“I’d been fishing that exact same spot faithfully for several weeks, literally every single day,” Weiss said. “I would show up early and anchor my boat in the same spot and throw out a big live shrimp or a croaker.
“I had caught several big fish there in recent weeks, not the least of which was the big trout that stayed on the leaderboard for a few weeks, and was bumped by a trout caught in Venice by (Fritz Englade) who was fishing with a good friend of mine, Charlie Lieux. Charlie called to tell me about the fish. That was on a Thursday.
“On Sunday, I got up like I usually do, and was sitting on the point where I’d been fishing at about 6 o’clock. At about 6:30, I had a rod in the rod holder with a little live croaker on it, and the rod bent in half.
“I picked it up, not knowing what was going to come up, and this huge trout broke the surface and shook his head. He was just huge, and it was obvious he was bigger than anything I’d caught recently.
“The fish fought pretty well, but it was more like a big lummox than a fast-running fish. Fortunately, it came to the boat and went in the net pretty easily, and as soon as it hit the floor of the boat, I knew it was really big — 8 pounds plus.
“I got really excited, and I called two people. The first one I called was (frequent fishing partner) Ricky Trahant. He answered the phone, and I said, ‘Ricky, I’ve got a really, really big one.’ Well, Ricky has this thing about, ‘How long is it” because that’s how we judge how big they might be. I said, ‘Ricky, I put him in the well, and I’m not taking him out because I’m afraid he’s going to jump out of the boat!’ I said, ‘Ricky, he’s over 8 pounds!’
“So, I started calling Chas Champagne at Dockside Marina in Slidell, and I finally reached him, and I said, ‘Chas, get your camera. I’m going to meet you at the dock. I have a really big fish to weigh.’
“At 6:45, I was heading to Dockside Marina, and by 7 o’clock, we had the fish weighed. The official weight was 8.02.”
The fish had a massive frame that could have supported much more weight, but its sunken belly was an indication that it hadn’t eaten in a while and had spawned out.
Weiss isn’t one of those anglers who just lucks into trophy trout every now and then — he targets them just about every day.
“I have two fish that are over 9,” Weiss said. “One of them is on the wall in Gus’ Tackle & Net in Slidell, and the other one I caught before Katrina, and I had him at the Sportsmen’s Show in New Orleans, and Dudley Vandenborre asked if he could have the fish — if I wasn’t going to do anything with it — to give to a friend of his who was a taxidermist. That fish was lost in Katrina because the fellow’s electricity went out.
“Both 9s were from Lake Pontchartrain. One was at Highway 11. I was fishing by myself at the time, and caught it on a Deadly Dudley. The other I caught at the Twin Spans.
“Both days, just like this big fish, I caught very few fish — just the one big bite. That seems to be the way it goes. You’re in a spot for a big fish and you’re very patient, and lo and behold a big one bites now and then.”
There are a few reasons Weiss’ favorite fishing destination — Lake Pontchartrain — holds so many big speckled trout, in Weiss’ opinion.
“There’s a ton of bait in Lake Pontchartrain, and the lake is huge,” he said. “It’s 50 miles long and more than 20 miles wide, and it’s connected by two very deep passageways — the Chef and the Rigolets — that lead directly out to the Gulf of Mexico.
“Those fish can come and go and have everything they need. The really deep water in the Rigolets, during thick and thin, holds those big fish, and they get out in the lake in the fall and in the spring, and continually move back and forth.”
Even within the lake, though, there are only a few spots that consistently hold big fish. For anglers who want to have some STAR success of their own, Weiss has some advice.
“Find out where big fish have been caught because it’s repeated over and over again every year,” he said. “The same spots produce those big fish, mainly in the Rigolets by Highway 90, the L&N bridge, Treasure Isle, the Highway 11 bridge, the Twin Spans to a lesser extent, the Causeway and the artificial reefs in the lake. They all hold big fish.
“If you’re fishing a shoreline, if you’re fishing in the middle of a shallow area like Lake Catherine, along the shoreline in Lake Borgne, Mud Lake, Bayou Liberty, Bayou Lacombe — you’re very, very unlikely to catch a really big fish.”
For more information on the 2013 CCA STAR tournament, visit ccastar.com.
