[cliffhall]

Great effort out there! My last trip to hopedale looked a lot like that. If you like plastics on the 1/8oz jig heads then you may like the Slick and Slick Jr rigged weedless. Hook up ratio goes a bit down but I feel like bigger trout hang tight to any rock in the MRGO South of the dam.

[cliffhall]

Great report and good job of catching a couple at every spot. There is something satisfying about that.

[cliffhall]

Riptide Terrova user here with no complaints. I also use the remote version, for the reasons you mentioned above, and love it. Just keep extra AAA batteries in your boat for the remote and you should never have any problems with that thing.

[cliffhall]

Love this kind of stuff. I was just watching a Lost Louisiana documentary on Grand Isle. Will definitely check this out as well.

I’m sure it’s been talked about here already but I just bought the book Rising Tide to learn a little more about the Mississippi. Keep posting any other stuff you come across

• This reply was modified 2 days, 10 hours ago by  cliffhall.

[cliffhall]

Well done, Ryan.

You certainly earned every single fish you caught last weekend. Great job on making things work and grinding it out in some tough conditions.

[cliffhall]

Would it be possible to use one starlink for your home and fishing trips? Obviously you’d have to pick one or the other at any given time but that would be nice to have out there.

[cliffhall]

Excellent job of having back to back successful trips to Venice! Not gonna lie, all of you Venice Conquistadors have inspired me to start learning Venice this upcoming fall. I’ll blame you guys if my wife starts complaining of longer trips lol.

[cliffhall]

“The sad irony that you’ve done this during the worst time in Louisiana’s inshore history to do find/catch big trout.”

I am all too well aware of this sad irony. Stories of the “good ole’ days” are big part of my inspiration to get involved with conservation efforts.

“If I find where legitimate hammer trout are holding, well, I’m not putting that in the baby spoon.”

Let me be clear, I didn’t make this post with the intention for myself or others to posts big trout spots. I’m interested to see if there ideas or patterns that could make the collective effort more fruitful. The most rewarding feeling in all of fishing for me is when an educated guess of where and how a big trout could be caught comes out right. That and I am convinced I’ve done something to the trout gods to not let them ever allow me to catch someone else’s fish. That literally never works out for me.

“I totally understand the whole altruistic, willing to help and participate in a two-way street mentality, but my overall experience in inshore fishing is that you have to prove yourself first.”

This is a FACT. I really think a big part of why I’ve been able to establish relationships with some big trout guys is their respect for my willingness to fail lol. I’ve been able to provide lots of insight into what not to do, along with some good intel, to help them know I was serious.

“I will say that getting out to the rigs in Breton Sound/Venice are worth your time.

That and it’s not just ideal fishing spots you’re looking for, but ideal fishing areas. I’m totally willing to accept that I could be wrong, I’m alright with that. But I think that an area has to set up to be good for big trout and has to have had consistently done so for years. These fish are creatures of habit and would have grown up returning to the same spots.”

I’m slowly coming to terms with this. There’s a part of me that’s ok with accepting the fact that what defines a fish as “big” is relative to what area you are fishing. There is another part of me that knows if I want to consistently catch a certain size of fish then I’m going to have to go to the fringes of LA. I fully agree that big trout are creatures of habit and the reality is that the type of fish I’m looking for are more likely to be caught in those areas you mentioned.

[cliffhall]

Can’t tell if you were responding to me or not but Ty Hibbs is someone to talk to about Redfish in Louisiana. He has a podcast called “The Redfish Podcast”. His general thoughts are that it’s due to overfishing in those areas. A lot of guides switched their business model to specifically target reds when trout fishing got tougher during the freshening.

[cliffhall]

You make a good point and I do agree that throwing bigger baits can help you weed out smaller fish. Having said that, I do think there are times where sizing down is actually more effective when targeting bigger fish. Big Trout legends like Jay Watkins out of Rockport, Tx or Matt Chipperfield out of Jacksonville, FL preach this a lot. I know those are very different fisheries but I hear the same things from my fishing mentors. Like all rules with trout, you can throw a big “Depends” into any of these points. Matching the hatch and knowing conditions are important no matter what you are targeting.

I also agree that location is the most important factor in all of this. I’m limited by a smaller boat so I have to look outside of what is probably the best big trout fishing areas in the state: Outside Rigs and Islands. I think having an understanding that all things are relative really helps me keep my head in the game. I can’t compare myself to the Carter brothers in Venice when I mostly fish Lake P, Bievenue, and the Hopedale area. It’s just like the idea that a big buck in Louisiana would be laughable in OK or Kansas. Even the big trout in Venice are just a decent fish south of Corpus, Tx or the Guana River, Indian River, and Mosquito Lagoon in FL. Those trout you caught are hammers for those areas.

[cliffhall]

It’s wild to me that not that long ago (relatively) I’d launch a kayak from Sweetwater and go catch 30ish reds in a day. We had one summer-fall way on our duck lease in braithwaite where 42 redfish was the least amount we caught all season. My fly fishing buddies would go back there and see hundreds. Have caught a handful of rat reds in the few trips I’ve tried the last few years.

[cliffhall]

I always say that figuring trout out is like playing chess in a blender that’s in a tornado. There are certainly rules to this game but one of those rules is the trout will sometimes say frick all of the other rules and do whatever they want that day. No man on this planet will ever master trout, indefinitely, and especially in LA waters. That still won’t stop us from obsessing over every fraction of a percentage all the way up to 99.99% mastery.

[cliffhall]

I would most likely only take it on trips where I’m going to Venice, Breton, or the Chandys, so maybe that would be doable.

How packable is the Mini? I don’t have a ton of room on my skiff. Is it pretty easy to set up on a boat?

[cliffhall]

I’d be down. I dont really care for any non speckled trout fish but the trip wouldn’t have to be planned around my interest, obviously. I’m just slowly starting to concede that if I’m going to primarily target big trout in Louisiana then I gotta go where they are so it’s time to start learning all that I can about Venice.

• This reply was modified 5 days, 16 hours ago by  cliffhall.

[cliffhall]

Well done. Gladiator is one of my favorites.

Also, when are we getting the LAFB Elite sponsored house boat in Venice? If we are gonna take over the place then let’s do it right