Keith Lusher With he good reports coming out of Lake Borgne recently, Stephen Hoffman of Mandeville was eager to get out on the water for some speckled trout. He brought his daughter, Maddy, along for an afternoon fishing trip. They launched at 4:00 p.m. and with 20 minutes, was casting live shrimp on a Carolina rig next to a gas rig near the Biloxi Marsh which didn’t produce any trout. “After about thirty minutes of messing with the small croakers, we moved on to the marsh,” Steven says.
Maddy is all smiles with her first redfish After a quick run to the shoreline, Steven rigged his daughter up with a cork and started to rig his line the same way. “Maddy, being inexperienced, casted out and was reeling the cork in like the Carolina rig. As I was setting my rig up, I was about to explain how to use the cork and BAM it was on!” Hoffman says. Maddy had a redfish on the other end of the line - or maybe the redfish had her! “The best was watching her fight the fish, hands all over the rod, and the fish was pulling her where it wanted,” he says. The proud father calmed his daughter down and showed her how to hold the rod up to keep the tension. Just then he noticed the fish heading for the trolling motor. “The fish was getting closer to the boat and I had the net in hand. I told her to keep the fish away from the trolling motor but it wrapped around the shaft of the motor. At that point I was determined to net her first redfish so I grabbed the motor, lifted it up and was able to net the fish while the motor was running,” Hoffman says. Maddy had her first redfish. The team worked their way further down the marsh and ended the day with 4 redfish, 2 speckled trout, and 2 flounder.
Bayou Cane Bass
Ponchatoula fisherman Todd Oalman has been doing a lot of bass fishing this summer. From Salt Bayou to the Tangipahoa River, you can bet Todd has fished it. But Todd says out of all the rivers and bayous on the North Shore, a little bayou in Mandeville has by far been his best producing tributary when it comes to bass. “We’ve been catching limits or close to our limit every trip for the past week to ten days. After all this rain that has passed through, the water has finally cleared up over there”, Todd says. On his latest trip Todd brought his 5 year-old son, Reed, and Oalman says it was non stop action. “We parked up next to one of those drains that come out of the marsh and it was bass, after bass, after bass. As quick as he could reel them in, I would take it them off, and he would cast out again and catch another one. We were having a ball out there,” Oalman says. Summertime often dictates the times that anglers are out on the water. Todd says he’s been getting out earlier and that’s when the bite has been best. “I think they want to get fed and get fat, so they don’t have to try and find food when the sun gets high overhead and it heats up,” he says. The angler from Ponchatoula recommends using weightless plastics fished top-water. “I like to take those weightless Shu-Shu’s in the Victory Red color - rigged weedless. I just jig them across the weed-line and those bass just wait for it to pass that weed-line and they just nail it!” Oalman says.
Perch Jerkin’ Bayou Lacombe
Bayou Cane Bass
Ponchatoula fisherman Todd Oalman has been doing a lot of bass fishing this summer. From Salt Bayou to the Tangipahoa River, you can bet Todd has fished it. But Todd says out of all the rivers and bayous on the North Shore, a little bayou in Mandeville has by far been his best producing tributary when it comes to bass. “We’ve been catching limits or close to our limit every trip for the past week to ten days. After all this rain that has passed through, the water has finally cleared up over there”, Todd says. On his latest trip Todd brought his 5 year-old son, Reed, and Oalman says it was non stop action. “We parked up next to one of those drains that come out of the marsh and it was bass, after bass, after bass. As quick as he could reel them in, I would take it them off, and he would cast out again and catch another one. We were having a ball out there,” Oalman says. Summertime often dictates the times that anglers are out on the water. Todd says he’s been getting out earlier and that’s when the bite has been best. “I think they want to get fed and get fat, so they don’t have to try and find food when the sun gets high overhead and it heats up,” he says. The angler from Ponchatoula recommends using weightless plastics fished top-water. “I like to take those weightless Shu-Shu’s in the Victory Red color - rigged weedless. I just jig them across the weed-line and those bass just wait for it to pass that weed-line and they just nail it!” Oalman says.
Perch Jerkin’ Bayou Lacombe
Live crickets caught this perch on Bayou Lacombe George Seymour loves bringing his grandkids fishing. On his last trip to Bayou Lacombe, George opted for a fast paced perch fishing expedition even though he knew he would’t get much fishing in with the re-baiting of the hooks and taking fish off of the line. “I figured I wouldn’t get to fish much and I was right,” George says. The team started early on the bayou and George says the action was fast and furious “The early action was fast and we caught some real pretty fish - one of them measured right at nine inches,” The proud grandparent says. All the perch were caught using live crickets under a cork.
