Columns
The cooking game warden strikes again
Abbeville resident and native Derek Logan shares his recipe for Camp Baked Fish and the author shares a recipe for Bream Fillets Thermidor.[…]
June 2017
Fishing
Humminbird’s 360-degree sonar gives bird’s-eye view
Sonar fishfinders have always helped us find fish and fish-holding structure, but helping us precisely target fish has been another story. Early on, bulb-type flashers supported vertical jigging.[…]
Columns
Time to go sling some lead!
I readily admit to being a rifle nut. Handguns are great and a career in law enforcement provides one with a great deal of training and experience with them. But rifles are my favorite and as a hunter and shooting enthusiast, I have always found them more interesting and useful.[…]
Columns
More jawbone talk
In recent installments of Happy Trails we have kicked around various aspects of both the science and art of aging whitetails on and off “the hoof.” Most deer hunters want to become as proficient as possible at estimating deer age BEFORE pulling the trigger, but it is equally important to either confirm or revise your eyeball estimate after the kill.[…]
Columns
PaddlePalooza
In 2005, modern kayak fishing was just getting off the ground in Louisiana. […]
Inshore Fishing
The birth of Versamaxx
The Versamaxx Coastal Popping Cork System is the brainchild of Steve Kissee, aided and abetted by fishing buddy Brian Guidry. […]
Fishing
Tippets
June is the best month for CCA members looking to place an entry in the STAR tournament Fly Rod Division. As summer wears on and water temperatures rise, bigger specks become more selective and more difficult to catch on flies.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Cork fishing tips
Fishing with popping corks, like any other technique, is an art. Steve Kissee offered some tips for effective use of popping corks. Some are specific to his Versamaxx corks; others apply to the use of any brand of cork.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Why Shell Beach?
Lower St. Bernard Parish, whether one launches out of Shell Beach, Hopedale, Yscloskey, or Delacroix, has long been a sportfishing playground for New Orleanians. Fishermen can launch at any of the four sites to access the rocks at the end of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Captain uses two tools to stay on the shallow rig bite
One of the more challenging aspects of fishing shallow-water rigs is keeping your boat in the right spot to stay on a hot bite.[…]
Inshore Fishing
A little fishing geography
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a dredged channel completed in 1965, never lived up to its predicted potential to largely replace the river proper as a deepwater approach to the Port of New Orleans.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Three tips for finding shell beds
Finding shell beds around rigs isn’t all that difficult to do as long as you know a few tricks. John Falterman says these three tips for finding them will quickly put you on the fish.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Make a drop shot rig
Drop shot rigs came to the United States by way of Japanese anglers who settled on the West Coast. They employed the technique with great success in the clear, deep bass reservoirs of California and was other anglers caught on to the tactic, it spread faster than a Western wildfire, pun intended.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Tip of the day
Mike and Freddie McMullen were making impressively long casts most of the day with minimum weight on the ends of their lines. I finally caught on to what they were doing.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Brothers in arms
Mike “Road Kill” McMullen, 52, and his brother Freddie, 54, grew up in Treasure Island, essentially an island formed by Bayou DeSiard (pronounced DE zeerd) and Black Bayou, on the northern outskirts of Monroe, Louisiana.[…]
Bass Fishing
Chunk and wind only?
Generally speaking, a buzzbait is a “chunk and wind” lure. You throw it out and reel it in just fast enough to keep it on the surface. Taylor has also had success in retrieving the lure in a jerking motion. If the fish are a bit sluggish, that sometimes triggers a strike better than a straight retrieve.[…]