“I look forward to this time of year,” said Capt. Eric Dumas, a former baseball player. who likes the World Series and loves World Series Trout. “World Series trout aren’t necessarily giant fish, but they denote the beginning of the fall run. It will last well into December.
“Of course, any time you fish in Lake Pontchartrain, you have a chance at a really big trout.”
Like other Lake Pontchartrain trout addicts, Dumas is smugly proud of the lake’s specks.
“They are bigger than in places ‘down south,’” he gloated.
Dumas does allow that Venice has nice fish but said there’s a distinct difference between the two regions’ fish.
“Ours are short and fat. A 24-incher is 6 pounds,” he said. “In Venice, a 6-pounder is 26 or more inches. They are long and skinny.
“We very seldom have any throw-backs.”
And the annual cycle on the lake is like clockwork.
During July, August and September, fishermen have to soak live bait to be successful. Fishing concentrates at the CSX Bridge, the Highway 90 Bridge and the shell pads around the gas rigs in Lake Borgne.
The Causeway Bridge is completely out of play during this time.
“It’s not that the fish aren’t there,” explained Dumas, “but there is so much bait in the water that you have to use live bait. On the Causeway, you can’t get the bait to the bottom through the drum and croakers.”
Seabrook, where the industrial canal opens into the lake on its south shore used to be a summertime hotspot, but is out of play now.
“We just haven’t done as good since they put that dam in MRGO (the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet),” Dumas said. “It won’t do any good; it was a waste of money, and it ruined a great fishery. Ever since that happened, it ain’t been the same.”
But in the fall, all the bridges, the Causeway, the Tressels and the Highway 11 bridge, produce lots of speckled trout.
“It’s just like April and May, but in the fall,” Dumas said gleefully. “You can count on it — every year!”
