Keith Lusher Daniel Sissac and his father Roger, have been fishing the Carr Drive canal and catching bass every trip, but on their latest trip they decided to head to Bayou Bonfouca from their camp.
“Since the wind was light, we decided to run through the lake instead of trailering the boat,” Daniel says. So the father and son team left at daybreak and headed for Bonfouca. As the sun was barely over the horizon, Daniel noticed some activity not even five minutes into their journey. “We always keep an eye at the mouth of Carr Drive and this time we saw shrimp being chased! I pointed it out to my dad and he pulled back on the throttle and coasted us into trolling motor range,” Daniel says.
“Since the wind was light, we decided to run through the lake instead of trailering the boat,” Daniel says. So the father and son team left at daybreak and headed for Bonfouca. As the sun was barely over the horizon, Daniel noticed some activity not even five minutes into their journey. “We always keep an eye at the mouth of Carr Drive and this time we saw shrimp being chased! I pointed it out to my dad and he pulled back on the throttle and coasted us into trolling motor range,” Daniel says.
Carr Dr. Spread As they neared casting distance to the shore, the team began casting and started catching. “My dad casted out first and he immediately got a rat red. I threw just after him and got a keeper trout. My dad's second cast got a keeper trout. We caught one more keeper trout and a couple that were half an inch too small until the bite died,” Sissac says. Before they picked up and continued on their ride to Bayou Bonfouca they noticed more action. “I trolled us into the canal and we began throwing our lures. I was using a Gunmetal Marsh Minnow and my dad used a regular Gunmetal Shu-Shu which he picked because it’s very close in color and has a flat tail like shrimp. I thought he may have been on to something because his first cast yielded a bass. Not to be deterred, I caught a bass on my second cast,” he says. The team worked their way into the canal and by the time they finally came out, tallied a total of 30 bass. What seemed like the end of a perfect trip, Daniel made the suggestion, “Kind of as a joke, I said ‘I should make a throw with the cast net to see if the shrimp were still there.’ I got it out of the bucket and made a cast. Tick, tick, tick,... Anyone who throws a cast net knows what the ticks are - things hitting the net as they try to swim out of it,” Daniel says. As he pulled the net to the surface he saw shrimp in the net and when he emptied it into the bucket there were 15 big shrimp counted. Daniel threw the net again and began to haul in the 5’ monofilament net. “This time I caught twenty shrimp! We were both dumbfounded but excited. I threw for a while and then my dad took over. We caught thirty pounds of shrimp and a few big crabs we saw swimming!” Sissac says. The opportunistic team brought the catch back to the camp and iced it down for the boil later on in the day. “We caught fish, shrimp, and crabs, and got to eat some boiled seafood - it was a pretty good day!” adds Daniel.
30 lbs. of shrimp caught with a cast net
Tchefuncte Clearing Up
One of the rivers that was impacted from the flooding last month was the Tchefuncte River. Martin Duvic fishes the river often and says that he’s noticed the water cleaning up. On his most recent trip Martin targeted sac-au-lait. “I fished the river from 9:00 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. The conditions were perfect! The water was clear and up a little and there was no water movement,” he says. Martin ended the day with a box full of sac-au-lait. “All fish were caught tight-lining with a black, green, and chartreuse tube on a 1/16 jig head,” he adds.
Tchefuncte River sac-au-lait
