Raceland’s David King and David McMath were surprised with their catches of numerous quality bass at Lac Des Allemands Feb. 5.
As anglers, we’ve all heard that the best time to go fishing is before a frontal passage.
And sure enough, most any bass angler can tell you that such advice is right on — 99% of the time.
By comparison, bass fishing immediately after a front can be down outright awful. That’s when anglers often say — bass have a solid case of lockjaw.
But such certainly didn’t happen for Raceland’s David King and his fishing buddy, David McMath of Houma, Feb. 5.
How their day went
King and McMath had formulated a plan after checking the weather, and they were going to score early that morning in canals bordering Lac Des Allemands.
“We started out by launching at sunrise that morning,” said 30-year-old King. “We knew a bad storm was coming, but we had a few hours to fish before it arrived.”
The anglers decided to fish the man-made, dead-end canals, and both were working Delta Lures’ Thunder Jigs, the gold-delta shad versions.
“We tried a few areas in the canals, fishing in 1 to 5 feet of water,” King said.
“We caught nothing at all.”
And then the storm came through, and it hit the area hard.
There is no cover at all along the banks of the dead-end canals in Lac Des Allemands.
“It was torrential,” King said. “We were in the boat and just kept fishing.
“We really felt the winds at one point,” he said. “And we were pretty wet.”
Eventually the rains came to a halt, and the winds shifted to coming out of the north.
“It was 10 a.m. and we reached the end of the canal, so I turned the boat around and began heading south,” King said. “We were going back to fish everything we had just fished during the rain.”
After the rain
King made a couple of casts, and on his very next throw a good fish hit the Thunder Jig hard.
“I worked it over to the boat after it pulled a little drag and saw it was a good bass,” he said. King and McMath estimated the fish to weigh 5 pounds and some change.
The angling duo continued south along the canal and cast up close to the base of some shoreline reeds.
“In just 1 ½ minutes I had another good fish on, and this one looked to be closer to 4 pounds,” he said.
McMath too was catching fish as the vessel continued to be pushed south along the shoreline with the trolling motor.
“The catching continued like that where we caught a fish every three to five minutes,” King said.
Altogether, King said the anglers caught near 40 bass with the majority ranging 2 to 4 pounds.
“It ended up to be a great day out there fishing despite the aftermath of the front pushing through,” he said.
“It was just so unusual that the fish really turned on after the front and not before it.”
What they used
As for tackle, King cast his lure tied to 18-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon spooled to an Abu Garcia Revo STX reel fixed to a 6-foot 10-inch, medium-heavy Falcon rod.
By all practical wisdom in bass fishing, it would be difficult that this would occur again, but anglers should always be ready.
The bass taken were all in the prespawn mode, but King knew that it wouldn’t be long until the fish would be sitting on shallow flats in the area engaging in spawning behaviors.
“When they start spawning in this area, I usually switch up to pitching wacky worms, Senkos and even Smithwick’s Rattlin’ Rogues,” he said.
As for the size of Lac Des Allemands’ bass, tournament anglers have won with bags weighing 20 pounds and a bit better.
In April, Lac Des Allemands’ bass will be about through the spawn, and then they will be chasing shad, bream and baitfish.
“I’ll catch bass after the spawn along points and near structure in several areas of the lake,” King said. “And of course the postspawn bass will certainly be deeper.”
In April, Kings has been successful fishing the following lures for postspawn bass feeding on shad and baitfish. He’ll cast spinnerbaits, squarebill crankbaits, Whopper Ploppers and Rat-L-Traps with success in these waters.
