Freshwater Fishing
Change has come to Black Bayou Lake
Freddie McMullen, now a successful 51-year-old Monroe orthodontist, spent his formative years on Black Bayou Lake. […]
Freshwater Fishing
Freshwater Fishing
Black Bayou Lake is pretty as a postcard
Black Bayou Lake, the centerpiece of the Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge, is pretty as a postcard. […]
Freshwater Fishing
Kincaid Lake
Kincaid Lake is about 10 miles west of Alexandria south of Highway 28 West. It lies partially within Kisatchie National Forest.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
The bream of Louisiana
The word “bream” (pronounced “brim”) is a Southernism. Our northern friends call them by their proper species name, or they lump them all together as sunfish — which sounds altogether too sissy-like. In the South, we talk about bull bream.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Chinquapins/Lake Runners
This bream, officially known as the redear sunfish, is named for the red-margined flap extending rearward from its gill cover.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Bluegills
This feisty species is definitely the backbone of the bream fishery. It gets big — for a bream —at 10 inches, and during its summer-long spawning season forms dense beds of nests.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Tippets
Speckled trout action should be gangbusters this month after a colder than normal spring. There was plenty of clear water in April and that favors topwater action.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
A better anchor
Although Lyle Soileau definitely uses a standard anchor, he also has another tool to help hold his pontoon boat in place.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Never cut an anchor loose again
Bream will stack up where tangles of cover is scattered along the lake bottom, and that means anchoring often results in anchor hang-ups.
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Freshwater Fishing
Looking for Toledo Bend bream in all the right places
Toledo Bend is vast, so there are myriad areas in which to look for bream beds.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Groving deep-hooked fish
Any slack in the line will allow fish to swallow the hook pretty deep. And the small mouths of bream can make it difficult to remove them.[…]
Columns
Oxbow blues
Look at a map of eastern Louisiana, from Bastrop to New Roads, and you’ll realize the power of the mighty Mississippi. Over millennia, the great river has carved out dozens of deep waterways, most of which have become isolated from the river’s flow. […]
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Limited Time Offer — Late-spring fishing tips for D’Arbonne Lake crappie
We are constantly bombarded by television and radio commercials commanding us to “ACT NOW BECAUSE THIS OFFER WON’T LAST LONG!”[…]
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Mr. Gog — Tips for fishing for Atchafalaya Basin goggle-eye
The Atchafalaya Basin and google-eye bream just kind of go together — like grits and eggs or beans and rice. I was in the saddle with the old Atchafalaya Basin pro, Jim Looney, the author or four books on fishing bass and an astounding seven books on fishing for bream and sac-a-lait in the huge swamp.[…]
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Running of the bulls — How to catch Black Bayou Lake’s bull bream
The broad-shouldered man actually tiptoed when he moved around in his boat. “Being quiet,” he explained, “is real important when you are fishing for bull bream in shallow, clear water.”
We were indeed in shallow water — 2 to 3 feet deep. Through the tea-colored water, multiple, round plate-sized bream beds could be seen as dark blotches on a lighter bottom. A resident male bluegill was likely hovering over or around the nest, guarding it against intruders that could eat his eggs or young.[…]
Contents
Deep-drop Bream — How to catch summer bream in deep reservoirs
Is there anything better than the fast action of a spring bream bed? The big redears we call shellcrackers in South Louisiana and chinquapin up north go to the warming shallows first, followed by bluegill and other sunfish.
When that happens, it’s time to take advantage of the golden opportunity to battle big panfish on a fly rod or ultra-light spinning gear.
Filling the cooler with chunky “bull” bream can work up an appetite, remedied by a fish fry at sundown. It’s just one more reason to love spring in the South.[…]