The Northshore Fishing Report

Trestles Slowing

6/5/2016

Keith Lusher

The stout speckled trout bite at the Trestles in Slidell has slowed considerably in the past few days. Anglers are having a tough time finding trout and what trout they are finding are all under 12”. Ronald Vincent of Slidell has been fishing the train bridge all spring and says the days of limits may be gone. Ronald fished from 6:00 am to noon and ended up catching one keeper speck and one redfish. “I’m wondering if the females have left. I didn't see a fish caught by any other boat and there weren’t many boats out there yesterday which tells me that things have really slowed down. Also the few trollers I talked to had nothing but undersized fish,” Ronald says. Anglers are reporting big numbers of undersized trout and Ronald says this is consistent with what he’s hearing from the trollers that fish the bridge. “I always talk to the trollers as they pass by. They were catching a lot of small trout but very few keepers. I guess this full moon brought in a batch of little ones,” he adds.

Liberty Lunker

Chris Galloway

We’ve all experienced days on the water where the fish just weren't cooperating. Slidell angler Chris Galloway experienced this on his latest trip to Bayou Liberty. Chris got an early start to his day and was looking to get on a topwater bite but says the fish just weren’t cooperating. “Honestly, all day was tough. I started off far north on Bayou Liberty and worked my way south. I was throwing a buzz bait and a hollow body frog. I can usually pull something off the cypress trees, but it just wasn't happening,” Chris says. That’s when the kayak fisherman decided to change things up. “I decided to hit some of the dead-end bayous that had some grass. I think it was the third one that something finally hit my frog on the edge of a grass patch,” he says. Galloway thought his luck may have changed but says the bad day continued. “I got it to the boat and came off on the boat flip. After that, I thought it was just one of those days,” Chris says. The dejected angler decided to fish his way back to the launch and that's when Galloway’s luck changed. “I threw the frog on top of a grass mat and saw a wake behind it. That happened twice but it never would commit. I picked up my flipping set up and dropped a craw in. As soon as it settled on the bottom I felt a lot of pressure and the rod started to load up,” he says. Chris set the hook but the fish swam under a grass mat and became lodged underneath the mat. “I had no idea on the size of the fish because of the it being under the grass. Then it finally busted through and I grabbed it!” Galloway says. The rejuvenated fisherman ended up with a 4 lb. 4 oz. largemouth bass and adds, “I never really got the topwater bite I was looking forget I’ll take that instead. It made a bad day, good, real quick!”

Trestles Still Producing

5/31/2016

Keith Lusher

Summer is on our doorstep but the Trestles in Slidell is showing no signs of slowing down as far as speckled trout production is concerned. When the water temperatures are between 72-75 degrees, speckled trout show up at the Trestles like clockwork. With water temperatures pushing 85 degrees, the end of putting limits of trout in the boat may be nearing. Jerry Fazio of Slidell is still managing to catch good numbers and on his last trip says the key is to move early and often. “I fished both sides of the bridge and moved every 15 minutes if I didn’t have any bites,” he says. The Trestle veteran started fishing 2:00 in the afternoon and says the winds were blowing from 5-10 mph and the tide was incoming. “I started at firebreak #2 and fished both sides of the bridge. I fished all the way to last firebreak on north side”, Jerry says. Fazio had 5 trout on his first pass then found cleaner water. I moved mid lake where the water was better and the fish were hungry and picked up the rest of 17 there,” he says. Fazio says he caught all his fish using Matrix Shad in the Lemonhead color.

Bayou Lacombe Bull Shark
90 degree temperatures and bullsharks in Lake Pontchartrain seem to go hand in hand. Covington resident Bo McCool did more than just spot one, he had a closeup experience with the unwelcomed visitor. Bo was fishing from a wharf and had his feet hanging over near the water. “Something moved to my left and I looked over there and I heard something and looked down and there's this bull shark at my feet so I picked my feet up and screamed like a little girl. I’m not gonna lie! It scared the crap out of me,” says McCool. The Lake Pontchartain Telemetry Study that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, tracks a total of 93 bullsharks. When the water temperature is over 68 degrees, the sharks enter the lake. The same holds true in the winter. The warm water loving fish exit the lake when the temps dip below 68 degrees.

Pearl River Training
John Guillot has been fishing on the Pearl River near the Wastehouse and says the sac-a-lait bite hasn’t been as good as previous trips in that area. “The water is off color but more stained than dirty. The upper backwaters has enough oil floating on the surface to solve any fossil fuel shortage,” he says. One reason for the disturbed water may be the heavily trafficked water due to increased military training. John says he’s noticed a pattern when the training occurs. “When they train heavily, it seems to push all the fish off the banks and structure, scattering them out. There’s lots of bait everywhere but nothing feeding. I stopped one of the gun boats to ask how long they would be training and the impression they gave me is that they will be out there for quite some time,” John says. While the sac-a-lait bite isn’t quite up to par, John says there’s no lack of perch or goggle-eye. “Bream of all flavors are smoking Berkley Gulf Alive baits on beetle spins but there’s no size to them. Casting from the entrance of the bayous to the back produced a hit almost every cast,” Guillot says.

Lake Pontchartrain Croakers

5/20/2016

Keith Lusher

You may have to turn the pages back quite a bit to recall the last time you caught decent sized croakers in Lake Pontchartrain. Miriam and Rex Davey of Baton Rouge made a trip to the Causeway in search of speckled trout and ended up catching a few, but what they didn’t expect was to box more croakers than trout. “We caught only a couple keeper trout, but put about 8 beautiful silvery-lavendar croakers in the box. I’m hoping it’s a good sign,” Miriam says. The team was using double rigs with Matrix Shad in the Lemonhead and Midnight Mullet color. The croakers preferred a tandem rig tipped with dead shrimp, worked quickly back to the boat. “I haven't seen croakers that big since I was a girl and fished with my cousins in Ocean Springs, MS, in the late 1960's. I think one weighed as much as a pound, which is heavy for a croaker! It’s hard to beat croaker on the plate,” says Miriam. This may be a good sign for the future as large croaker have all but abandoned the lake for the past few years.

Rex Davey unhooks a Causeway Croaker

Rigolet’s Red’s
Roy Pengergraft of Covington made a trip to the Rigolet’s with his Wife and Grandson and says there were plenty of redfish in the marshes. “We caught a number of Redfish, kept 6 and released others to fight another day,” he says. Roy’s grandson wanted to try and catch speckled trout, but that just wasn’t in the cards for this day as they couldn’t escape the redfish bite. “My Grandson wanted to catch some speckled trout but all I could put him on was some 18" to 24" redfish. All were happy and I had the boat and fish cleaned by 2:00 P.M,” Pendergraft says. All the fish were caught on Lemonhead Matrix Shad on a 1/4 oz. unpainted jighead bounced off of the bottom along the edge of grass line. “It was a great day to enjoy South Louisiana marsh fishing,” Roys adds.

Trestle Limit
For anyone who has ever fished the Trestles in Slidell, the words “easy” and “limit” are hardly ever spoken in the same sentence. Jerry Fazzio of Slidell made a trip to the train bridge and says “It's not an easy place to get bit. Sometimes it beats all of us, and sometimes we get to harvest a few fish. Sometimes we catch a few and other times draw a blank, but the key is to never give up.” The grizzled veteran made a trip to the bridge and started fishing around 10:00 am. “I started at firebreak #2 on the east side of the bridge and picked up 2 specks. Then I Made a whole lot of moves all the way to the south draw, or where it used to be anyway,” Jerry says. It wasn’t until the tide transitioned when Fazzio started catching. “Fishing was slow until the tide changed to incoming. 80% of fish caught were on the west side of tracks after the wind picked up to about 10-15 mph from the Southeast,” Fazzio says. He ended the day with a limit of 14-17" fish with 2 throw backs all caught with plastics.

Tchefuncte Sac-a-lait
While folks are waiting for the water to clear up on the Tchefuncte River, Martin Duvic is catching white perch. Devic made a trip and say the conditions left something to be desired. “The conditions were perfect! Blue Sky, muddy water and a good wind,” he sarcastically declared. Martin concentrated on lay-downs and managed to catch 40 sac-a-lait, with 20 of them being throwbacks. Martin says the magic bait for this day was a black, green and chartreuse tube jig tightlined along the lay-downs.

May fishing Forecast

5/12/2016

Keith Lusher

NorthshoreFishingReport.com has released it’s fishing forecast for May and among the top spots for this month are the Trestles, Lake Borgne, Salt Bayou, and Bayou Liberty.

Trestles- Taylor Valois fishes the Trestles and says that the train bridge gives speckled trout anglers the best chance at limiting out this month but you’ll have to fight you’re way through the crowds. “Lots of ambitious anglers are crowding the 5-mile long reef everyday picking out nice limits of speckled trout,” Taylor says. Tide, weather, and moon phase are some of the factors that add into the equation of the Trestles. “An incoming tide is your best tide to fish because it flushes bait into the lake. You want to find where these tides flow the hardest through the Trestles and fish that edge. Sometimes it can even be fifty yards off the bridge. You want to fish with the current so your bait has that natural look. If you want to target bigger trout, fish the two days before and after the full moon,” Valois adds.

Lake Borgne- George Siebert of Fishmeister Charters say’s May is one of the best months for Lake Borgne. “For me, May means the spring run in Lake Borne! The brown shrimp will start to move out of the marsh to open waters and the lake will be getting hot because the shrimp season opens the third week in May. At the gas-heads, fish the bottom and top as the shrimp will be holding on the shell bottoms. Fish the trenasses and mouths of bayous on falling tides. In the lake, look for diving birds and water slicks which are an indicator of bait fish. And as always, drift through slicks that appear in the middle of no where. There’s usually bait fish under it,” Seibert says.

Salt Bayou- This area always seems to produce best as the weather warms up. Todd Oalman fishes Salt Bayou and the W14 Canal and says “The excellent bass bite will continue throughout the summer months. Limits should be the norm, with days of thirty plus bass being a realistic expectation. Look for moving water and bait. Ideally, you want to find a drain in the marsh that has pogies, shrimp, or minnows coming out. The bass will stack up and ambush the easy pickings. Early mornings, late evenings, and overcast days are the best times to fish soft plastics such as Shu-Shu's along the grassline.

Bayou Liberty- While the spawn is coming to an end, big bass are still being taken across the North Shore. Chris Basey has been fishing Bayou Liberty and says it’s all about the frogs. “The frog bite has heated up towards the end of April and looks to be stout during May. The most active fish will be the males who are guarding the bass fry in the grass. To catch the bigger fish you’ll need to slow down. Concentrate on the mouth of the smaller bayous leading into the main bayou and focus on any brush piles or grass lines,” Basey says. Chris says to try and match the enemy of these males. “Weightless swimbaits and swim jigs will work best for guarding males. Use bluegill colors. The bluegill are a big enemy to them and the males will attack them, Basey says.

Marsh Crawlin’
For most anglers fishing on a day with bluebird skies falls right in the vicinity of fishing in the rain and fishing in 20 knot winds. Slidell angler Taylor Valios say’s he can’t afford to pick out the perfect days on the calendar. “I'm always a fan of fishing rougher conditions - not because I like to - but if I were to wait for perfect days, I would never fish,” he says. Taylor enjoys sight fishing for redfish so he thought the blinding blue sky forecast would be perfect for sneaking back into the duck ponds off of the ICW for some exciting redfish action. Valois and a friend launched at Southshore Bait and Marina and started spotting redfish but says the winds hampered his efforts. “We just couldn’t keep up with the winds. There’s no doubt that my passion is sight fishing but with 15-20 knot winds, it can be tougher than parallel parking a eighteen wheeler in the French Quarter,” Taylor jokes. The team concentrated on the more protected areas of the marsh and thats where Taylor says they did their damage. “We fished a somewhat protected pond right off of Irish Bayou and it was loaded with mullet and finger minnows,” he says. Taylor says they managed to put some nice marsh bass in the boat while at the same time discovering a new lure. “I Got my hands on the new Marsh Craw from Shu-Shu Lures, and put it to the test. The crystal clear water conditions made the Victory Red Marsh Craw shine while its claws waved in and out through the grass beds,” he says. While the Trestles may be the hot spot for trout, Taylor adds, “If the trestles are too packed for your tasting, the surrounding marsh is thick with bait right now. Reds, bass and even small trout are starting to wonder into the ponds.

Speckled Spring

5/1/2016

Keith Lusher

Buddy Hereford wasn’t planning on fishing, but after watching the news one morning he quickly decided he couldn't pass up an opportunity to take advantage of smooth waters at the Trestles. “I was watching the news and the weather looked as if it wasn’t going to be as bad as once predicted,” he says. After the weather report, there was breaking news. “There was a wreck on the Hwy 11 bridge and in the background I could see that the lake was dead calm,” Hereford says. The grizzled veteran called his fishing partner, Alan Guenard, who met him at the Bayou Liberty Launch.

Alan Guenard

After a quick, smooth ride out to the bridge, they started fishing the 174 marker with no success, so they switched over to the east side to take advantage of the falling tide. “A couple of nice specks for both me and Allen and we figured the technique of the day was to cast to piling, find bottom, and retrieve it slowly all the way to the boat,” Buddy says. The team used Tiger Bait Matrix on a 3/8 oz. jig head and says there were a lot of boats but it was relaxing because they were scattered throughout the bridge. Their final tally was 30 speckled trout, 1 drum, and 1 flounder. Buddy also notes that the unnoticed absence of the gaff-top catfish may be soon coming to an end, “I had one fish get away after a great fight before escaping! The line came up with a foot of slime on it - so we all know what that was!”

Lewisburg Lunker
Potty training a young child can often prove to be a challenging ordeal. Parents often resort to bribes in order to get their children to use the potty. Ice cream, candy, or trips to the playground, are amongst the most popular bribes in our playbook.

Nicholas Cabrera is all smiles with his bunker bass

But Carlos Cabrera didn't play any of those cards. “All he wants to do is fish,” Carlos says. So Carlos offered to take his 3-year old son, Nicholas, fishing if he used the potty. “He went! And off we went to get crickets for some perch fishing,” the Dad says. Carlos took Nicholas to a nearby launch in their Lewisburg subdivision in Madisonville. Carlos says that there wasn’t much of a bite so he tied on a Strike King Frog because he saw a few big bass on their beds. Nicholas began to work the frog over the fish. “A few swings of the rod and then a crash, and Nicholas was screaming ‘I got one!’ He always says that usually without a fish on the end. As I see him being pulled towards the water, I saw the fish boil - I know he has a Hog!” The proud dad says. Carlos noticed that his son was headed in the wrong direction so he had to step in. “He walked the fish in the wrong direction so I guided him towards the back of the dock that we were on. The big girl glided in with not a super fight so she must have just laid her eggs. Nicholas was ecstatic screaming ‘That fish pulled hard!” Carlos says. He quickly revived the bass and let her swim off. Carlos says his biggest bass he had ever caught was a 5.5 lb. bass but it looks as if his 3-year old has already topped him with a 6 lb. bass.

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