This is the month to throw some topwater plugs in your tackle box, and point your bow to a bay where the reefs are fresh and the trout are hungry.
The opening day of snapper season came and went as quickly as Christmas morning, and, like kids showing off their new toys, anglers bragged and took pictures of all the presents the Gulf of Mexico provided. Snapper weren’t the only thing biting on the Timbalier Blocks, though. Captain Chris Moran (225-931-7306) reported lots of amberjacks and lemon fish were there for the taking after the snapper limits were done.“We got our snapper limits with six guys both days we went out last weekend,” said Moran. “It was just outstanding. Let me put it to you this way… our limits of snapper and amberjacks weighed 610 pounds. The snapper were averaging about 10 pounds, and we had five or six that were over 20.”
Moran spent the majority of his time chasing snapper around the south Timbalier Blocks in 80 to 150 foot of water. His groups caught most of their fish around a combination of rigs and wrecks.
“It was about half rigs and half wrecks,” he reported. “We caught on pogies and cut bait. Surprisingly, there weren’t a lot of people out in that area. We saw maybe one or two boats a day.”
The lemon fish were everywhere too. Moran’s crews caught several each day by sight casting Tsunami and Calcutta grubs. Leaving a couple rods rigged and ready to go made it easy to bring them in when they made an appearance beside the boat.
“After we got our snapper each day, we went after amberjacks and Wahoo,” Moran said. “There are a lot of Wahoo scattered as close in as 25 miles. We were pulling Rapalas, Stretch 30s and Halcos to get them.”
Moran said he went back out again Monday and Tuesday with the same results.
“The snapper part is easy,” he said. “I think the fishing really benefited from all the down time after the storm when nobody was out fishing. Everybody that fished this past weekend caught them. We could see that just sitting on the dock and watching what was coming in. There are a lot of new wrecks, and anglers don’t have to go as far from Fourchon as they did the past two years. You can run the traditional blocks and catch fish.”