[Devin]

Is your ghost rated for 36v? You were running a 36v trolling motor on 24v?

If so, that thing is gonna pull a wake!

[Devin]

Unfortunately, Saturday I am tied up, but it is looking like I am able to get out Sunday.

Still undecided. Either exploring Venice or hitting Port Fourchon is on the table. I’m really thinking Fourchon. I just think there could be something out there. I have no report to go off of, but generally in the past I like to try to be one of the “first” on the outside hitting virgin trout.

I think you’re in the right spot. Josh’s Pen report has me thinking that trout are still inside, but I have a hunch they could be further out, too.

Last year on 4/15 I crushed ’em under birds by Independence Reef, IIRC. So, about halfway between where you want to fish and where I want to fish.

I guess this weekend will shed light on which one works best.

[Devin]

Definitely do not fish the Trestles under those conditions.

That west shoreline of Lake Borgne is probably a good bet if you must fish that area. Just be ready to move and cover water.

For me, personally, if I had to fish that side of the River, I’d fish the points, rocks and coves between the south side of the Rock Dam in Hopedale all the way to the Long Rocks and even the Long Rocks itself.

[Devin]

Yeah, every once in awhile we can count on a hurricane that’s going to delete marsh. Ida did a number on Montegut/Lafitte.

Maybe CPRA’s efforts can put it all back, maybe not. Maybe the River can make something new, maybe not.

Time will tell.

Sometimes I wish I had just moved to the Midwest and started a firearms company. But the time I have spent in Louisiana has been great. There really hasn’t been anything like it. There’s something about launching the boat and punching into the unknown that just does it for me.

[Devin]

I think fishing the rock jetty leading out to GOA could be good, especially now that trout are beginning to move out there. The wind has gotta play nice, though.

The weirs are community holes you can try, but start fishing them a few hundred yards out then work you way in. Most guys fish the bottom.

[Devin]

Shhhhhh……

[Devin]

I guess I could just find a battery with those specs and call it a day. Maybe find one that works with a solar panel to give it extra juice while I’m out fishing.

Perhaps what I need to do is come up with a standard or parameter to shoot for. I guess three days is a good goal. Three days of beating the snot out of Venice and hammering it hard. I think I can do that.

[Devin]

You will want to have something with an SOS feature. If you your boat flips over and all your stuff goes in the drink, then how are you going to get a distress call out? The radio is still good for that, and so is the InReach. An EPIRB probably even better. That’s worth researching: InReach vs EPIRB. What’s gonna send the cavalry when you flip your boat at SouthWest Pass and you’re drifting into the Gulf of America?

I don’t know anything about Starlink cell coverage.

I do know that I got the Starlink Mini yesterday and had it fired up and surfing YouTube in under five minutes. It is mind-boggling how simple and easy this thing is. It just works. It makes Spectrum look stupid. Thank you Elon for making something so sleek and good. Thank you.

Powering it on the water would be an issue. It runs on 12-48DC and needs 60 watts. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable running that on the house battery. There is a company called Star Batt that sells a self contained battery box that protects and deploys the Mini.

Find it here: https://star-batt.com/product/star-batt-mini-battery/

But that’s a cool $1,600 and that’s pricey even for someone like me who can write off such an expense (this is my looking at you, IRS….stop sending my money overseas and FIX THE FKN ROADS!!!) lol

So I’m sure there’s another solution I can come up with, or maybe I can build something. I like the idea of something that’s protected against the elements.

For now, I can tell you that this piece of equipment is a winner. It just works flawlessly. Now I just need to solve the power issue.

[Devin]

It can do both. Wow.

Man, I love good tech. Enjoy that badass trolling motor and battery.

[Devin]

This right here!

[Devin]

They 1,000% Hoover up redfish way up in the Biloxi Marsh. Watch this B-roll at 8:16. Those are double-surface drive tracks through every nook and cranny of the marsh just off Bayou Biloxi. I filmed it this time last year.

Used to the bow guides couldn’t go that far. Then they shot every redfish around the marina, so they installed a 300HP outboard on their rigs to take them further out, trimming up the surface drives to get on plane, then trim them back down once they want to shoot an area.

“With the NW winds, seems water will be low,”

Good. They’ll be concentrated and not spread out. You have the right boat to get in and out of skinny crap.

Thanks for coming to Louisiana!

[Devin]

Nah, neither am I. I just can’t believe the state next door really gets a say over the people who are immediately impacted by the river.

I mean, if the river topped the levee and washed away the crime and potholes and stayed away from the trout, that wouldn’t break my heart. LOL

[Devin]

Also, I am not Tony Stark. I know just enough to fk this up. I am merely sharing what has worked for me and so far, haven’t fried any of my GPS units or burned down my house.

There are no schematics, no formal education, there’s not much planning, just a lot of trial by fire. lol

[Devin]

One last thing: if you’re going to work in the outdoors (looking at you, commercial fishermen….who aren’t reading this lol) then you had best be ready for a rainy day and by “rainy day” I mean “swift kick in the nuts” aka extreme financial duress. You cannot expect to combat odds with Nature and blame it on someone else. lol

Just…wow.

[Devin]

Oh wow. Okay, this isn’t me shooting the messenger lol:

That’s kind of retarded.

Oh boo hoo, Mississippi! Like USACE is in control of unprecedented snow melt and 1,000 year floods. Yes, it’s a government organization that’s staffed by people who put on pants one leg at a time like anybody slinging an oyster drege. Like, c’mon.

I’m fully aware of what happened and knew they filed a suit, but didn’t know it went anywhere. So that’s interesting….well, VERY interesting news you have to share.

So, what is the Corps gonna do if MS says “no”? Let the levees top over and destroy a national port? Flood a joint reserve base used to protect our airspace over the Gulf of America? Flood critical infrastructure supplying 30% of gas and oil to the rest of the nation? Coal? Shipping? Homes? Businesses?

For what? To save a luxury food only people with spending money can afford?

Imagine being a shipping magnate reading this news and thinking, “Yeah, I’ll just use the port of <Miami, Houston, Mobile, NYC, whatever> because they’re not retarded.” Then we lose all those jobs.

Geezus.

Don’t forget that what prompted all this was the totally unprecedented, unpredicted and 100% uncontrollable 1,000 year and 500 year floods that I refer to as The Freshening. Spillway openings in the past didn’t decimate their leases in EBM, but that one did. There was something like a 90-100% mortality rate of oysters. Trust me, I get it.

But I hope they also took time to sue the Pearl, Amite, Mobile, Wolf and Pascagoula Rivers, which also experienced the same historical floods.

Hopefully after that they succeeded suing gravity.

–> And don’t forget that every sluice gate installed along the Mississippi River was installed at the behest of the oyster industry, to include Caernarvon! <–

I swear, it is like dealing with Iraqis. Geezus. The short memory literally reminds me of tribal bickering. Might as well scream “ALLAHU AKBAR” each time they drop those tongs. lol

Here’s why: oysters do not do well in high salinity water. They absolutely get demolished by predation including, but not limited to:

• cow-nose rays
• black drum
• sheepshead
• atlantic oyster drills (truly awful)
• vibrio vulnificus
• and a lot more evil sh*t

So once they start dredging dead oysters they’ll change their song and dance. Watch. When it happens, remember I said it here. Because lower salinity that oysters thrive in keep those predators at bay or remove them altogether (especially the drills, those are the worst).

I’m all about not having the detrimental short-term affects of a reasonable amount of river water, and I’m even more about anything that supports Louisiana’s inshore fishing, but I’m not so brain-dead and blind to the hierarchy of needs that I’d do so at the expense of everything else. lol

Oh, and I’m also fully aware of opening Morganza instead, but that’s just passing the buck somewhere else. There are oystermen in Vermilion Bay and I’m sure they won’t like it, either.

And I heard Meta is building an AI plant in Morgan City (ugh….why) and they have a bazillion dollars and I’m sure they won’t let local politics risk the billions they’re investing there.

The lesson here? Have serenity and stop using lawyers for everything.