It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The cold weather this past weekend was supposed to knock everybody down off their easy limit high horse a couple of notches. The promise of 20 and 30-degree morning lows caused more than a few trips to cancel. That’s the funny thing about fishing – you don’t know unless you go. You’ve got to be there to catch them, and this was the weekend to be fishing Lake Pelto out of Dulac.Captain Clark Trosclair of Sea Creature Fishing Charters (985-563-2531) was at Lake Pelto recently, and he said he had a ball catching a bunch of redfish. But, the reds weren’t the only thing tugging on Trosclair’s line, he also found black drum everywhere he found reds.
“The reds were stacked up in Lake Pelto,” Trosclair said. “The water was a little dirty, so we wound up sinking cracked crab to the bottom on a Carolina-rig with 12-pound test line. They’re a little hard to find on artificials when it’s dirty like that. I like fishing the cracked crab anyway for bull reds. ”
Trosclair reported finding the reds and black drum around points and reefs in about three and a half to four feet of water. He arrived at Pelto about 10:00 and found the fish biting as soon his first cast hit the bottom
“It was fun because we were doing everything we had to do and then some,” Trosclair said. “And we didn’t even have to pick up the anchor much to keep catching them. I had a young group with me, and they tired out after we caught 25 or so. We left them biting, and I don’t think the continued cold will mess with them much. I talked to a fellow that went out the next day after the cold had a chance to take a firmer grip, and he limited out.”
Most of the reds Trosclair and crew caught were anywhere from 18 to 25 pounds with an occasional 18 to 20 inch fish making an appearance. You may not get to bring home much for the freezer having to release all those bull reds, but who can argue with having fun catching fish when it’s frosty.