Waking up early to shoot a limit of ducks then spending the rest of the day chasing speckled trout is the epitome of life in Louisiana. And while Captain Jeff Poe (337-598-3268) was disappointed in the numbers of ducks he saw this past weekend, there are enough of them to make for a successful cast-and-blast.
“We did all right on the ducks,” Poe said. “My blind didn’t limit on Saturday, but the other one did. And on Sunday we both limited. We didn’t see as many birds as what we’re accustomed to seeing, but there are enough teal flying to make it interesting.”
While Poe has mainly been killing teal, he did mention that his blind had a mallard on Sunday morning and his son’s blind had two. There were also a few pintails and grey ducks around, but Poe believes the lack of big ducks in his area is due to the lack of cold fronts.
“We just need a few of those cold fronts to bring some more ducks down,” he said. “I think the more cold weather we see the more big ducks we’ll get to shoot. The amazing thing to me is that our blinds have green lily pads around them. There isn’t any hydrilla or coontail, but the marsh itself is still green. It’s not burned like it was after Rita.”
However, Poe did hear some stories from hunters below the Intracoastal Waterway that were having difficulty shooting ducks. Apparently, the saltwater slug from Hurricane Ike hit that section of the lake a lot worse than it did points further north.
After working over the ducks, Poe has been taking his customers out to catch loads of speckled trout by working soft plastics, topwaters and hard jerkbaits under the birds. Fishing when there has been no wind has been key to catching a lot of fish from one spot. However, trout can still be caught with a ripple on the water with a few adjustments.
“Then you’ve got to bounce around from group to group,” Poe explained. “You may catch five to ten under one group of birds then five to ten more under another group. Hit enough groups and you can fill your box with some pretty decent fish.”