia Lock and Dam in Northeast Louisiana. The river lakes, bayous and cuts off the river are too numerous to mention. But the nice thing is that good access is available up and down the river, and prime fishing isn’t far away. […]