Devin
Forum Replies Created
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“All bites came on the shaded side of the rig”
I saw the EXACT same thing today fishing Things That Are Not Bridges as well as on The Trestles. Even on the graph I’d see fish in the shade. Wild.
“The bite was somewhat finicky. A lot of fish throwing the hook or I wouldn’t get a good hook set and would lose them at the side of the boat.”
I used the same word in my report. The fish were definitely being a PITA on the bite. Lots of missed strikes and lost keepers at the very last inch at the side of the boat.
“So, I busted out the garlic spray and used it excessively. This absolutely helped me land more fish.”
Same here.
“I got on an every cast bite of some nice trout and polished off my limit right there.”
I had this strategy in mind. Might even do it tomorrow. Glad to know it worked.
“All in all it was a pretty banner day— I caught 25+ keeper Speckled Trout and only a few throwbacks. I lost count on the clicker because I didn’t have time to click during the chaos.”
You are THE MAN!!!
Great report, thanks for posting!
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This morning I just wanted to get the above word out in case folks didn’t get in the water yet and didn’t want to wait all day. Here’s my actual report:
So I wanted to catch a limit of keeper specks and have my kids reel in some fish and having been on the day before (see my 4-25-25 report) I figured I’d whack ’em early. Yeah right.
Anyway, we left the house later than I planned on. I had originally planned to launch from the south shore, like Bonnabel Boat Launch, but figured that if the weather man screwed up the light forecast NW wind that we’d get beat up. So at the last minute I decided to launch from the north shore, figuring I could stay protected and run south/west if I needed to IF the wind did indeed lay down.
Well, for whatever reason, my brain wasn’t working and I thought it’d be okay to launch at The Pointe. I needed to have ice later in the day and a place to clean 30+ fish (I still had the previous day’s fish in a cooler packed in ice in the back of the truck), but when I got there I was like “ain’t no way”.
There was a long line of women, teenagers and pale guys taking forever, so I immediately turned around and headed to the Super Secret Launch where there are no amenities but also no people because of that. And it’s “Super Secret”, right? Look, if I pulled up and saw a bunch of dudes launching that looked like hammered bacon then I would have waited, but just see the below pic. It would have been an hour until we got in the water! And we were already running “late”. So, no thanks, maybe next time.
Anyway, the water wasn’t glass calm and it didn’t appear to be moving much, either. So launching protected was a good choice. But without the water screaming in like it was more or less predicted to, I just wasn’t confident about the trout bite. The bright skies didn’t help, either. The water color/clarity was green and doable.
So I got to work anyway and found that the water was indeed barely coming in at The Trestles. So was the rest of Louisiana. It was clear that the bite was there, but there were throwbacks, the fish were very finicky and that in order to catch them you had to keep moving, dissecting each piling with a jig. The west side of the Trestles had more boats than the east, and it was the west side I wanted to be on.
That’s fine, but there were enough boats out there that I couldn’t really do this. I even tried ducking in and out to either side of the bridge. So after ten or so throwbacks and 8 keepers I took off to fish two strategies: #1 Fish Things That Don’t Stick Out Above The Water and #2 Fish Things That Stick Out Above The Water But Are Not A Bridge.
The idea was that I could come back later and the tide would be moving more and the crowd would have given up and headed in. Plus the wind appeared to be laying down.
The first two spots for Strategy #1 were a bust. Lots of bait, no visible water movement, and zero fish. Water was good looking at one spot, pea soup at the next.
Then I went on Strategy #2 which proved to be not as productive as yesterday. I caught 5 more keeper trout, another 10 or so throwbacks, 3 throwback reds and 3 keeper reds. So not a goose egg, but not what I hoped either. Water clarity was great. The midge flies were awful. They were swarming us very badly and I’m thankful they don’t bite.
I also lost a lot of fish. They were just biting so finicky. It was a neap tide bite. My guess is that the SE wind we had piled up water in the lake and it was still wanting to fall out, but the incoming tide cancelled it out and we got little to no water movement. It’s been awhile since I lost that many keepers and it was beginning to get under my skin. LOL I mean like, they would come off on the boat flip, *thud* into the side of the bite then swim away laughing. I was so pissed. lol
By now it was past noon, very hot and the boys were sleeping in the boat. LOL
So I headed back to The Trestles and got there for 1:30pm, and immediately started putting trout in the boat. Lots of throwbacks, but the keepers were there. So was the Greater New Orleans area, but I was able to find a stretch where I could jig the west side in peace. It didn’t take long for #14 and #15 to hit the deck. The incoming tide was barely noticeable. The only way you could detect it was by looking at the boats on anchor.
By 1:52pm I had caught 19 keeper speckled trout, 3 keepers reds, who knows how many throwback trout and three throwback reds. I should’ve just stayed at the Trestles, I would’ve finished up much earlier. Now one of my kids is sunburned a little and I am debating going tomorrow. lol
I am grateful for the day on the water and to have caught fish. I just got done cleaning and vacuum packing 60 trout fillets, so I am happy for that.
3/8oz jighead and whatever color (mostly Ultraviolet) did the damage today.
If I were to go tomorrow, I’d hit Mississippi Sound.
Also had four bananas in the boat, first time I’ve done that in my life. lol That was playing with my nerves all day. LOL
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As for algae blooms, they don’t just happen for no reason at all. The wind needs to be calm and the sun out for days on end. We won’t have an algae bloom like 2018-2020. We didn’t in 2023.
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While those blog posts I wrote in 2018/2019 are good, we now have the gift of hindsight. That and I appreciate you stimulating discussion here and elevating this forum above the typical smooth-brain thought garbage typically found in social media.
“– WHAT impact will that have on fishing?”
It will change where fish are located. The most key thing the opening of the spillway will do is automatically take water off your “to fish” list. If something is covered in river water, chances are it’s not worth your time. Congrats, now yo don’t have to fish it.
The short term impact is that it will move fish, most likely concentrate them and make them easier to find/catch. The long term impact is that the lake will get building blocks that build the food chain from the bottom up.
What a lot of people don’t know is that the Bonnet Carre Spillway is designed to leak through the pins every couple years, based off how the Mississippi River trends. So river water makes it into the lake every couple years anyway. But the majority of people holding a fishing license don’t know that. They only seem to notice when the news (i.e. non-fishers) tell them. Stop and think about that.
Now, I’m not on social media and seeing what people are saying, which is fine because most people don’t have as much experience or have studied as much as I have. Repetitive thought-garbage isn’t valuable. But I can imagine what they’re saying is more or less similar to what they’ve said in the past: something missing key information and all-important context.
For example, this opening (if USACE does open it, I don’t know) cannot possibly match the scale of 2018-2020 because there is not that much water to do it. The river is coming up then going back down, at least at the time of this writing.
“-WHERE will it impact fishing?”
Mostly the west side of the lake flowing east to the passes. There will be pockets of “clean” water that will concentrate fish. Some of these pockets will not be discernable on imagery. The only need to be 50 yards wide to yield a 100 trout trip.
“– WHY will it impact fishing?”
Trout don’t enjoy dirty water for similar reasons as to why we don’t enjoy thick smoke: it’s hard to see and breathe. That and they’re on their way to saltier water right now, so the river water will expedite their migration.
Plot twist: that entire side of the lake isn’t salty enough anyway, so trout leave anyway. Slot reds will remain, as they do anyway. Redfish do great in straight fresh water. Anyone telling you otherwise is wrong.
I mentioned the key already: the river water will show you where not to go. It really is that easy. Openings in the past have produced excellent trout fishing in the short and long term.
Normies claim that there’s a negative short term impact on their fishing. They are not wrong, they’re just not accurate: the way they fished before the conditions changed no longer works. Rather than adapt, they will whine. I have a glass to collect their tears and enjoy the subsequent hydration.
The spillway opening that you’re talking about is not abnormal, it’s normal. Business as usual, folks. Nothing to see here. What’s abnormal is the ten year flood that was The Freshening. Big difference on a continental scale. But most people don’t realize that because they have a short memory, they don’t read, they don’t write things down, they don’t study, don’t realize what they don’t know that they do not know and are otherwise willfully stupid.
The monkey wrench in all this is that fish may get in the dirty stuff anyway. They’ll do it because they’ll put up with it in the short term to meet their needs. Sometimes that’s where all the bait is. The spillway will dump a bunch of bait like gizzard shad in the lake and trout eat them. But dummies here in Louisiana think they’re menhaden. They’re not. This is important because they behave very differently from menhaden, most notably in the way/when/where they spawn. That impacts where trout feed.
Remember that bait trout like to eat are found eating phytoplankton that grows in areas that get sunlight and river water. Look at AIS and see where all the pogey boats are: river water.
So, to address this monkey wrench, I leave you with the following meme.
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Not bad at all! That’s a gorgeous trout.
Great report, thanks for posting!
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So it was definitely busy this morning then. That makes sense.
There were definitely fish out there. Further south the chop wasn’t so bad.
Great report, thanks for posting!
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The Geosphere image for the Long Rocks today looks great. I’d certainly give it a shot.
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“Bad news is that the ignition switch swap out didn’t fix my intermittent no start issue…”
I would consider checking where you kill switch is. Is it loose? IIRC, I had that problem some years ago. All I had to do was put the kill switch all the way back in as it had wiggled out.
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Leaving at 7am?!?! You are disciplined.
You are also a man amongst men for going fishing and taking time to give the rest of us a good report so we know what to do this weekend.
You are the man. If there was a medal for such a thing, I’d request to pin it on you myself. lol
Great report, thanks for posting.
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Also, when I got back to the launch, the water was about 4-6 inches lower, so it did indeed fall out.
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The fishing will probably be really good. To completely answer your question:
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Or “fish the conditions” vs “keep doing what you were doing before”.
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Keeping my fingers crossed!
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Ty is correct.
But I don’t think we will get a lot of river water compared to 2018-2020. It’s just not forecast. You can’t divert what’s not there.
After that, the redfish will still be there. The slots don’t spawn. They stay in the lake. They’ll enjoy the gizzard shad.
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Well that solves that.
Man, it’s gotta be a ground somewhere.
