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Poor Man’s Lobster
The morning hadn’t gone well. We’d only caught one speckled trout — the only bite we’d had.[…]
Fishing
Bass Fishing
Perfecting Patterns
Roland Martin is given credit for having coined the phrase “pattern fishing” during the 1970s. He was one of the first anglers in the country to understand that replicating the exact set of water conditions like depth, cover, structure, temperature, clarity and current prevalent when he got a bite would lead to many more bites.[…]
Bass Fishing
ReAction frog sounds like a buzz bait.
The guru of soft-plastic lure manufacturing always figured he probably had another hit on his hands with the Ribbit.[…]
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Insight on Cocodrie’s Inside
It was a typical Louisiana spring day — the wind was howling to beat the band, and the water was, well, less than clear.[…]
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Dirty-Water Reds
We’d just passed the Blue Angel at the entrance to the Naval base when I finally started dozing off. The truck cab was dark and the radio low.[…]
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Basin Bream Bash
Gabby was never much of a fisherman. Oh, sure, she’d go out with the family when we would fish, but just so she could feel the wind in her hair as we ran the boat from one spot to another.[…]
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A Fickle Lady
In the days before any European set foot in the New World, the shorelines surrounding Lake Pontchartrain were inhabited by several Native American tribes. Bayougoula, Mougoulacha, Chitimacha, Colapissa, Quinipissalive and the “corn-gatherers,” or Tangipahoa Indians, fished the big lake they called “Okwa-ta,” the wide water.[…]
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2005 Speck Forecast
As a biologist, Jerald Horst has cut out the livers of speckled trout, and examined them under microscopes.
He’s run his fingers through gravid ovaries packed with ripe, orange roe.
He’s opened stomachs to discover their contents.
But there was nothing scientific about Horst’s reaction last month when a trout as long as a man’s arm carved a hole in the water with its gaping maw, and sucked in his She Dog.
The sounds were loud enough to be heard on the other side of the small marsh lake — first from the fish crashing the bait, then from Horst, who jumped to his feet and squealed like a schoolgirl who just caught a glimpse of her favorite boy-band member.
After several earlier near-misses from other fish, Horst practiced great restraint in letting the big trout take the bait for a second or two before yanking the rod upward like Paul Bunyan starting a swing of his axe.
The light-action rod bowed like a noodle, its tip seeming to crawl along the line, refusing to miss a moment of the action.
A veteran angler who has logged more hours than he’d ever admit in the surf at Grand Isle, Fourchon and Elmer’s Island, Horst had caught bigger trout in his life, but this one was special, just like all fish lured to the surface by a topwater plug.[…]
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Winter Wading
Human nature seems to require most fishermen to try and make something happen before it’s really the ideal time.[…]
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Scaredy Rats
Capt. Theophile Bourgeois has no couth.
He lacks respect for tradition.[…]
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Rig Rodeo
The number on the cell phone said Pelayo was calling, from HIS cell phone. I flipped the little sucker open.[…]
Bass Fishing
Paradise Parks
Louisiana’s state parks offer outstanding bass fishing in the spring and throughout the year. Here’s Louisiana Sportsman’s top-five picks, and tips on how to fill the livewell.[…]
Fishing
Depth-finders are cheap insurance
About two decades ago, a friend and I witnessed a miracle. We were fishing a stump bed in about 3 feet of water at the edge of a large bay on a popular freshwater lake.[…]
Bass Fishing
HoneyBuzz attracts bass like bees
When Dave Trantham finished compiling a checklist from other bass anglers on what they wanted in a buzz bait, he started designing one that has created quite a buzz from coast to coast.[…]
Columns
There are a million Bretts out there
Joe Kahler and I were at the Little Missouri River recently, one of two coldwater trout fisheries less than 3 hours north of Shreveport. Stocking season was in full swing, and for fly rodders, the newly arrived fish were easy pickings.
Well, not for all fly rodders.
[…]
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Flat-Lining
In medical parlance, flat-lining carries some very negative associations.[…]