Grab a “cold beer” or a “fireball” and your fishing tackle, hook up the boat and head to one of a couple bona fide wintertime hotspots to haul in a limit of speckled trout in January out of Cocodrie or Dularge.
Veteran charter boat captain Tommy Pellegrin of Houma knows from years of experience just how good the speckled trout fishing gets in 4- to 8-foot depths in the marsh at Lake Pelto near Cocodrie and Lake Mechant near Dularge. The key to success is there must be shell reefs/pads and or rock reefs present because those areas in the deep water act like magnets for speckled trout.
As for the cold beer and fireball, those are among the top colors of the Berkley PowerBait Paddlin’ PowerStinger soft plastic swim baits that have done such a number on speckled trout since they were introduced in the early 2020s.
“The best thing I’ve come across the last couple years is the new stuff by Berkley, the Paddlin’ PowerStinger,” Pellegrin said. “It’s been super since they’ve come out with that, one of the best soft plastics I’ve found. They’ve got three or four colors that really stand out. One’s a ‘mud minnow.’ One’s the ‘HD mullet’ in a 3 ½-inch bait at that time. Of all colors they could name one in south Louisiana they had to name one called ‘cold beer’ and that’s a very good color. And I’m going to say the last color is the ugliest, I don’t know why they made it, called ‘fireball’ (white/orange/red with a hint of black on it). That’s unbelievable.”
A big hit
Pellegrin’s story behind the fireball Paddlin’ PowerStinger started on a day he did promotional videos for new soft plastics. A videographer was there and they went through just about all the colors.
The 68-year-old outdoorsman, who has owned Custom Charters LLC since 1992, was on a trip with customers the following day and going through most of the colors without a great deal of success. A fireball Paddlin’ PowerStinger eventually was tied on and on five casts it produced five nice speckled trout, then many more.
“It was unbelievable,” Pellegrin said with a chuckle. “And if you look at it, you’ll say, ‘Nope, I ain’t buying that.’”
He fishes the Paddlin’ PowerStinger on a ¼-ounce Barrier Island Jighead with a plain ol’ lead color, and he retrieves it without a popping cork after letting it fall. Then he slowly bounces it off the bottom back to the boat. He advises anglers to make sure they feel the line with their fingers because it’s a subtle bite, one he likened to a 2-inch minnow biting it.
Where to fish
Having the red-hot colors matters little if anglers are in the wrong area. Pellegrin points them to the shells and/or rocks at Lake Mechant and Lake Pelto.
Pellegrin’s other suggestion for any “super cold” days is locating areas with no tidal movement, places like dead-end canals and deep bayous, such as in the back of Dulac and the back side of Chauvin and North Madison, where fish can get out of strong tidal flows.
“They’ll be up in all those areas right there,” Pellegin said, noting he had a four-day stretch a few weeks earlier in which everyone aboard caught limits. “For whatever reason in the wintertime for some time they like a hard bottom, shell or rock.
“That was November. January, though, can get that good. I’ve seen us throw double-rig (tandem-rigged soft plastics) and get two at a time … eight casts that’s 16 fish. One good thing about January, you can read the weather patterns at least six to 10 days ahead of time and you watch for that high pressure coming behind after a cold front comes through. The water clears up, it’s calm and you can hammer some speckled trout. You can read the weather in January/February. Calm wind, clean water, decent tide. Just about a guarantee.”
