September can be a tough month to find speckled trout because they can be outside, inside, or anywhere in between. However, if you know where to look outside, inside and in between, you can frequently put lots of fish in the box, which is exactly what Captain Greg Schlumbrecht with To Fish Charters (985-960-1709) is doing on Lake Pontchartrain right now.
“The fish are in transition,” Schlumbrecht began. “I’m catching some in the summer spots, some in the fall spots and some in between. I fished three spots yesterday… one in each zone… and we caught well over 50 trout.”
Schlumbrecht explained that the summer spots in the Pontchartrain Basin included areas like Lake Borgne and the Rigolets. The fall spots are the I-10, Highway 11, Train and Causeway bridges. And connecting both spots are the in-between passes to the east that serve as highways for trout to move from one to the other.
“The thing about fishing right now is what you run into any time you’re fishing the transition,” Schlumbrecht continued. “You can go out on a Monday and not get a bite, then fish the exact same spot on Tuesday and hammer them.”
According to Schlumbrecht, the reason behind this kind of spotty action is that the fish are on the move, and they can almost abandon one spot over night in favor of another. For the trout to go ahead and really stack up on the bridges in their fall patterns, Schlumbrecht says the water would have to drop another three to five degrees.
“Right now it’s 80,” he said. “What they do from here on will depend entirely on the weather. If we could get some cold rain and a daytime high in the 60s, that would do it. The thing is, though, we don’t know when that’s coming. We were supposed to have a little front move through on Wednesday, but that never happened.”
Other than stacking trout up on the bridges, Schlumbrecht said a little cooler water would also change the bite over to plastics. For the time being, he’s been catching his trout working live bait on the bottom with a Carolina rig.
“And it’s really funny right now,” he concluded. “On two consecutive casts you may catch a 4-pounder and a 9-incher. They’re kind of mixed up right now, but if you hit a couple different spots and keep some live bait on the bottom you’ll find some pretty consistent bites.”
