More favorable winds, tides could mean banner weekend, guide says
This weekend’s fishing weather wasn’t much to write home about in southeast Louisiana: persistent westerly winds, thunderstorms and little or no tidal movement resulted in lots of milky water.
Captain Randall Shaw with Louisiana Fishing Charters had to search hard, but he was able to still find some clean water out of Delacroix Saturday morning and brought back a hard-earned mixed box featuring 40 specks, 10 reds and 10 drum.
“We had to fish the edges, but we caught some speckled trout,” he said. “We were able to catch ‘em on the inlets right were Black Bay and Breton Sound run into the marsh.”
Bay Eloi and a yellow rig right off Lake Calabasse on the east side of Bayou Terre Aux Boeufs also proved to be good spots for specks.
The key in windy weather, Shaw said, is to work the edges.
“You’ve just got to find pockets of clean water,” Shaw said. “They’re out there and those fish are sitting in them.
“If you launch out of Pointe a la Hache, work Bay Gardene. If you’re coming out of Delacroix, work from Bayou Terre Aux Boeufs over to Lake Campo. And if you’re going out of Breton Sound, you can work the rocks, then you also have Lake Calabasse and Bay Eloi.
“Basically stay as east as you can stay, as close to the open bays as you can to be in the high-salinity water” Shaw said. “But at the same time as east as possible to stay away from that river water.”
The good news for southeast Louisiana is that this week’s weather forecast calls for an eventual south wind combined with stronger tidal movement.
“That wind ought to clean the water out, and some good tide ranges should pull some nice clean water in there by the end of the week,” Shaw said. “The trout should really get going good.”
Shaw caught most of his specks Saturday with live shrimp 8-feet under a sliding cork or on a Carolina rig.
If the forecast holds, he suggested the Battledore Reefs, the Iron Banks and the Compressor Rig as good options for speck fishing this weekend out of Delacroix.
“They’ve been the most productive spots all year,” he said. “But I do recommend figuring out what your water depth is on your depth finder and setting up a sliding popping cork because there’s so much structure under there as far as old piping and stuff like that. It’s really hard to fish with a Carolina rig because you go through a lot of tackle.”
Shaw finds his depth, then adjusts the cork so the bait is 1- to 2-feet off the bottom.
“The sliding popping cork is way underrated,” he said. “I don’t see many of them at all, but there’s a couple of guys that do it and they do very well with it.”
If you’re fishing with plastics, black and chartreuse have worked recently because of the dirty water. He suggested bumping the lures on the bottom using three-eighths-ounce jig heads.
“As it clears up, the Matrix Shad shrimp creole should start doing better,” Shaw said.
Redfish-wise, bites are abundant in the marsh, he said.
“They’re just everywhere. If you can find water movement on a point, you’re catching at least four or five there,” Shaw said.
So as dismal as the weather has been for at least a week, things are looking up. And Shaw is excited about what the future holds.
“It’s only a matter of time before it’s wide open, where it’s going to get phenomenal,” he said. “I got that feeling that come this week it’s going to start turning on and through next month we’re going to have a really good finish.”
