Well we are finally getting into some of the summer time speckled trout bite I have been talking about. The bite is strong and it is good near the barrier islands. This weekend I had a full house here at the lodge. We had some folks that brought there own boat and did there thing on there own. We had some families that did not bring a boat and rented one of our small boats and had a fantastic time fishing close to the village catching a bunch a reds and trout. And of course we had some guys in from Alabama that chartered me for a great day on the water Saturday morning.
The folks that brought there own boat followed us out Saturday morning to the northern end of Barataria Bay. I dropped them off at one of the islands we been catching some really nice trout. They fished speckled trout until about ten thirty in the morning and then they came back to the cabins to freshen up a little bit. After getting a bite to eat and a cool shower along with a two hour nap they were ready for a afternoon red fish trip in the back waters of Lake Hermitage. Lake Hermitage is the lake that this area is named after. I must say that Lake Hermitage has some of the best red fishing around this entire area. People from all over come here to fish the shores of our lake and it is only about three blocks from the log cabins. Fishing the lake for red fish is pretty easy on days that the wind is not blowing too bad. I usually troll the shore line throwing a live shrimp fifteen inches under a popping cork about two feet from the shore. The red fish prowl the shoreline looking for something to eat. It is a great location to fish if you are not too knowledgeable of the waters around here. Needless to say that family in one of the cabins enjoyed eating grilled red fish for dinner Saturday night. I visited them and heard all the stories about how and where they caught there fish. You here me talk about building memories all the time, well they had a great weekend and also built a bunch a great memories during the process of fishing and camping.
Well the family that did not have a boat and decided to rent one of Bayou Log Cabins small boat rentals also had a fantastic time as they fished a different area. With the smaller boat they were able to get in the duck ponds where it is a lot less water. With the small flat boat you can fish the ponds that only hold about fifteen to twenty inches of water. You really don’t know how many red fish this area holds until you get into the inner ponds and broken marsh. That is when you get a chance to see the red fish in there own environment. It gets really quit in the broken marsh because you don’t feel any wind and there are not distractions. They fished the shallow duck ponds and broken marsh both morning and evening for two days. Of course they had a box of reds to clean Sunday morning when they woke up. In fact they spent the entire morning cleaning fish and all the fishing gear they used over the weekend. Again I have to mention the memories they built over the course of the weekend as they did not stop fishing for two days from morning to night.
Finally the group of fellows that came in from Alabama had the time of there life fishing with me out by the barrier islands. I picked them up from the cabins Saturday morning at safe light and we headed south towards Barataria Bay with a stiff wind out of the southeast at about fifteen miles per hour. When we arrived at the north end of Barataria Bay where we been catching some nice speckled trout the water was dirty and it was not looking good. We did a little island hopping and it didn’t take long to realize that it was going to be a tough day fishing with all the wind. We made the decision to head south across Barataria Bay towards the barrier islands taking the chance not knowing if the water was going to clean up or not. The guys said they wanted to catch some speckled trout and that is what we were looking for. Well when we got out there the water was not the greatest but it was clean enough to find some trout. We fished three or fore spots with not much luck as the guys were starting to loose faith that we were not going to find any speckled trout because of the conditions we were up against. After trying the more popular spots I been catching some nice trout we headed down the beach towards the east about five miles and boy did we find some pretty water. There were no trawl boats pushing for shrimp and we tucked in behind a island where the wind was not blowing very hard at all. Before I could get the boat settled down and anchored up in a position that I wanted too, the guys were bringing speckled trout over the side of the boat two at a time. As late as it was I knew right a way that this spot was going to save the fishing trip. They was not many locations on that day anybody was going to find a speck bite and good for us we found one that was going to pay off for us. The trout was a perfect size and the guys had a fantastic time catching a box of beautiful speckled trout. Sometimes it can be a challenge finding a bite on a windy day but don’t give up and sometimes it will pay off for you like it did for us Saturday.
