After a very long and hot summer, Dularge guide Capt. Lloyd Landry welcomes November with open arms. He said the fishing is phenomenal, and it’s easier on his wallet.
“In November, we’re in full blown fall mode, he said. “You aren’t burning as much gas having to go run to the coast to go fish for the keeper trout.”
This means that areas like Lake Decade, Jug Lake, Lake Mechant and Lost Lake become hotspots. Landry, though, takes a much different approach than most anglers do when they pull up to these locations.
“A lot of people want to get right up on the bank,” he said. “That bank has eroded, so I’ll start two or three casts off the bank, especially if you look down a shoreline and see mullet.
“If you find some shorelines with some mullet, you can catch some nice fish way off the bank.”
Pods of mullet
Fishing off the bank doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be in very deep water, though.
“If you went back and looked at an aerial map of 25 years ago where you’re three casts off the shoreline, that was land,” Landry said. “Most of the time, those fish are moving up and down the banks in those pods of mullet.”
When fishing these lakes, Landry doesn’t have much of a tide preference as long as it’s moving, but said other factors are important to consider.
“I’ll have some spots that seems to be better on a falling tide, but a lot of it has to do with water clarity and the wind direction,” he said. “The nice thing about Dularge is in all of the interior bays — if the wind is pumping out of the south, I’ve got miles of south shoreline to fish. If the wind is out the west, same thing (etc).”
Pop the cork
Landry likes throwing popping corks with Matrix Shads underneath them when fishing these lakes. His favorite colors are shrimp creole and green hornet. He threads those soft-plastics on very light 1/16-ounce jigheads.
“I like that when you pop the cork, it goes up and then it flutters down slow,” Landry said.
When driving from spot to spot, Landry always keeps his eyes peeled for birds. The birds are dipping on the last of the white shrimp before the hard cold fronts drive them out.
“You can still find birds in November, he said. “It starts petering out as we get some bigger cold fronts. Those shrimp will start depleting out.”
