Wade-fishing Gosier Island yields big topwater trout.
I’m not a huge fan of flying, but when Capt. Theophile Bourgeois invited me and Louisiana Sportsman editor Todd Masson to fly with him in a seaplane out to Gosier Island to wade-fish for speckled trout I knew I would have to cast my fears aside, especially after Bourgeois texted me pictures of the trout he had been catching.
Masson and I met up with Bourgeois and Lyle Panepinto of Southern Seaplane Inc. at Bourgeois’ Cajun Vista in Lafitte. We loaded our spinning rods in the back of the Cessna 185, and Masson and I climbed into our spots behind Bourgeois and Panepinto.
The funny thing about flying is that I don’t like the thought of flying, but every time I actually fly I just love being in the air. Just a few minutes later, we were landing at the Southern Seaplane airport in Belle Chasse to get some fuel.
Then it was back in the air again. We flew over the Caernarvon Diversion Canal and Delacroix Island toward Breton Sound. As we flew over Delacroix and Hopedale, Masson and I had fun picking out places that were familiar to us like Lake Amadee, the MRGO rocks and Mozambique Point.
Bourgeois took a close look at Breton Island as we flew by, and he pointed out that such an aerial view was one of the great things about flying out to fish rather than going by boat.
He pointed out giant schools of mullet, diving birds and the flickering splashes of feeding fish, none of which he saw in great numbers around Breton Island. Therefore, he continued flying out to Gosier Island, and he spotted everything he wanted to see before landing the seaplane in the water.
We unloaded and took just enough time to secure the plane, grab our fishing rods and head off in different directions. Panepinto quickly made his way around the northern point of the island. Masson hung out around the plane. And Bourgeois and I started wading toward the southern point of Gosier.
Even though it was early afternoon, Bourgeois had rigged our poles with bone-colored Bomber Saltwater Grade Badonk-A-Donk topwaters. To mix things up a bit, he was trying a clown-colored Badonk-A-Donk.
After picking up a single trout here and there, Bourgeois spotted what he thought was a giant school of bluefish feeding under a flock of diving gulls. His second or third cast into the school was rewarded with a big speckled trout rather than a bluefish, and we stood in one spot and caught trout after trout for about 20 minutes.
Masson must have seen our bent rods because he slowly started wading toward us. I crossed paths with him while I went back to the plane to pick up my video camera, and he had only landed a couple trout.
By the time I got back to Bourgeois and Masson, they were cackling and cutting up like a couple of school girls because trout were slamming their Badonk-A-Donk’s on just about every cast.
Panepinto, who had been fishing the surf side of Gosier, eventually made his way back. He had only picked up a couple fish, but he admittedly wasn’t much of a topwater angler. However, he was sure that we could slam them on topwaters on the surf side based on all the action he reported seeing.
We decided to call it an afternoon, though, and headed back to the seaplane. After dog-shaking off as much saltwater as we could, we loaded back into the plane and took off once again.
Thirty minutes later, Bourgeois landed right in front of his Cajun Vista in Lafitte. I’ve been on many fishing trips in Louisiana, and I’ve always kept a mental top-three list of my most favorite trips.
Needless to say, the top three have all been bumped down a notch because this was the best fishing trip ever.
For more information contact Captain Theophile Bourgeois at 504.341.5614.
