The Tchefuncte River has left many an angler scratching his head, but it actually offers surprisingly good springtime spawning action.
Captain Marty LaCoste with Absolute Fishing Charters (985-856-4477) says it has stayed windy down in DuLarge for the better part of a week now, and the cooler nights haven’t allowed the water temperature to climb much higher than 60 degrees. Therefore, trout have remained in their winter patterns.
“Everything’s muddy right now,” said LaCoste. “The bays and the lakes. You’ve got to get out there and look for that cleaner water if you want to find some fish. The problem is that different areas can be clean on different days depending now on what direction the wind is blowing.”
LaCoste pointed out that the best way to find this cleaner water would be to fish protected areas deep in the marsh, as these areas would be least affected by howling winds. And getting on the lee side of the protected areas would be even better.
“When you find the clean water, you can catch trout and reds,” LaCoste continued. “You can catch both right now by fishing the Tsunami swimbaits tightlined slowly on the bottom. Purple Haze, Pearl/Blue, Pearl/Black and Golden Bunker are my favorites.”
Fishing these kinds of swimbaits is really simple for those that haven’t tried throwing them yet. The way LaCoste fishes them is to simply cast them out as far as you can and allowing them to sink to the bottom before beginning a slow and steady retrieve.
LaCoste says he doesn’t bump these on the bottom like he might with the Bayou Chub. The key to getting the most action out of them is to keep them swimming through the water, thus the name “swimbait.”
Although trout and redfish have been falling for the Tsunami swimbaits, LaCoste said anglers wanting to target redfish only would be better off throwing gold spoons or the LSU ReAction Bayou Chubs.
“The water has been really low because of the winds, so you’ve got to be extremely careful out there,” LaCoste added. “With the weather warming up this weekend, though, and with the wind hopefully laying down, the water should clean up. When that happens, it won’t really matter where you fish because it will be on!”
