One of the most popular areas to catch fish in the southern part of the state in May is a few minutes away from Doiron’s Boat Landing and the refurbished convenience store in Stephensville.
Larry Doiron of Morgan City, the owner of both mainstays in this part of the Sportsman’s Paradise, points people, as always, to the bream fishing hotspots in and around Bayou Cheramie, such as the Oxy Field, Bayou Sherman and the outer cypress trees that line Grassy Lake.
Long term producer
The 53-year-old Doiron has seen the area produce bream for the 45 years he’s been associated with Doiron’s Boat Landing, which his father, the late Larry Doiron Sr., built in 1978, five years after he purchased the property in south central Louisiana. Larry Doiron and his wife, Angela, bought the business from his parents in 2019 and remodeled the store the past few years to cater to fishermen and local residents.
Some things remain the same, however. Bream bit in those hotspots way back then and they still bite there now in May.
“Some weekends we’ll go through 10,000 crickets in the month of May,” he said. “April and May, you know, are big months.”
Oh, the common earthworm is a favorite, too, among the many fishermen who also like putting catfish in the ice chest.
“Most of those who fish out of our place would rather fish crickets,” Doiron said. “Ninety percent use crickets. I guess it’s hard for bream to pass up (crickets).”
Find a bream bed and you’ll commence filling up the ice chest, he said. Your best bet is to find mixing water, at the least, or clear water that is in the back end of most canals around Bayou Cheramie.
“Once you catch two or three in one spot, you can catch quite a few,” said the 53-year-old outdoorsman who also loves to take family and friends off-shore fishing in his 37-foot Freeman, The Reel Deal, weather and water conditions permitting.
Warm spell starts it
The bream bite actually kicked off during a warm spell in late March this year, Doiron said, but cooled off during a cold front a little later in the month. Another warming trend jump-started bream action as they resumed doing their thing on beds across the lower part of Acadiana. Look for the bream beds, which resemble “moon craters,” and they’ll pay big dividends as each bream is picked off and deposited for a future fish fry.
“Now’s the time,” Doiron said.
Sure, Doiron admitted there are beaucoup people on the water and in many of the bream hotspots in late spring. But, he said in the same breath,
“You can find a place nobody is at. They’ve just got so many canals back there.”
Successful bream fishermen in this area most often fish a cricket 2-feet deep below a cork, he said. Most use spinning rods and 8-pound test line, according to Doiron. But you can also use a plain old-fashioned cane pole or your favorite lightweight fishing gear. Just get ‘em a cricket and they’ll do the rest.
