Here’s a look at some more trophies that were dropped during the 2007-08 season.
Having spent two days plying the waters of Lake Pontchartrain within the last few days, it looks like the trout bite is just weeks away. Eric Dumas, Chas Champagne and I fished the Rigolets one day, and Dumas and I turned around and trolled the Causeway with Gary Zeringue the next.
The wind whipped and blew the open water around the bridges near the Rigolets too much for us to fish them, so Dumas, Champagne and I moved to the back of Gohagens to get out of the wind, and we found a few grilling-sized reds and a few trout.
The reds were almost right on the bank at the back of the canal. Using a combination of Opening Nigh Salt Water Assassins, Blue Moon Bay Choveys and Magic Minnow Hybrids that were all squirted with Berkley Gulp! garlic scented spray, we bumped the plastic on the bottom from the bank back to the boat.
Believe it or not, if our plastics weren’t sprayed with the Gulp! attractant, it was a lot more work to entice a bite. Almost every fish came within the first couple casts after spraying our lures.
As we made our way from the back of Gohagens back toward the Rigolets, we stopped to fish some of the ledges in the middle section of the canal. We started picking up a few trout in about five to six feet of water. The few we did catch were quality fish of about 16 to 18 inches.
Dumas and I met Zeringue to try trolling the Causeway the next morning. While the action wasn’t yet fast and furious, we got enough bites to keep it interesting. Dumas had recently landed 17 trout on one trip. However, the next trip yielded only three fish.
“That’s the way it is on the lake right now,” said Dumas. “You can go have a pretty good day then go back and wonder what the heck is going on. There have been a few fish showing up on the trestle, so I imagine we’re just a couple weeks away from everything turning on.”
Most of our trolling fish came on the spans from the Northshore out to the 8-mile hump. We were using pink Rat-L-Traps with a pink Deadly Dudley Bay Chovey tied to a dropper line behind the trap.
“Most of the time, the big fish will attack the trap,” Dumas explained. “The small fish usually go for whatever you have tied to the dropper line. We’re having to move the boat really slowly right now, but in a few weeks when the fish turn on, you’ll have to troll with your big motor… those big fish will yank the rod out of your hand if you’re holding it.”
