[Boyce]

Hell yeah nice trip!

You have been hammering redfish down in Venice and now you post a limit of fat perfect keeper trout out of Hopedale….and you’re in a kayak…….and you’re in high school.

Keep it up bro. Bright future.

[Boyce]

You’re a beast in that Yak bro. Nice job.

[Boyce]

Nice day out there. Thanks for the report. You finished strong on that last pond!

Yeah, very nice to see you saw 54. We need that area to bounce back no doubt.

[Boyce]

Didn’t you find trout in the river out of Point a la Hache not long ago? Hell, at 1 ft, I may go through an HDS off the Crescent City Connection

[Boyce]

If the grass mat doesn’t work out, try some of these deeper spots if you can get there.

I know YCB can get going in the late winter, so you may find them before anyone else does.

Let us know of any stumps or lower unit killers you see out there in the yak. Good luck!

[Boyce]

I’ve actually been looking for another form of communication and never knew about this so I did some research. It seems pretty legit and will probably do just fine.

I have the InReach Mini but want a backup obviously, so I was thinking about a Garmin Smartwatch with InReach technology, that way its always attached to me if the mini falls off for some reason.

Ideally the best thing would be a Satellite Phone, though I haven’t found any that make sense price wise.

[Boyce]

I like your plan. No trolling motor is certainly going to make it tough but you can absolutely get it done without one.

Like Devin said, don’t fish the rig itself. We were just catching them in a spot in front of the rig, but it was easily 2-3 casting distances away. In the Jump, you can literally drop your lure off the side of your boat and catch fish.

After that, I would scratch all the spots you have planned that aren’t near the river. Near the river is where you want to be (i.e the Jump, Baptiste, Cubits Gap, First Spillway, Joseph Bayou). Stay close to that river and fish those ledges anywhere nearby and you’ll have success.

[Boyce]

With that tide range I would fish the south end of the trestles and hwy 11 if you can. The south end will have the most moving water, even on a weak tide range like that.

[Boyce]

I also forgot to mention: in the Jump on this day we did some experimenting.

We switched over from a chartreuse sparkle beetle to a Pink Champagne Matrix Shad on the HDS. They hit the pink more than they hit the chartreuse.

We then switched to a mega matrix. After that switch the bites lessened but the size of the trout increased. Zero throwbacks on the mega matrix.

[Boyce]

I have one of those cigarette lighter adapters for the starlink too. And it plugs in on my boat right next to the mount. That’s a win.

[Boyce]

Yeah, that’s the type of Sat phone I was thinking of. The price on some is around $1000-$1500, which is pricy but the lifeline is worth it. However the thing I can’t get past is all the service plans are over $100/month. I don’t want to pay that for something I don’t use daily.

So, I think the Starlink is my best bet for now. I still may get a Garmin watch with inReach just to always have something attached to me.

Do you bring the Starlink on every fishing trip since you’ve had it?

[Boyce]

Starlink Mini on sale currently for $229 so I bought one and will figure out the mount later on. But with the inreach mini plus Starlink, I feel pretty covered out there.

[Boyce]

That’s a good point and good to know. I also forgot that most of the newer phones now have satellite capabilities.

I guess the best thing now would be the inreach plus another form of backup (like the Montana). But the Starlink mini is probably the best route overall, I just wish I could mount it to my boat without it being in the way.

[Boyce]

YES

[Boyce]

I don’t disagree with that theory either. I think they’re all pieces of the puzzle. It sure would be nice if we could figure out the perfect wind, cloud cover, barometric pressure, and tide for waylaying trout. There’s gotta be a meteorologist in the group that can get us all learned up on this subject!