Features from November 2021
- Public-land hunters have plenty of options around Louisiana this season, even after Hurricane Ida’s game-changing visit.
- Chancy Lee Frith with K&K Taxidermy in Ragley has learned plenty about deer hunting from his successful customers.
- Bass are showing up, getting established and growing larger in areas where you would have found only redfish and trout a decade ago.
- Geese can add an extra facet to a Louisiana duck hunt in November. Take advantage when the goose seasons match up with duck season.
- Topwater baits are extremely productive on fall speckled trout along the Gulf Coast. They’re hungry enough to eat anything that moves.
- Lessons from an outdoor photographer can help you get up close and personal to a nice trophy buck this season.
- Dodie and Buggie Vegas, owners of the iconic Bridgeside Marina, have suffered enormous losses after Hurricane Ida.
- Soft-plastic frogs, a staple among freshwater bass fishermen, can put a hurting on redfish, too. Here are some places to fish them, and how.
Columns - November 2021
- Successful bowhunters should take nothing for granted when they climb into their deer stand. Make sure your shooting is up to par.
- Fishing guide Brian Branum's voice oozes pure pride when he talks about the Bill Lewis Echo 1.75 square-bill crankbait.
- Many hunters think that all young bucks have the chance to grow and become trophy class, but that simply is a dream.
- Fall has arrived, and so have the speckled trout. Areas where they were scarce in the summer are now jam-packed.
- Nov. 1-6 is a great week to fish because it typically has delightful weather and fall speckled trout fishing is so easy.
- Spanish mackerel spend much of their lives in open waters, and are spread out from New England to the Yucatan Peninsula.
Outdoor Updates - November 2021
- Six prominent Louisiana outdoor personalities were inducted into the Louisiana Legends of the Outdoors Hall of Fame.
- Hunter Brown took this 12-point buck, which measured right at 140 inches of antler mass, in Bienville Parish.
- Johnathan St. Germain of New Iberia hooked a 9-pound, 13-ounce bass at Lake Dauterive on his 24th birthday.
- Ricky Sharbeno, a 37-year-old oilfield worker from Anacoco, hooked a 12.50-pound monster largemouth bass at Vernon Lake.
- On Oct. 2, Timmy Dillard took a 10-point, 265-pound buck in Webster Parish that first appeared on his game camera in December 2019.
- TJ and Alex Palmer won the Crappie Masters National Championship on Lake D’Arbonne and earned super-sized trophies and $30,000.
- A month and a half after Hurricane Ida’s landfall, Marty LaCoste of Absolute Fishing Charters in Dularge is back to doing what he does best.
- On a hunt with his friend, Matt Aymond, Cody Stelly of Plaisance got an 11 ½-foot alligator on his first lottery hunt at Sherburne WMA.
- Nathaniel Street of Leesville went fishing at Vernon Lake the morning of Oct. 14 and landed a 13-pound lunker bass.
- Larry Reynolds, the waterfowl program manager the past 13 years for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, has a new job.
- The LWFC passed a declaration of emergency reducing the number of either-sex deer hunting days at select WMAs.
- The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission adopted a Notice of Intent to add coastal buffer zones to Gulf menhaden harvest regulations.
Hot Spots - November 2021
- Old pilings around camps on eastern end of Pontchartrain will hold November specks.
- Don't miss the November flounder run. Flounder take center stage at Sabine Lake and Calcasieu Lake as they migrate toward Gulf spawn.
- Sal Fontana of “Gotcha Hooked” Guide Service tells anglers how to burn up the speckled trout this month in the Biloxi Marsh.
- The key to finding crappie in the Red River this time of the year isn’t the river itself. It’s the oxbows off the river.
- There are more windows open to successful bass fishing this month on Toledo Bend than the dog days of summer.
Field Notes - November 2021
- Crowley’s Bryant “Brother” Martin was named to the Louisiana High School B.A.S.S. Nation All-State Team in 2019 and 2020.
- Whitetails will feed right before a front moves through, then bed down during any wind and rain. Plan your hunts with this in mind.