We have been catching some beautiful speckled trout out of Bayou Log Cabins Fishing Lodge thirty five miles south of New Orleans. Most of my trips lately have been over by nine o’clock in the morning if not by having a limit of speckled trout on ice it is because of the high winds we been having. The live shrimp are in and the food chain is following. All the conditions are right, the water is clear the tides are moving as predicted and the summer thunder storms are few and far between. The only thing that has been a little bit on the negative side is the high winds we been having. We shot a show with Kelvin Ford Monday and the wind was out of the southeast at about twenty five or thirty miles per hour. What a terrible day for the wind to be screaming out of the southeast. Never the less we made the most out of it and went fishing anyway. I wanted to fish speckled trout early in the morning before the wind picked up but when I picked Kelvin and the camera man up from the cabins before daylight we had a stiff wind at about twenty five miles per hour. We tried to get out towards Barataria Bay but the water was dirty from the rough waves and the wind was just too bad. We decided to head in towards the cabins to fish some red fish in order to make a show out of it and boy did we get into some great red fishing. Just about three miles from the log cabins we found some pretty water that was not effected from the wind and of course we were using live shrimp for bait when we started catching some beautiful red fish. They were the perfect size all running about ten to twelve pounds and about twenty to twenty five inches long. Much to my surprise while catching all those red fish in the back waters of Lake Hermitage we started catching some sixteen inch speckled trout. Kelvin asked me if that was a normal thing to be catching speckled trout way up in the inside waters this late in the year and my answer was no. Normally all the trout have moved out towards the gulf this time of the year and they are in full swing of there breeding season. I was interested to see when we cleaned the speckled trout if they had any eggs in them and the answer is yes, they were full of eggs. Now that is the first time I have ever caught big trout on the inside waters in April that was full of eggs. Come to think about it most of the trout we have been catching so far this year have been on the north side of Barataria Bay. Like I said before, by April the trout are gathered up on the oyster reefs near the barrier islands and they are in full breeding mode. The only thing I can think of is the fact we had such a mild winter this year maybe the trout are staying in a little longer this year. I know for sure that once the water temperature reaches a certain point they will all leave and head south towards the beach. Anyhow we had a great time fishing back in the protected waters and catching a box of beautiful red fish. As a matter of fact we ended up catching a nice mess of speckled trout while shooting the show. That made for great conversation during the making of the show. After getting enough footage to make the show the camera man put his equipment up and caught a few reds his self. It was a great day on the water filming with those guys and I look forward to doing another one on a day that we can get out and target some of those big speckled trout we been catching. We were fishing live shrimp three under a popping cork all day and it seemed to have worked out fine for us.
I try to keep about ten thousand live shrimp on hand in my new pond that I built last year. I have been selling a lot of live shrimp here lately to folks that have launching there boats here at my public boat launch. Live shrimp is becoming more and more the bait of choice during the spring and summer months for both speckled trout and red fish. Some people will try and tell me that they catch just as many trout on soft plastic and I do using live shrimp, but the truth is that is simply not true. I have been fishing for over fifty years and if there is one thing I have learned is that nothing and I mean nothing works as well as live shrimp when it comes to boxing up speckled trout and red fish. It seems like each year they are coming up with new plastics to try and people are always bring me something new to try and I keep telling them not to give me the latest bait because I am a live shrimp fisherman. Sometimes I think the only thing that those new plastics baits catch is the people who payed for those baits at the cash register. But you know how fisherman are, every year when the new baits come out they have to try everyone to see if it is going to be the magic bait. What I keep telling them is the magic bait is what mother nature provided for them from the beginning of time and that is live shrimp. Don’t try to change the nature flow of things just except the truth and when you leave the boat dock next time to go fishing just bring a few extra dollars and buy some live shrimp and go have a great time on the water. Good luck to all my follow fisherman and fisher-women and remember while on the water safety first.
