Inshore Fishing
Great Wall is amazing
The Great Wall is almost 2 miles long and runs across the St. Bernard marsh, blocking the MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, or Ship Channel), Bayou Bienvenue and the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway).[…]
Fishing
Columns
Do we have a tiger by the tail?
Louisiana is a shrimp-crazy state. Until being battered by cheaper imports, shrimp fisheries were the backbone of the economies of many coastal communities. The value of the fishery dwarfed the others.[…]
Columns
The Gold Mine
If you fish the famed Sulfur Mine in Galliano, you likely won’t find any gold, but you will find lots of silver and bronze. This old industrial mine site is a perfect place to take your kayak for limits of wintertime specks and reds.[…]
Columns
Stop before you clean it
Strip… strip… strip.
My mind was setting the cadence for a very slow retrieve of my weighted fly. Holding to the bottom meant that any change in the slack between rod tip and water would either be fish or snag.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Construction of second artificial reef in Lake Pontchartrain begins
Construction of a new Lake Pontchartrain artificial reef built from debris from the old Interstate 10 Twin Span bridges that were damaged during Hurricane Katrina was begun last week (Dec. 21), with the pile of concrete being named after a well-known lake guide and his wife.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Delacroix trout smackdown continues
It was drizzling when I stepped out of my truck at Sweetwater Marina early Monday (Dec. 5), the first signs of a front that was barreling through the state. I just shook my head, wriggled into my rain suit and headed to meet the two guys I’d be fishing with that morning.
I had told Scott Walker that I didn’t want to waste a day out of the office because I was slammed, and he had promised me it wouldn’t take long to fill our limits of speckled trout.
His confidence was more than braggadocio: I was back at the dock barely more than two hours later, loading up an ice chest full of speckled trout and heading back to the office.[…]
Bass Fishing
Yellow Magic
Sixty-year-old Texan Butch Ray can relate to the buzz heard for months this year around Toledo Bend and on Southwest Louisiana waters about a high-end topwater bait with a beautiful body and a seductive sound.[…]
Columns
This perch is a hussy
Sometimes we can’t help but assign human traits to other creatures, no matter how scientifically incorrect it is. So it is with the green sunfish, Lepomis cyanellus.[…]
Columns
Winter yak fishing
Wintertime fishing in South Louisiana can be fantastic. The cold weather brings less fishing pressure and concentrates the fish in many areas that are easily accessible to kayak anglers.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Live shrimp available much of the winter
Since Capt. Chris Pike suggested anglers take along some live shrimp with them on their wintertime fishing trips to Delacroix Island, I wondered about the availability of live shrimp for December.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Warming weather trumps tidal range in winter
Most inshore saltwater anglers pay particular attention to the tide ranges before they hook up to their boats. The greater the range, the more tidal flow it will generate.[…]
Contents
Make It Magnolia
It didn’t take much arm-twisting to persuade Casey Kieff (504-512-7171) to take me and a couple buddies on a quick trip to fish Magnolia Lagoon.[…]
Contents
100 Days
Meet Capt. Steve Smith.
Steve’s an odd duck.
Actually, he’s not odd. He is a pretty normal-looking 52-year-old guy, sandy haired with closely set, intelligent, bright blue eyes.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Trout Rule
As a professional guide, Steve Smith will happily take clients redfishing, but his passion is clearly for speckled trout.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Strung out on string
Steve Smith is a fanatic about the line he uses. I asked why he uses spinning reels, when so many other guides would be lost without their baitcasters. His answer was simple, but led directly to his passion about lines.[…]
Fishing
The Ardent Edge
The Ardent “Edge” series of baitcasting reels were designed to be unbelievably durable, yet light enough to be fished comfortably all day.[…]