There are fish to be caught, but you have to work for them, guide says
Specks are being caught now with live shrimp out of Delacroix, but Capt. Randall Shaw said the bite just hasn’t been as consistent moving into mid-summer as it’s been in years past.
“It’s not like we’re not catching fish,” said Shaw, with Louisiana Fishing Charters. “You can go to one spot one day and pick up 50 or 60, and the next day you go there and pick up two.
“They’re not holding. They’re constantly on the move. Most of the time when I’m catching them, I’m catching them coming through a channel on the side of a rig or a certain way with the tide where they’re coming through. I catch them in waves.”
The fish are spread out and moving, so you have to do the same thing, he said.
“You’ve just got to make your rounds and go around and find your fish,” he said. “You have to work for them this year.”
“You can’t fish the same spot every day.”
Depending on what kind of trout you like to target, Shaw had a couple of suggestions.
“If I’m looking for a numbers game, I’m going to Oak River Bay, Bay Gardene, Bay Lafourche, and the outer bays of Lake Campo. They’ll be smaller but you can put together a lot of numbers,” he said. “If I’m looking for bigger fish, I’m going to the rigs in Breton Sound and Black Bay.”
Shaw said he’s normally fishing the live shrimp under a cork, or with a drop-shot or Carolina rig in deeper water.
“I think Black Bay is getting ready to turn on. The same thing happened last year in late July and August after we had a strong west wind,” he said. “That’s when those bigger trout started migrating back.
“A lot of those bigger trout are out deep in the sound and will start migrating back towards Black Bay to move into Bay LaFourche for the winter starting in August.”
He’s been seeing several sets of birds diving every day, and with the sporadic bite of late, he said that’s definitely an option to consider trying.
“It’s a good backup plan,” he said. “If you’re fishing a rig and not getting any bites and you see a set of birds, you better go. It’s a good chance you’ll find something.
“I would definitely take a look at them. “
