Devin
Forum Replies Created
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Welcome to the Community!
“I decided that I needed to start posting this year.”
Yeah, you should. It’s a great benefit to you. Definitely make planning posts and get help figuring out where to go and what to do. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
“I run a 16.5ft aluminum G3”
That’s all you need!
“but I have never been on a good trout bite so I’m looking to change that this year.”
Look at @will-grand reports for LA-1 and drive down there and give it a whack. No boat required. Now is the time to capitalize on that. Don’t dilly dally. When it warms up you may want to consider launching the boat to fish places like The Wall in Chalmette.
Thank you for posting an intro.
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Hey Keith, great question. Thanks for posting it. Yeah, speckled trout are definitely not the focus of this forum, they’re just more popular than redfish.
After that, I’m not really too sure what to tell you that I haven’t already published in detail. Like, Inshore Fishing 101, Predicting a Redfish Jubilee, and Sight Fishing Mastery School are all oriented toward redfish. Especially Redfish Jubilee, that’s about as easy as it’s going to get all year, if you can stand the cold.
Specifically, this part of Inshore Fishing 101 where I detail redfish ponds: https://www.lafbelite.com/lesson/if101-5-2/
After that, the south side of the Rock Dam, maybe the Pen in Chalmette, dead end canals, are all going to turn on with redfish.
I’m really looking for you to apply what I teach. You already interact in this forum, which I really appreciate and why I’m handing out “gimmes”. So what conditions are coming or happening? A buttload of northwest wind and cold temperature. Where would you want to fish based upon that? Not a northwest-facing shoreline in Lake Borgne. Hell no. Not at the top of the “stairs” because it’s dry land right now.
You want to go somewhere deep and protected from such a wind. So where are those spots? Look for those, find a few in an area and hit those.
Next you want to make sure your route there and back is navigable. That’s the process in a nutshell: go fishing based upon the conditions and make sure you can get there safely and back. I’d bring spare clothes as a safety precaution.
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“id see a little sheen on the surface of the water”
Yeah, the power trim is leaking. Or, at any rate, something is leaking.
It’s common, but not something to let go indefinitely.
Man, it being “cold” is no excuse. It’s not cold. Cold is when everything freezes indefinitely until spring. lol Cold is when you have to use engine block heaters or the oil pan freezes solid. That’s real cold.
On a side note, I think the relatively warm weather affects us southerners. It’s too easy to blow off something until tomorrow, whereas up north there is a definitive cutoff date: get that thing done before it’s covered in three feet of snow and frozen solid. lol
Think about it: how did so many Yankee bass anglers kick so much ass in the south, especially Louisiana? Their lakes are frozen over half the year. They can’t even fish! So one could say that, by southern standards, they have as much as half the fishing experience. So I wonder if the cold improves their ethic.
I mean, Kevin Van Dam (Michigan), Mike Iaconelli (New Jersey), Jacob Wheeler (Indiana) and more have absolutely dropped the hammer on Bassmaster win after Bassmaster win in southern waters. That says something.
Just saying!
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You guys are troopers. Way to stick it out and make it happen.
Above all, thank you for letting us know about it. A big shift in the fishing is about to happen. Great report and thank you for posting.
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Chas Champagne talks a lot about where to fish in his area with the coming weather in this recent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mn6OLV9aEk
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Also, The Pen in Chalmette will probably load up with redfish. Just a heads up.
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Excellent questions. The links below to LAFB have great graphics to illustrate my points, so be sure to check them out.
It’s gonna put the fish in a funk. Crabs and whatever shrimp are left in the marsh will burrow in the mud and basically hibernate. In Chesapeake Bay where it’s much colder this is what happens and crabbing is pretty much done. So they’re far more seasonal in that regard.
Trout will go into survival mode. They won’t be biting much if at all when the water temperature gets into the mid to low 40s, which is most likely what will happen. Remember, areas that are protected from that harsh NW wind will be warmer. The Great Wall of Chalmette is an excellent example. Speckled trout will definitely be taking a time out. If the water temps stay in that range of mid to low 40s you can pretty much count on them just not being catchable.
I’ve observed them on sonar being glued to the bottom and only confirmed they were there by snagging them with a jig.
So, it’s Plan Redfish, kinda like what I did in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96r20IhUomA
You can see water temp on the south side of the Rock Dam was 47 degrees.
Redfish are just hardier and will continue to eat. You will see them get leeches and parasites on them, maybe even see some fin rot.
A fish kill is likely: https://www.lafishblog.com/what-caused-this-massive-fish-kill/
The majority of mullet and menhaden are gone for their own spawn to begin with, so that’s not really a factor.
The best places to fish will be the “bottom” of the stairs: https://www.lafishblog.com/redfish-jubilee/
“the last significant snowfall in the New Orleans area was 2008”
Where did you get that? The Northshore has definitely had snow in far more recent years. The last off the top of my head was 2018.
“Will baitfish get killed off?”
Any fish that can’t get somewhere safe will die.
“Are shrimp and crabs able to survive?”
They burrow in the mud.
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I haven’t been approached by anyone, but I also don’t bother with it because so many folks know who I am. That really changes what I can and cannot get away with. LOL
But I have heard of anglers getting kicked out of there before. I guess it is a pseudo sensitive site and sometimes I’ve seen them shipping expensive looking stuff through there. Given my background in working for The Man securing sites and personnel — if I were in charge of security there (and especially if I didn’t know jack about inshore anglers and especially given what just happened in NOLA) — I would 1,000% kick all of you out of there. Just one less headache.
With that said, what’s that saying? Better to beg forgiveness than ask for permission? lol
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Do you know what the other boats did different? Were they further south?
“Spent some time in the blue point canals for some deeper water”
How much deeper are those canals anyway? Doesn’t seem like they’d be ~10ft.
This last cold front definitely moved the fish around. We saw something similar that same day on the other side of the river. Very interesting.
Something we need to give ourselves a collective “pat on the back” for is the timely and detailed reporting we’ve been providing to this forum. What we are getting is better resolution on what the speckled trout are doing across a broader area. So it’s obvious that this last cold snap moved them around. Well, it’s about to happen again. I would approach the coming days with fresh eyes and not factor in previous reports from when it was warmer. This is when older reports from year’s past for the same conditions really come in to play.
LA Inshore on Facebook could be a good resource to that end.
“comparison is the thief of joy”
That it is. One of the things I hated about cleaning fish at the marina is seeing some dickhead come in with a slew of fish after I sucked all day. LOL Honestly, I was that guy more often than not. I think we all enjoy getting credit for good results, but I didn’t enjoy the extra attention (wHeRE diD u gO?) and learned not to do that to people. lol
The day I got a slip and could clean fish in peace was amazing. No more comparison.
Either way, thank you for posting a report. It’s helped and I appreciate that.
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“but after 3 hours it never did”
Man, I felt that. LOL You’re a beast. Way to stick it out.
It’s too bad, because further north it was *perfect*. No wind, no sun, just perfectly overcast. I’m sorry the rain was such a PITA in the ass for you, but I do think you were *this close* to an epic fishing trip. You are a machine for sticking it out as long as you did.
Tough fishing trip, but great report. Thank you for posting it.
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You just got lucky in previous years, then. They 100% kick people out on the regular.
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Next time wait until that crappy “in-between” time in February/March to do maintenance. It’s then and August/September I try to get maintenance done since we have a year-round season.
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Yes, that’s definitely an opportunity!!!
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I wonder if the trout bailed into Bayou Dupont when it got cold, then came out and ate shallow when it warmed up. Perhaps they vacated the north end of The Pen.
I really don’t know, I wish I was in my boat when I fished Friday because then I could get a better idea as to what was going on deep.
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Ha ha ha ha ha!!! That had to have drove him bonkers. Nothing like a fish to prove you wrong. That hurts. lol
