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Light Bite on Irish Bayou
 Keith Lusher
Max Patrucco fishes out of a kayak and has been doing quite well fishing the Irish Bayou area. On his latest trip he got an early start and was on the water at 5:45 a.m. Max noticed the clean water and started getting excited when he saw all the activity around him as he started fishing.
 Max Patrucco returns back to the launch with two Irish Bayou toads
There was lot’s of bait in the water! I even saw a sheepshead, spotted gar, and some stingrays,” he says. Max was using a Vudu Shrimp under a cork and was fishing the leeward side of a small strip of land. “I lost a decent slot red there,” he says. On his way back to the Triple Beach launch, Patrucco spotted a protected canal but there was one problem, there was no water movement. Max switched over to a plastic paddle-tail minnow and says, “The bass bite was on! it was a very light bite - Just a double pop and they’d gently inhale it on the drop.”
Max caught his limit including 2 fish over 2 lbs. Patrucco says the water quality has been great recently. “I've been several times lately and there has been clean water most every time. Let's hope we keep getting southeast winds so we can get the salinity up in the Rigolets!” he adds. Slabs, catfish, and a Gou  Niel Landry with his Tchefuncte River "Gou"
Ray Miller has been fishing the Tchefuncte River early in the morning because of all the boat traffic that summertime brings. He made a trip with his friend Neil Landry and says on paper, the day was forecasted to be good fishing. “Fishing forecasts said fishing should be good today and it was!” Miller says. The team was fishing south of the 4th Ave. Launch in Covington and caught fish at every place they fished. “We found fish at every stop, not bunches, but 2,3, and 4 sac-a-lait at every spot,” Miller says. Ray and Neil were fishing the tops of brush-piles around 9 feet deep in 16-20 feet of water. On their last stop Ray says they hit the mother load! “Every fish we pulled off this spot was over 12 inches, a couple over 13, and the big one was over 14 inches. We even caught a few catfish and Neil hooked a Gou,” Miller says. A Gaspergou is a freshwater drum and aren’t typically caught on small jigs. Ray and Neil decided to head back to the boat launch as the day progressed because of the boat traffic on the river. They ended the day with over 30 sac-a-lait, 3 catfish, and a gaspergou.
Pass Manchac Catfish With all the reports coming in from Pass Manchac from fisherman catching boxes of freshwater catfish, Todd Oalman decided to get in on the action. Todd made a trip to the South Pass Train Bridge and tied up to it at 6:00 a.m. Todd says the water was falling hard. “I made 10 casts and caught 8 blue cats,” Todd says. Oalman was using live worms on the bottom. After the excitement the tide stopped moving and Todd could only muster 4 more catfish in 2 hours. He recommends targeting moving water if you try your luck with catfishing in Manchac and adds, “At this pace, pretty soon Middendorf's is going to have 2-for-1 specials on their thin-fried catfish dinners!" 
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 Keith Lusher
I created NFR.com in the spring of 2012. Since then it has helped link Northshore fishermen to valuable information and has filled the void of absent information on the web about fishing on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Northshore Fishing Report has morphed into a brand name and can be found not only on the web, but on radio and newspaper. As NFR grows I will continue to work hard at keeping NFR local focusing on local anglers, reports, seminars, and fishing tournaments in St. Tammany and Tangipahoa Parish. I hope you enjoy the website and If you have any questions please email me at: Keith@NorthshoreFishingReport.com
Look for the Northshore Fishing Report publication every Thursday in The Slidell Independent Weekly Newspaper!
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