[cliffhall]

How much time do you have?

Lots of trout nerds on here who could probably write a novel on the subject. I’ll speak to my experience of transitioning to only being interested in trout.

To me, catching redfish was too easy, at least in the time period that I started fishing (I understand that things have become increasingly more difficult). It seems like you used to be able to find a redfish in every clear pond with grass in SE Louisiana. I can remember catching limits of redfish as bycatch when targeting trout. I feel like they are rather simple creatures as well. Redfish are like a really fun game of checkers.

On the other hand, I’ve said figuring out trout patterns are like playing chess n a blender inside of a tornado. There are patterns and rules to the game but be prepared to adjust year to year and trip to trip. For instance, the patterns that have worked so consistently for me in the Bayou B area for years have completely changed this year. Last couple of years they were more consistently on the rocks and this year they’ve been on the grass flats. They are also unusually picky eaters. I’ve had a buddy who never fished jerkbaits in his life outfish me before doing the most wonky retrieve you can imagine while I stuck to the patterns that consistently worked in the past. They often times just do what they want and each day is a new puzzle to figure out.

I also feel like the diverse environments you can catch them in makes things fun. You can go from catching them on jigging bridges in Lake P in October/november to jerkbaiting rocks in the MRGO in December/January to topwater in hopedale in February/March to jigging deep croaker holes in Delacroix in April, back to jigging monsters on the bridges in May, to wading the beaches in grand isle in June. You get to try different presentations while seeing different views throughout the year.

There’s also something that sticks out to me about people who get obsessed with trout (Trout nerds). Theo Von might call it “a touch of the tism” but there’s something about trout that feels so fun for people who get obsessed about patterns and techniques. My fly fishing buddies will probably disagree but I think of trout fishing as the bass fishing and red fishing as catfishing of the inshore world. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about either species but trout are a really fun creature to pursue if you want to get completely keyed into something that you can never fully figure out.

• This reply was modified 4 months, 3 weeks ago by  cliffhall.

[cliffhall]

Devin covered everything well but I’ll reiterate that a big part of fishing that area is riding around and looking for bait. I wouldn’t fish an area for very long if I wasn’t seeing signs of bait. I like to drift the wind blown banks in that area. Trout will usually hold off the banks.

I’ve heard a couple good things about ameda recently so it’s worth really spending time in there.

If the water comes up with that wind then don’t be afraid to peak into some smaller ponds or flats off of the big water. Sometimes it surprises me how skinny those trout are willing to get with incoming tides.

[cliffhall]

Let’s go! Love what yall are doing.

[cliffhall]

That’s good to hear about grass and bait.

I have a duck lease around skippy and pointe fienne. The grass was really thick in there this year so that may be worth checking out as well.

[cliffhall]

Think of the rocks as you would the trestles. Sometimes they are so close to the rocks that you want to throw something weedless right into them and sometimes they could be 50 yards off of them. I can remember a few trips where I caught fish by parking my duck boat right off the rocks and casted a jig behind the boat towards the MRGO.

As a general rule, temperature trends usually dictate whether they are closer or further away from the rocks. If the temps are trending up then I’d throw weedless stuff (slicks work well for this) or suspending jerkbaits ( shadow raps, vision 110, jackal rerrange, 17mr) right up against the rocks. If temps are trending down then maybe start by backing off the rocks 40-50 yards and throwing deeper diving jerkbaits (Berkeley cutter 110s, vision 90, heavy dines, Corkys).

As with most of trout fishing, there are no permanent rules for this and they could completely switch things up on your for no perceivable reason at all.

[cliffhall]

17mr has been really productive on the flats. If the Chalmette flat gets too busy then it’s worth hopping around all of the grass flats from there to proctors.

Don’t discount throwing mid diving jerkbaits on the rocks: Shadowraps, xrap, megabass vision 110, 17mr

Berkeley cutter 90 is a really good fish finding jerk out there

[cliffhall]

Exactly what Boyce said. Southern end moves first/hardest.

The east side poles (dock poles on the furthest eastern shore of Lake P) all the way up to the hospital wall can be worth a try with light tides.

[cliffhall]

Grass COULD equal bait. If there are pogies and mullets up there then I’d be thinking of what path they take from Salvador – Little Lake – Barataria and how to intersect them for the early spring topwater season.

[cliffhall]

I feel like I often learn a lot more from the butt whoopins than I do when they are fired up and will hit anything. It forces you to think and refine your process.

I also like to try new things, which forces you get comfortable with failure. I don’t know any fishermen, even those who I would consider much better than me, who don’t have bad trips. Being a speckled trout nerd is a humbling experience lol

[cliffhall]

That’s good to know. I heard there were some trout deep deep in hopedale before the all time low water so I was wondering where to intercept them. Ameda makes sense. Love that area for late winter/early spring

[cliffhall]

First split was great then it fell off a cliff. Low water kept a lot of people out the marsh for a few weekends in January.

Do you fish the hopedale side of terre aux boeufs at all?

[cliffhall]

That makes a lot of sense to me. I guess there is good and bad to everything including a high river.

[cliffhall]

You are not alone. Unfortunately the Bayou b area is a shell of what it was even 6-7 years ago but it’s still a worthy place to look for big fish.

[cliffhall]

I still owe you a trip out to Bienvenue. Might finally break out the fishing boat this weekend so I will let you know if its worth meeting up down there in the next couple of weeks.

[cliffhall]

I’ve played around quite a bit with what rules and area would make a proper BIG trout tournament. I think the best way to truly test each anglers skills would be to do a 3 day tournament in an area no one is familiar with. 3 days could help eliminate the luck factor and a new area would ensure no one could substitute time in an area/fishing network for big trout knowledge.

Having said that, we’ve probably prioritized convenience and having a good spot to do the post tournament stuff for the RO20 one. I’ve had a relatively decent amount of people ask me to do more tournaments so maybe I could do some just focused on big trout in the future.