Morgan City outdoorsman Bill McCarty said docks were definitely the ticket this month for slab sac-a-lait feeding up for the winter.
McCarty, who’s also an avid bass angler in and around the Spillway and an accomplished bowhunter who hunts deer on the Atchafalaya Delta WMA, has his favorite docks for sac-a-lait fishing — and didn’t mind sharing the locations with Louisiana Sportsman.
“A lot of times the sac-a-lait will bite around the docks around Bayou Magazille and Four Mile Bayou and up and down Bayou Melhomme,” McCarty said.
And McCarty doesn’t target just any dock: The docks in deeper water, he said, always seem to hold more of the slabs averaging ¾- to 1 pound.
He likes to fish docks with at least 4 feet of water under them, and prefers those in 6-foot depths — especially in Bayou Melhomme. With colder water temperatures the norm, sac-a-lait tend to position themselves closer to the bottom away from the cooler upper-layer of the water.
But as the sun comes up and warms the water, the sac-a-lait move closer to the surface to feed, which is why McCarty and others in the know don’t go after them at the crack of dawn — or even before 8 to 9 a.m. most of the time.
Sac-a-lait can be caught in those and other areas this month on shiners, but for those who prefer fishing with artificials like McCarty, a blue/silver, blue/white or gray/white (in that order) Luck-E-Strike soft plastic tube jig about 4 feet deep, always tipped with a chartreuse Crappie Nibble, consistently gets the desired result — weather and water conditions permitting.
“If I can’t catch them on a jig, I’ll use a shiner,” he said.
If sac-a-lait turn their nose up at natural bait and artificials, McCarty turns to an old reliable and casts a 1/16- or 1/8-ounce white or yellow Beetle Spin, which he slow rolls like a spinnerbait.
“You can get bit that way,” he said.
If the docks in those areas don’t produce, try Doiron’s Canal. It’s a deep canal but as the day warms, sac-a-lait move shallower to feed, he said.
Other prime sac-a-lait fishing destinations around Stephensville include wellheads in the Oxy Field, and also try Bayou Charamie and Bayou Sherman.
He’s even been catching some in the evenings right off his houseboat in Land End Park Campground & Marina at Lake Palourde, so also give the marina waters a try this month.
