Big things are in store for Lake Pontchartrain.
How big?
Well, Capt. Eric Dumas caught 150 speckled trout recently on the Causeway, but he was a little disappointed because the big fish hadn’t shown up yet.
Now, mind you, the fish Dumas and his clients put in the boat were rubber-stamp 2- to 3-pounders with one freak that weighed “a tad under 7.”
“We get these little two- to three-week runs of 2- to 3-pounders,” Dumas said. “But the big ones are coming. We’ll soon be catching all 4-pounders.”
The hot bait, Dumas said, has been a Slammin’ Sammy Deadly Dudley behind a 3/8-ounce jighead.
Since most of the current on the Causeway is wind driven, Dumas typically has his best success on the backside of the wind. On variable days, Dumas changes his location with each wind change.
The most popular location for anglers seems to be the four-mile mark (the first small hump heading south from the north shore), but Dumas usually bypasses that to get away from the crowds.
“The whole bridge is holding fish right now,” he said. “I just like to run to a clean stretch (free of other boaters).”
Dumas fishes 17-pound-test mono while the fish are being so aggressive. If they turn more finicky, he switches to 8- or 12-pound-test.
“You have to retie a lot, but so what?” he said. “You get a lot more bites.”
