Whether Henderson Lake is up or down in June, a Broussard bass fisherman expects to hook and reel in bass in one of two areas.
Fifty-two-year-old Jeremy Girouard has his fishin’ rods at the ready, each loaded with an artificial lure he relies on when the calendar page turns from May to June. His lure selection ranges from black or white Zara Spooks and Yellow Magics to purple Zoom Trick Worms or Zoom Speed Worms if the water’s high like it was in mid-May. If the water settles down within most of its banks, he’ll feed them ¾-ounce crawfish-colored Rat-L-Traps and more of the purple Speed Worms diet.
Those combinations have triggered bites consistently since Girouard started taking bass fishing seriously, i.e., when his daughter, Lily Girouard, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering at UL-Lafayette, got into the sport seven years ago as a freshman on the Teurlings Catholic High School Fishing Team. Before then he was content tapping bream and sac-a-lait, occasionally tangling with bass, beginning at age 12.
The Accurate Measurement Controls Inc. project manager grew up learning the lake, too, where to go in the different seasons and varying water levels. He looks forward to fishing the lake in June, no matter the water level.
The topwater bite
If Henderson Lake is still high this month, Girouard targets bass either at Lake Atotoy or across the south flats below Interstate 10. The best time for topwater action with the Zara Spook or Yellow Magic is “right at daylight,” he said, noting he works them around cypress trees.
“June is usually when the topwater bite is really good,” he said. “On cloudy days you can keep it in your hand all day long. A lot of times you can make it last all day with a (plastic) frog or the little Yellow Magic I was telling you about.”
Otherwise, he switches gears after the early morning hours.
“I usually go to the worm the rest of the day… with those purple worms (Trick Worm and Speed Worm). That’s what I taught my daughter to fish with. Kept a purple worm in her hands till she could catch fish in a bathtub on it,” he said with a chuckle.
He stays in 2- to 5-foot depths whether the lake is low or high.
“Two- to 5-foot’s a magic number in Henderson,” he said the first week of May. At the time, the water was high, which he didn’t mind that much.
“That lake, the higher the water gets, the better it’ll be when it drops,” he said.
Top spots
When the water falls, bass fishing success ramps up accordingly. Girouard focuses on the upper parts of the lake around North Lake Bigeux and Phillips Canal, which has beaucoup trenasses, sloughs and such feeding into it.
“That’d be the two majors (top destinations). As for me, I like to stay close to the main drag. When it’s low, the Phillips area is the most productive canal,” said Girouard, who is one of the winningest bass tournament anglers on and around the lake.
He’ll fish Rat-L-Traps (he’ll put a shad-colored ½-ounce Trap into the mix if the bass are bustin’ shad) in and around the mouth of drains along Phillips Canal and along dropoffs around North Lake Bigeux. Ditto for the purple Speed Worm.
