This weekend I had the pleasure of fishing with two couples from up north and they had a fantastic time on the water catching speckled trout. We hit the weather just right because we was in between the cool fronts. Remember what I said about fishing during this time of the year with the cool fronts rolling through every seven to ten days. Because of the north wind associated with a cool front during the passing of the cool front and up to two days after the front has passed you never want to be on the water during this time. The speckled trout know the signs of the conditions are going to be changing and they head for deeper water to bed down during this time. Once the wind calms down and the water comes back up to it’s normal range and the dirt falls out of the water the speckled trout will start swimming around and feeding again. Always try to go fishing this time of the year at least two days after a cool front and any day during that time all the up to the next cold front hits. The trout know the weather patterns and will feed accordingly.
So this weekend as I said Dave, Paul and there girl friends Kerry and Joy spent two days on the water with me and I must say they had a great time fishing the shallow lakes and duck ponds around the Bayou Log Cabins fishing village. We started off Saturday morning at safe light with a slight wind out of the southwest at about five miles per hour. The fog was very heavy so we didn’t go far to start off with. We were catching a few while the fog was heavy but when the fog finally burnt off at about eight forth five we headed south towards a place we been catching some nice trout. When we got there we had to move around a little bit to find the bite, but when we did it was on. I had the two girls on the bow with me casting there lines and taking the speckled trout off the hooks and the two guys were on the back of the boat taking care of themselves. The bite was steady for about two hours not one after the other but like I said a real good steady bite. We manage to box up a nice chest of speckled trout at that one spot. The girls kept stopping and getting there cell phones out to take pictures while the guys just kept reeling the trout in. I told the girls you better put the phone down and start fishing because the guys were going to max out the limit before they had a chance to catch there share of the speckled tout. Well I only had to say that one time for them to realize what was happening and they did just that. They started pulling them in and never once through about picking up the cell phone and taking any more photo’s. All in all we had a great time on the water fishing for the trout but then we moved the boat over to some shallow duck ponds out towards Barataria Bay where the red fish have been gathering up and we caught some very nice red fish for them to grill on the BB pit that night for dinner. We ended up with a nice box of speckled trout and enough red fish for dinner that night, took plenty of photos and built a lot of great memories that will last a life time. That is worth way more then the fish we caught because after a few meals the fish is gone however the memories will last a life time and will give them something to talk about every time the topic of fishing comes up.
When we got back to the log cabins as always I started cleaning the fish we had caught that morning and doing all my post fishing responsibilities. The guys came over and purchased some shrimp from me and started fishing of the dock in front of the log cabin they were staying in. Well by the time I had the boat cleaned up, the speckled trout and red fish cleaned, bagged and ice down for them they were catching fresh water cat fish off the dock right in front of the cabin they were staying in. This time of the year when the water get low the fresh water moves in the bayou by the cabins and the fresh water cat fish move in with the low water salinity.
After cleaning all the fish they asked me to save some of the cleaned fish bodies so they could use it for crab bait. Well they didn’t have any nets so they got some string and started catching blue crabs using a string. After watching them for a little while I was starting to think they were having more fun catching those crabs then we had catching all those speckled trout. Pulling the blue crab up to the surface with the string and then scooping them up with a small minnow net. What a dinner we had that night. BB red fish on the pit, boiled blue crabs, fried speckled trout and of course a few side dishes. We all eat so much it was like Thanksgiving all over again. We sat under the cabins and talked about old times when we were kids how we use to fish out of old wooden flat boats. We told stories about remembering each and every detail about the first red fish we ever caught. We laughed about some of the first boats we ever own and how we use to bail them out ever so often so they wouldn’t sink. I know this may sound silly but the key to this story is that growing up fishing for speckled trout and red fish has made a very big impact on all of our lives and it is one thing we should all pass on to our children and grand children so they can experience all the good times we had on the water.
