Captain Bill Lake with Bayou Guide Service (985-637-3712) didn’t get on the water until about 3:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon. Within an hour and a half, he and his customers had put 50 trout in the boat. Excited to get back this morning, he found the water had dropped 10 degrees, but that’s the way it is around DuLarge this month.
“The water temperature was 63 degrees yesterday evening,” said Lake. “We couldn’t keep the fish off our baits. This morning, it’s in the mid 50s, and the trout are a little lethargic. We’re picking at them, though, and I expect the water to warm back up this afternoon.”
Lake expects this coming weekend to be really good, since he has seen daytime temperatures predicted to be in the 70s. This would follow the typical February routine, though; with a fishing ride much like an up-and-down rollercoaster.
“The weather will get warm, and the fish will bite,” Lake said. “Then it will get cold, and they’ll get sluggish. Then it will warm up again, and we catch them again. But even on the warm days you’re better off fishing the deep pipeline canals and deeper bayous. If you’re on the reefs in the shallow lakes, you’re basically wasting your time.”
According to Lake, the best two areas to ride out the rollercoaster are Bayou Seveur and Deer Bayou. As Lake spoke to me over his cell phone, he counted at least 15 boats with him in Seveur, so these locations aren’t exactly secret, but they are productive.
Lake’s two most productive baits the past couple of days have been the Berkley Swim Bait in the croaker and sand perch colors along with his standby LSC Bayou Chub. He hasn’t been fishing either aggressively, though, and he recommended that anglers exercise patience when working the deeper trout.
“If you get out early, you’ll have to pick at them a while,” he suggested. “The best fishing is from 11:00 a.m. to about 3:00 or 4:00 p.m. Even though they turn on later in the day, you should still try to fish slow and easy.”
The best bite Lake has found has been in water that is 4 to 6 feet, which he says is deep for the DuLarge area. But the key to these deep spots is that they are close to the 2-foot flats, where fish can move up and eat later in the day.