The weather is finally cooperating after a blazing, hot summer and the Lake Salvador area should be holding some fat sac-a-lait, according to veteran fisherman Bruce McDonald of Luling, while in Lake Cataouache, plenty of bass are being caught.
In Lake Salvador, specifically, some crappie holes to note in the Salvador WMA are the 100-Pound Canal, Alligator Pond and The Fence going toward bayou Des Allemandes, according to McDonald.
“Best bait for sac-a-lait (have been): blue/white, blue/chartreuse, red/white, black/white, black/chartreuse mini-jigs under a cork, 1/32-ounce pearl swim baits, any mini-jig rigged with a No. 1 gold spinner cast and retrieve,” McDonald said.
Andre Smith of Schriever, a pro staffer for Crappie Psychic, said that the sac-a-lait are moving into their fall pattern, so they’ll begin feeding more as it gets closer to spawning season.
Where to find Cataouache bass
Brent Comardelle of Luling and I went bass fishing on Oct. 5 and found some success near the back of the tank ponds in Lake Cataouache around grass and underwater brush. Comardelle used a watermelon red Zoom Fluke as a topwater bait, a method that he said he stumbled upon on accident.
“(I wasn’t) catching any fish, so I just started throwing the Fluke and reeling it in on top of the water, and a huge bass jumped out of the water to hit it. I was shaking,” Comardelle said.
Topwater fishing, however, is only good in the early morning and late afternoon or in periods of low light, like cloudy days, Comardelle said.
As the day progressed, we switched to a red Speed Craw underneath a 1/4-ounce bullet weight. Comardelle lets it sink to the bottom and keeps it there, very seldom pulling it up to the middle of the water column. Many of the bass that we caught were caught on a nearly motionless green or red, 31/2-inch Speed Craw in the late morning.
Comardelle said two techniques have helped him put bass in the boat around lilies. First, he casts a Speed Craw into the lilies and slowly reels it off the edge, where bass were waiting for it. Second, he’ll cast a spinnerbait behind a patch of lilies and reel it into the open water, where a bass would be waiting to ambush prey.
