New rigs are helping Lake Borgne steal some of the trout-fishing limelight from Lake Pontchartrain
Lake Borgne has for a long time taken a back seat to its bigger brother, Pontchartrain, who likes to hog the spotlight and grab all the attention for the large trout it produces.
The three bridges on the east end of Pontchartrain have earned a well-deserved reputation for their productivity, but the Causeway, the power lines, the artificial reefs, Seabrook, the shorelines and rigs are also prime habitat for those much sought-after speckled trout.
Lake Borgne has long been the neglected little brother.
Certainly there are points and coves all around the edges of Lake Borgne that are known for producing both speckled trout and redfish. The area around Martello’s Castle, Proctor’s Point, Alligator Point, Pointe Aux Marchettes, Jahnke’s Ditch, the old Fort Beauregard ruins and the pilings around the old Artillery Base are often productive, as are the mouths of the various cuts and bayous into the lake.
In fact, just last month I took pictures of Capt. Mike Herrmann’s 7.25-pound speckled trout, caught on one of his own hand-painted topwater lures along the east shoreline of Lake Borgne. Oh yes, fellow anglers, there are fish on the fringes.
Nevertheless, the one thing that Lake Borgne has lacked over the years is structure in the mid-lake area.
“All of that began to change a few years ago,” said Kenny Campo Sr. of Campo’s Marina in Shell Beach (504-676-3679). “When they discovered there were natural gas deposits under the lake, gas wells started popping up everywhere out there.
“The oil companies put down a pretty extensive shell pad all around the wells, even around the smaller ones, and that structure very quickly begins to attract and hold fish. It becomes a man-made reef.
“There was always one old rig in the lake, and even though it usually held fish not many people fished it. It was out there in the middle of the lake all alone. I guess people figured that if you ran out there and struck out, there really wasn’t anywhere else to go. So, except for one or two old-timers, mostly people just didn’t fish it at all.
“Now there are gas wells and well-heads all over out there. It’s starting to look like Battledore Reef. And you know what? They hold fish! Even the new rigs have fish.
“We used to follow the old rule; give a new rig at least a couple years to begin to attract some trout. Well, you can forget that rule. These rigs are holding trout in less than a year. They’re holding trout almost by the time they finish construction.”
Campo is so confident that the mid-lake rigs will produce consistently he says he rarely heads outside to fish the sound anymore.
“Spring and summer, I fish the rigs in the Lake. I catch just as many fish as the ones who run outside; sometimes I catch even better fish than they do, and I don’t run nearly as far,” he said.
I knew that last year Campo caught a lot of nice fish in Lake Borgne, and I also knew that some very respectable fish, up to 9 pounds, came out of the lake within the last year or so.
I decided to call an old friend, Capt. Tim Ursin (985-643-5905), who fishes out of Shell Beach.
The man known as Capt. Hook, ever amenable, agreed to take me out and teach me everything there was to know about fishing the rigs. He agreed under one condition: I couldn’t share the information with anyone.
Soooo, let’s keep what you read here just between us, OK?
We met at Campo’s dock at daybreak, and once I stowed my gear aboard Hook’s 22-foot bay boat, we headed across the Ship Channel into Lake Borgne and made the 6 1/2-mile run to the first big rig we saw.
“We’re probably two or three miles off the mouth of Bayou Grande here,” Hook said, as he killed the big outboard and dropped the trolling motor over the bow. “We’ll just take our time, troll around the rig, and see if we come up with anything.”
Since we made this trip before shrimp season opened, neither live shrimp nor croakers were available at the time. We would have to fish the rigs strictly with plastics, which, for me, would be a totally different tactic. When I think of fishing wells and rigs, I think of live bait on a Carolina rig, or in the heat of summer, live bait under a popping cork. But live bait wasn’t an option, so it was plastic or nothing.
The depth-sounder showed the bottom at 11 feet down, so I cast my bait out and gave it a few seconds to settle deep before I began a slow, staggered retrieve. Hook was casting a curly tail grub, while I was trying out one of the new Tsunami lures in the limetreuse color. I told Hook I didn’t know if my bait would catch fish, but it sure caught me. I’ve always been a sucker for a pretty bait.
Hook got the first bite; a nice trout hit him hard and pulled out some drag, but managed to shake off the hook before he could get it to the boat. A few minutes later, a nice speck hit my Tsunami, and Hook netted it.
“These fish are actually showing up a bit early this year,” Hook commented. “They aren’t usually this numerous and this aggressive until mid May and June. By then, you should be able to catch fish at all the rigs out here, even at the small well-heads.
“Right now, the fish are mostly congregated at the bigger rigs, and they’re somewhat scattered. You catch a few here and a few there, and then you bounce to another rig. But by June, they’ll be huddling up in some pretty good numbers around all the rigs, not just the big ones, and you can often catch your trout at one or two stops.”
We continued trolling and casting, and I put several more fish in the boat before Hook switched baits, tied on a limetreuse Tsunami and began to join in on the fun. For whatever reason, they seemed to want that bait in that color. So we stuck with what was working, and put a few more trout on ice before the action dwindled.
The whole time we fished we were trolling slowly around the rig, working each corner thoroughly. Whenever we got a bite, Hook tried to stay in that area and see if there were other speckled volunteers willing to come forward. When nothing bit, we trolled on.
“This will all change by June,” Hook said. “The fish aren’t thick in here right now because it’s early in the season. But by June and then on through the summer, we’ll just hook on or anchor off one corner of the rig and fish live croakers and live shrimp on the bottom and under popping corks. It’ll actually be easier to catch fish then,” he added.
And Hook says to be sure to fish around the rig before you move on to another one.
“Some guys pull up, hook on, fish a little while on one side of the rig, and if nothing bites, they go to another rig. I fish around the rig as much as possible, because sometimes the fish hold to one side,” he said.
The next rig was within sight of the first, and only a few minutes later we began trolling around it, casting and giving the baits time to settle down into the 10- to 11-foot depths.
We began varying our retrieves because the fish were somewhat finicky. Sometimes they wanted it worked slow off the bottom, almost winter style. Other times, they’d hit it better when we used a steady retrieve. We tried a little of everything, and though the action wasn’t fast and furious, we steadily put fish in the box.
However, once the tide slackened, the action dwindled with it.
“One thing you definitely need, wherever you fish, is a moving tide. This area is no different,” Hook said. “Of course, too much range can be bad, but when there is very little range or you catch a slack tide, you might as well hang it up. Fish are instinctive feeders, and their feed button switches off when the tide stops moving.”
Hook likes to fish a tide of about a foot range, while Campo says he prefers foot-and-a-half tidal ranges. The tidal range on this day was a mere 3/10 of a foot — definitely not what you’d consider optimum conditions. We trolled around for another 10 minutes or so without a bite before Hook decided to move on.
The next rigs we headed to were four or five miles away, not far off of Alligator Point. We made the run to them; however, the winds and seas were steadily building, and trolling had become more difficult. On top of that, the water was looking dingier by the minute. We gave the rigs a quarter of an hour, put one more trout in the boat, and decided to go chase some redfish along a lee shoreline.
We ended the day with a very nice box of trout, in very respectable sizes. It was a great day on the water and a good feeling to see Pontchartrain’s little brother finally getting some mid-lake structure that was generating speckled trout action. Obviously, you can’t expect Lake Borgne to rival Lake Pontchartrain’s impressive productivity, because it lacks the bigger lake’s size and extensive bridge structures.
But the trout in our ice chest proved that we Southeast Louisiana anglers have a wide variety of summertime fishing destination options. It’s time to add Lake Borgne to that list.
Back at the dock, Campo offered a few suggestions. He says, if you decide to come fish these rigs this summer, it’s best to come with live bait — both shrimp and croakers.
“Actually, I prefer to use the small croakers, fished off any corner of the rigs, under a sliding sinker,” he said. “Of course, live shrimp will definitely produce also, but I seem to catch better fish on the croakers.
“You’ll notice that you don’t snag as much when you fish the bottom out here, because the oil companies are much more closely monitored now than they used to be. In the old days, they threw all their trash and construction debris over the side, and that’s what you hang up all your tackle on.
“Now, if they do that, we complain and they are forced to clean it up. Don’t get me wrong, you’re still going to lose some tackle anytime you fish anywhere on the bottom; it’s just not as bad here around these newer rigs as it is elsewhere around the old rigs.
“And if you do come fish out here, don’t ignore the little rigs. Truthfully, I prefer to fish the smaller rigs, the chair wells I call them, rather than the bigger rigs. I often catch bigger fish at the smaller rigs — even bigger fish than what most people are catching outside.
“And one other thing: If you come fish these rigs, whatever you do, never come on a Wednesday. Because on Wednesdays, they’re mine,” he said.
