It wasn’t that long ago that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries implemented new regulations for speckled trout. These reduced size and bag limits were said to be aimed at reducing the harvest of female trout by approximately 19.1 percent annually in an effort to rebuild the spawning stock biomass to sustainable levels within five to six years.
Fast forward 17 months: Anglers across Southeast Louisiana have seen a dramatic increase in not only the number of speckled trout coming over their gunwales but also the size of these fish.
Jared Stockstill of Baton Rouge has a track record of fishing in one specific area, so he can attest to the increase in the size of speckled trout being caught. Stockstill fishes the eastern side of the Mississippi River from Hopedale to Chalmette. He’s been targeting big speckled trout for over a decade and said he likes what he’s been seeing the last two years. 2023 and 2024 were both exceptional years for big speckled trout.
“When I used to catch a limit of 25 specks, I would have a few of them in the 18- to 20-inch range,” he said. “Over the last couple of years, I noticed trout over 20 inches becoming more common. Trips went from a 20-inch trout every now and then to seven or eight over 20 inches as a common occurrence.”
Stockstill said he is reminded on every trip how these fish have increased in size by his natural reaction to reeling them in.
“Every time I set the hook on a 23 or a 24-inch trout, I’m convinced that it’s a redfish until I see that beautiful silver flash and big yellow mouth shaking violently with my jerkbait embedded nicely in its mouth,” he said.
Public sentiment
Acceptance of the highly polarizing limits that went into effect in 2023 seems to be increasing, as anglers across Southeast Louisiana are seeing bigger trout taken. Stockstill said he’s always been in favor of the reduction.
“I am in favor of the limit reduction,” he said. “I don’t think it’s rocket science that this will improve the population and average size of trout. I know that isn’t a popular opinion, but I have always felt that 25 was excessive.”
While Stockstill is all for the new limits, he admits that there is validity to the argument of those who oppose it.
“I understand the nuance and how a ‘one size fits all’ approach can be frustrating,” he said. “Some people, if not most, only get to fish once or twice a year. I have no problem with that type of person keeping 25 fish. The problem comes in with someone like me who fishes regularly and knows how to catch them. But if people like me kept 25 every time we went out, that could do some serious damage.
“An annual limit would be way more effective and would even this out a bit, but it would be impossible to enforce. Overall, I think the reduction from 25 to 15 was a good move, and I would even be okay with it dropping to 10.”
Jerkbaits and paddle tails
Stockstill admits that he hasn’t always targeted big trout, but after catching a few using a jerkbait he began deliberately targeting them with the lure.
“About 10 years ago, I started messing around with a jerkbait in the winter months, and my eyes were opened to how many big trout we actually have in Louisiana,” he said.
For those who are looking to catch trout over 3 pounds (24 inches), Stockstill said the majority of his bigger fish come off of jerkbaits and paddle tails.
“For anyone looking to target big trout with artificials, I recommend two major categories of lures — jerkbaits and paddle tails,” he said.
The problem with jerkbaits is that they don’t seem to work as well year-round, as they only seem to work in the late fall to early spring timespan when the water temps are below 60 degrees.
“My favorite lures in this class are the Rapala X-Rap and MirrOdine MirrOlure when I want to use a hard plastic, and the Slick Lure made by Pure Flatts when I need a soft plastic,” he said.
When throwing paddle tails, Stockstill recommends using them on a jighead and trying a variety of retrieves.
“They can be worked in a variety of ways,” he said. “The traditional sink-to-the-bottom style and the hop-hop-reel as well as a start-and-stop-reel for swimming action. Many people forget the fact that these are SWIM baits and never work them in a swimming motion. In other words, there is no ‘correct’ way to work this style lure. The correct way is whatever the trout are biting on any given day. Always vary the retrieve until you find a pattern.”
Spillway openings
Capt. Kris Robert has been fishing Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne his whole life. He can remember the quality trout that the lake used to produce.
“I remember before they closed the MRGO — all those rigs in Lake Borgne — we would go and drag the test trawl and catch croaker,” he said. “We would go out there and just freeline croakers into those rigs and let them swim through the rigs. And you could see those big sow trout just come up out of the rig and inhale the croaker.”
While the closing of the MRGO played a part in the quantity and quality of the trout being caught, Robert said the spillway is most to blame for the reduced population of trout that the area has seen over the past decade.
“Year after year after year — you just can’t dump that much freshwater in this estuary and not have it affect the fish,” he said. “This is where they come to spawn so you have to believe that every year that the spillway was open that just wiped out the spawn, which affected the total number of these fish.”
While Robert said he’s not sure if we’ll see the size of the trout return fully to what it was before the damming of the MRGO, there is no doubt that the size of these speckled trout is on the upswing.
“About two years after the last spillway opening, they started showing back up,” he said. “That’s that 3 to 4.5-pound class of fish.”
Noticing a change
On a recent trip to Lake Pontchartrain, Robert was fishing with his friend David Boyd. They headed to the northern end of the train bridge. It was an evening trip with a good falling tide.
“We started on the north end and made a drift to firebreak No. 3,” he said.
The friends were throwing Matrix Shad on a 3/8-ounce jighead.
“We were bouncing it off the bottom and these fish were trying to rip that pole out of our hands,” Robert said.
The team caught 30 specks with 12 of them measuring over 20 inches.
“That would have never happened five years ago,” he said.
Robert attributes the size increase to the spillway being closed since 2020 and the new trout limits.
“We’re going to start seeing it,” he said. “We’re going to start to see them get bigger. If you look at every other state that implemented the reductions, the size of the trout has increased. Just look how much it’s changed since before the new rule went into effect. Everybody was catching 12.5-inch trout and freaking out because it was so hard to catch a limit. Now, look at it. It’s way easier to catch a limit because these fish are bigger.”
The Highway 11 Bridge
For those targeting big trout, Robert recommends finding clean water to start with.
“Obviously you want to find the cleanest water around,” he said. “Your big fish are going to be loners. They’re not going to be hanging out with the smaller schooling fish. So let’s say you’re fishing the Trestles —you’re going to catch plenty of fish there, but those tanks aren’t going to be there with all those boats running up and down the bridge.”
Instead of battling the crowds for a limit, Robert suggests fishing the more unpopular structure — the Highway 11 Bridge.
“Them tanks — them studs — all those record fish like Dudley (Vandenborre) and Kenny (Kreeger) caught — all those fish came off of Highway 11,” he said. “We may fish all day and only get 10 bites, but when you set the hook on one of them, you’re going to say ‘get the net,’ because you know it’s going to be something special.”
While the Highway 11 Bridge is known for producing big trout, Robert said he’s now seeing the new reefs coughing up big fish.
“Those reefs that CCA put in several years ago between the Trestles and the Twin Span — I saw several fish over 5 pounds come off of those reefs last fall,” he said.
When fishing shell reefs, Robert recommends using a slip cork.
“Those things are so hard to fish you’re going to need a slip cork,” he said. “Just stop that slip cork where that bait hovers right over the shells.”
The jury is still out on whether or not we will see the full return of the trophy trout like the Pontchartrain Basin once produced. But for now, Robert said the momentum is definitely moving in the right direction.
“There’s no doubt they’re getting bigger,” Robert said. “But will we see it return back to those 7, 8, and 9-pound fish that we saw before the MRGO was closed? I just don’t know.”
