Captain Chad Billiot with Marsh Rat Guide Service (985-637-5058) says there is a very good beach bite happening right now from the barges at Fourchon to Elmer’s Island. And when the beach bite isn’t hot, he’s been able to keep his bite going by backing off to the nearby platforms.
“They’re either on the surface, or they’re in 6 to 8 feet of water,” he said. “Other than the trout being there to spawn, there’s plenty shrimp on the beaches for the trout to eat.”
Billiot is hitting the beaches and the little islands around the beaches when the trout are actually laying eggs. And the water in these places has been the perfect color early in the morning for throwing topwaters and jerkbaits.
“I’m obviously hitting them on the surface with a Top Dog first thing in the morning,” Billiot said. “There’s a good early tide right now that’s bringing in some good clean water, which makes it great for working topwaters on the beach.”
Once the topwater bite shuts down, which Billiot determines by either a lack of bites or swipes from uncommitted trout, he switches to a MirrOdine, a pogy-shaped subsurface twitch bait.
“The MirrOdine slowly sinks to about 2 feet deep,” Billiot explained. “I tell people to treat it like working a Top Dog with the same twitching action. First, make as long a cast as you can with it. Count it down about 4 or 5 seconds, and then start shaking your rod tip like you would with a topwater. It’s kind of like an underwater surface bait.”
Billiot said anglers should make sure to work the Top Dog and MirrOdine all the way back to the boat. With the good clean water, trout will come from a long way to eat both baits once they make visual contact with it. That means they’ll sometimes eat both right at the boat.
“If the trout aren’t spawning on the beaches, I’ll pull out to the platforms and start bouncing a jig on the bottom,” Billiot continued. “I’ve been throwing either an Opening Night or a Silver Mullet Salt Water Assassin Sea Shad, but the Opening Night seems to be working best in that good, green water.”
There are a lot of schoolers in both areas right now, but Billiot said anglers could get into a good 14- to 18-inch average. However, if the spawn is happening, he’s been catching some good 3- to 5-pound trout.
