Redfish, speckled trout action sure to on fire as Mississippi River falls
The Mississippi River is supposed to be 6.5 feet at New Orleans Carrollton Gauge by Monday (April 23), and that has Capt. Owen “Big O” Langridge chomping at the bit.
“Last week, (the water) cleaned up tremendously,” Langridge said. “You can tell it’s getting right.”
Since it’s “getting right,” anglers will have access to a whole host of spots that were loaded with nasty river water just a week or two ago.Langridge, who owns Big “O” Charters, has spent most of this spring fishing up around California Point, and he’s done very well there.
“We haven’t been loading the box every trip, but we’ve been catching lots and lots of reds and some really nice trout,” he said.
As the river continues to fall, Venice guides will start looking toward Blind Bay and Redfish Bay.
“We’re catching some there now,” he said. “But that’s really going to heat up with the river falling. It’s going to be prime in May and June.”
But even with the river falling, anglers will still have to deal with river water on the surface in many areas, Langridge said, because the river isn’t expected to get to its annual lows yet.
“You know, we’re not like those guys in Cocodrie who, if they want to see if the water’s salty, can just stick their finger in the water and taste it,” he said. “You do that here, it’s going to taste like tap water. You have to look at the water your prop is kicking up.”
That layer of dirty river water can hide stunningly beautiful salt water just underneath.
That was evident last week when Langridge took a group of visiting tourists on a redfishing trip west of the river.
The anglers saw the black water Langridge’s trolling motor was kicking up, and grew quite alarmed.
“Those guys were scared we were in a slick of BP oil,” Langridge laughed.
Moments later, though, they didn’t care what they were in because they were catching bull reds one after another under corks.
A high river actually helps anglers who know their way around because it stacks fish in the areas with clean water.
“If you go to a bay and you can’t find clean water, you can scratch it off your list,” Langridge said.
But for anglers who don’t want to do a ton of running, a low river increases the possibility of one-stop shopping.
Langridge strongly recommended newcomers to the area hire a guide before attempting to fish Venice on their own; the area has changed dramatically since the record-high river of 2010-11.
Email Langridge, call 225.978.1136 or visit http://www.bigocharters.com/ for more information.
Be sure to check out the May issue of Louisiana Sportsman magazine, which contains a feature on how to fish the Venice area this time of year.
