Keith Lusher It’s common for most fishermen to launch their boats and feel the need to cruise to their destination located away from the launch. But for Rene’ Elvir of Mandeville, staying near the boat launch turned out to pay big dividends. “My original plan was to launch at the Mandeville Beach launch and fish the shoreline all the way to Fontainebleau Park - but to my surprise the lake looked like a no-go,” he says. So Rene’ eyed up an area of water behind the wave-breaks along the Mandeville shoreline where he spotted baitfish being ambushed by redfish. He launched his Perception Pescador 12.0 Kayak at Mandeville beach near Bayou Castine where he paddled out and spotted another angler reeling in a redfish. “I started talking to him and it turned out that he had already caught his limit,” Elvir says. The opportunistic kayak fisherman started casting into the action and quickly reached his limit of redfish and also added 2 freshwater catfish, 2 blue drum, and 2 sheepshead. “What a day! I didn’t realize the shores of Mandeville was full of redfish,” he adds. Rene’ used Vortex Shad in the Nightruese color on a 1/4 oz. jig head but says he also used live shrimp with the shrimp producing the best.
Rene' Elvir shows off one of his redfish that he caught along the Mandeville Lakefront
Dodging Showers
Valois holds up a trout caught before the storms The rainy start to the month has kept the boat pressure at the Trestles at a minimum. Taylor Valios and Miguel Gorordo recently made a trip at the 5-mile train bridge were they witnessed the not-all-to-mentioned benefits of fishing the bridge. “We launched at the Dock in Slidell at 7:00 am and started fishing just south of the drawbridge,” he says. The team fished hard for 2 hours. “We literally beat up the bridge from the 174 mark all the way to the south shore without a bite,” Valios says. The friends noticed a storm coming in from the south so they headed back to the launch but stopped off to fish the northern end of the bridge before calling it a day. “We stopped at the drawbridge on the northern end of the bridge and on the first cast we caught a 17” speck,” Taylor says. As the weather approached Taylor and Miguel were forced to make a decision. “We noticed the other boat leaving and looked up to witness the Twin Spans disappear in the rainstorm so we did what anyone would do - we kept fishing!” he says. The team ended up with 24 trout in 45 minutes all caught on Shu-Shu Slugs in the Frostbite and Chromis colors. Taylor describes the bite. “The bite was very different this day. We would throw our lines out and almost drag our baits back. It was almost like jigging deep water for sac-a-lait. There was no Pontchartrain Pop this day,” he says. Finally, the friends called it quits at the last minute before the storm reached. Taylor says the thing he enjoyed most about the trip was the lack of boat pressure. “I think the bridge has less pressure with all of the rainstorms and the rain keeps the water temperatures lower. It was nice not getting beat up by every boat in Louisiana,” Taylor jokes.
A storm approaches on Lake Pontchartrain
