The Northshore Fishing Report

It's Trestle Time!

4/18/2016

Keith Lusher

For many speckled trout anglers on the Northshore, April is a time to catch big bass who make there way to the shallows to spawn. For others, it can be a time to take advantage of the incredible sac-a-lait bite that happens in our rivers and bayous. And then there’s the bridge fishermen. For anglers who fish the bridges of Lake Pontchartrain, April is the month that they have circled on the calendar, and now is the time to get out on the water and jig the pilings. Unfortunately, mother nature often gets in the way and can limit the days that anglers have to target the bridges. I made a trip to the Trestles with Captain Mike Gallo of Angling Adventures of Louisiana and learned first hand how a swift change in wind direction can affect the lake.

Mike Gallo unhooks one of many male trout caught on the trip

Our trip was originally planned for the morning but Mike decided to cancel it due to forecasted 15-20 mph. winds out of the southwest for the morning hours. We held off and decided to put off the trip until that afternoon. Mike says he actually prefers the afternoon over the morning hours in the spring. “I still prefer to fish in the afternoons around this time anyway. The tide seems to push more of that bait in and the fish are coming right in after it,” he says. We left from the Angling Adventures of Louisiana Lodge out of Salt Bayou at 4:00 and made a beeline for the south end of the Trestles. Mike operated the trolling motor and paralleled the bridged about 100 ft. away from the structure. The water was was murky with a 1 ft. visibility. Gallo pointed out an area of water that seemed to be pushing through at a different speed and casted his Deadly Dudley in the Mojo Mullet color. The ripples in the water went unnoticed by me until he pointed it out, but after he casted across the moving water and pulled in the first speck, I quickly identified it and casted into the turbulence. I bounced my Shu-Shu Paddltail in the Chromis color on the bottom and on the third cast, I felt that all too familiar Lake Pontchartrain bridge bite. The thump on the other end of the line was as subtle as the CSX train heading down the tracks. I set the hook and lost my grip on the reel. After re-clutching the Curado, I horsed my first fish into the boat. A beautiful 2.5 lb. speckled trout.

Nothing like that first rout to get the blood pumping!

As I unhooked the fish I could feel my blood pumping. It felt like I’d had what is the equivalent of a B12 shot or 5 cups of coffee. Mike and I continued to focus on the change in water speed that was pushing against the wind. This was the first time that I wasn’t focused on the bridge pilings while fishing the Trestles. “I feel that those fish will hide in the eddy’s behind the pilings when its a strong tide, but today it wasn’t a very strong tide so we pulled away from the bridge and found that current line. So don’t always concentrate on those pilings, sometimes they’re two and three cast lengths away from the pilings,” Gallo says. The majority of the fish we caught were male trout. Mike says to pay attention to this. “When the spawning starts to occur the males will find the spawning area first. So when you’re catching all these males you want to comeback around a full moon. So the males are going to tell you where the the bigger females are going to be just a few days before the full moon,” he says.

2016 Northshore Bass Series
The Northshore Bass Series is cranking up for the 2016 season and another tournament angler has signed a sponsor. Shu-Shu Lures will be sponsoring tournament angler Patrick Engerran for the 2016 NBS Season. Engerran moved to the top of the NBS Power Ranking with his 2nd place win in the FPBA tournament at Bayou Lacombe. Patrick put a 5.62 lb. largemouth in the boat using the new Shu-Shu Marsh Craw in the Blackenrage color. If any local businesses are interested in sponsoring a local tournament angler for the upcoming NBS Season please contact Keith at 985-373-5974 for more information.

Spring Fishing Seminar

4/11/2016

Keith Lusher

The 2016 NorthshoreFishingReport.com Spring Fishing Seminar was held at T-Rivers Bar in Madisonville and among the guests were Mark Sagerholm who discussed how he targets sheepshead along the Trestles in Slidell. “The Trestles seem to be the best spot to target sheepshead. I’ve caught them small and I’ve caught them real big, all the way up to 30” which is about 10 lbs,” Mark said. The Kayak fisherman out of Mandeville says that he ties up along the concrete poles and fishes strait down along the barnacle lined pylons. “I’ll lower the line straight down to the bottom and I’ll slowly bounce it up and down. I’m tight-lining it the whole time and I can feel every little nibble,” he said. Sagerholm uses a special rig which consists of 30 lb. monofilament line tied into an overhand knot loop. One end runs down 2’ down to a bank sinker and the other end runs 1’ down to a #1 circle hook. Mark’s preferred rod is a bait casting rod. “I prefer to use a bait casting rod to so I can free up my other hand for a beer,” he joked. As far as bait goes, Mark says market bait works the best. “I like to bait it up with some market shrimp.They don’t go after minnows. They rarely, if ever, go after artificial lures,” he said.
A mistake that some anglers make is setting the hook to quick. With sheepshead, Mark says patience cannot be stressed enough. “I find it’s best not to set the hook right away. I’ll let them run with it a little bit because usually they’ll run away from the piling and away from snag city. Once I feel that they’ve swallowed it, I’ll go ahead and come tight on them and start reeling,” he said.

Guest speaker Mike Gallo and Keith Lusher

Cpt. Mike Gallo, who owns Angling Adventures of Louisiana, also spoke at the seminar and touched on a type of fish that fly under the radar for most anglers. Tripletail is a type of fish that hides under the debris that floats on the surface, and for some anglers who target them, they are at the top of the list as far as a delicacy. Mike says it’s still to early for tripletail. “The earliest I’ve caught tripletail was in June, the year after Katrina and the water temperature was 74 degrees. The latest I’ve ever caught them was October and water was 74 degrees,” Gallo said. Mike specifically targets these fish in Lake Borgne and says it’s fairly easy to catch them. “Just run by the crab trap floats at 35 mph and you’ll see them. They’re used to shrimp boats flying by, you’re not going to spook them,” he said. The Lake Borgne veteran recommends using casting as close to the fish as possible with live bait on a weightless hook.

Sometimes Kids Know Best

Live crickets was the ticket on Bayou Lacombe

When Kevin Schilling woke up to start preparing his boat for a day on the water, he had every intention on fishing for bass. But after 45 minutes of casting without any results, his son decided that it was best to make a change. “My 5 year old gave it a try for the first 45 minutes of daylight, then he said he want to use crickets,” Kevin says. Schilling knew it would take more patience to catch what they were looking for but 45 minutes to a child can seem like 2 hours, so he gave in. “I baited him up and he started casting. Ten seconds later he had fish #1. I re-baited and got one cast myself in and BAM! Fish #2!” Kevin says. It didn’t take long before Kevin knew the plans for the day had changed. “Realizing quickly that this wasn't gonna work for me, I decided the day is his,” he says. The team ended the day with 4 sac-a-lait and 10 bream. “Sometimes when the kid says something, maybe we don't always know what's best. God blessed us with a great day and a few meals to boot,” Schilling says

CCA Seminar

3/31/2016

Keith Lusher

I had the chance to attend the Spring Seminar put on by the Coastal Conservation Association. And among the speakers was a USCG Diver that inspects the bridge from below the surface. It’s often been pondered by many Causeway speckled trout anglers, just how the speckled trout stack up on the pylons underneath the bridge. Noel Brumfield AKA “Captain Causeway”, told the audience at the Tchfuncta Country Club that he’s never seen any trout stationary near the “poles” or legs” that supports the massive bridge. “All my years of diving I have never seen them hanging out by the poles,” Brumfield says. Instead, Noel says the trout travel along the bridges. “I’ll see a big school pass along the bridge and then another one traveling the other way,” he said. For those that fish the Causeway and are searching for structure along the bottom, Brumfield says he’s never come across any structure on the bottom, even pieces of concrete that have fallen from the bridge in years gone by. “Its flat down there. Anything that drops into the water hits the bottom and keeps on going because of the soft mud on the bottom,” he said.

Dudley Vandenborre

Cpt. Dudley Vandenborre also spoke at the seminar. Vandenborre fishes the eastern section of the lake and weighed in on the spring trout season. “It looks to me like its going to really turn on pretty soon,” Dudley said. He explained that what we are seeing is typical for this time of year what with the change in wind directions and the turbulent weather that occur in early spring but there’s a caveat “One problem we’re having is every time we have a blow like we’ve had the last few days, the water dirties up. It used to be it would dirty up and eight hours later you could go back and fish it before the spillway. Now after the spillway you have all that silt in there and it may take a day and a half to clear up,” he said. Dudley also weighed in on the type of tides that he likes to see in the spring. “I’ve always said that we do better with an incoming tide in April and May and the reason why is the little shrimp and the little bait starts to get pushed in there with an incoming tide,” he said.

Tchefuncte River Sac-a-lait
Covington resident Ray Miller calls the Tchefuncte River home base when it comes to fishing for sac-a-lait. But after the torrential downpours that have rocked the Northshore rivers and bayous as of late, Ray hasn’t been fishing the river as much. He made a trip to the muddy, high river and says the conditions are still less than optimal but says it is showing improvement. “The water is still muddy, but it’s starting to clean up in the back of some of the cuts,” He says. Ray has been fishing with plastic jigs 2’ under a cork and on his past two trips he caught a total of 48 sac-a-lait. “I caught 35 yesterday afternoon, and 13 today,” Ray says. It’s no secret that the fishing is better before a cold front comes through and Miller recommends fishing for sac-a-lait before the front as well. “The day before a front is definitely the way to go if you can,” he says.

Tchefuncte Yeilds 5.49 lb. Largemouth

3/26/2016

Keith Lusher

For 17-year-old Trenton Pittman, catching big bass is something he’s become accustom to. Being the son of professional bass angler Jason Pittman, Trenton has learned that it’s the big fish that win tournaments. But what he caught on the Tchefuncte River in the latest Liars & Lunkers Bass Tournament, admittedly caught him by surprise. “It was the biggest bass I have ever caught in a tournament,” Trenton says.

When I first set the hook, it was so heavy that I thought it was a choupique!

The father and son team was fishing the Tchefuncte River all day and had 15 minutes left of fishing before they headed in to the launch for the weigh-in. That’s when Trenton says it happened. “I was flipping a Mister Twister Po'cit Craw to the base of trees when I felt a thump on the end of my line and watched my line start moving away from the tree. When I first set the hook, it was so heavy that I thought it was a choupique!” he says. It wasn’t until the fish made it’s first jump that Trenton realized what he had. “When the fish jumped I realized it was a bass! We usually boat-flip the fish that we catch while flipping, but when I saw that it was a bass, I yelled for the net! As Dad netted the fish, I was in awe at how big it was,” he says. The fish helped there total tremendously and Trenton and his father went on to win 1st place in the tournament with a 5-fish tournament limit that weighed 14.95 lbs.

Trestles
Sam Coco Jr. lives in Oak Harbor and is used to speckled trout fishing from land near his home, but when he got an invite to fish from a friends boat, he didn’t hesitate to accept the offer. “For someone who fishes from the bank, an invite to fish in a boat is an easy decision,” Sam says. The friends launched at the old Dockside and headed to the Trestles to try trolling for specks. “As soon as the first line was in the water BAM! About a 14 inch speck!” he says. Sam was using a silver and black Rat-L-Trap with a soft plastic trailer and says the fish hit the trailer. The team caught fish at a slow steady pace but Sam says when the tide changed the bites picked up.“The tide was falling when we got there but started slowing and then changed to incoming. This heated things up and the bites became more frequent,” he says. The team ended the day with a dozen trout that measured 12”-18” in length. “All in all, it wasn’t a bad first trip trolling the trestles. Thanks to my neighbor Greg for invite,” Sam says.

Bayou Lacombe
With the recent rainfall and and record breaking river stages for most rivers on the North Shore, Covington resident Jack Tucker was leary of fishing Bayou Lacombe. “The Lake Road launch was too deep so I went up to Main Street launch and had to wade in almost knee deep water to get from truck to boat dock,” he says. On top of the high water, Jack says the weather that day was less than ideal. “The wind picked up to 20 mph and started misting so I decided to hit some canals that I've never fished before,” Tucker says. Switching between a Humdinger Spinnerbait and a Cane Thumper swimbait, Jack was able to pick up several goggle-eye but no bass. After switching over to a different rig, the action picked up even more. “I switched to a black and chartreuse jig under a cork and put a serious hurting on the google-eye in cypress bayou and again in the canal by Lake Road with the camps,” he says. Jack ended the day with a mess of goggle-eye and headed home to clean and fry them up.

2016 Northshore Bass Series
The Northshore Bass Series is cranking up for the 2016 season and another tournament angler has signed a sponsor. Dixie Trolling Motors and Outfitters of Mandeville will be sponsoring tournament angler Will Henry for the 2016 NBS Season. Will Currently sits atop the power ranking at the #1 spot. If any local businesses are interested in sponsoring a local tournament angler for the upcoming NBS Season please contact Keith at 985-373-5974 for more information.

Telemetry Study Tracks Trout During Spillway Opening

3/17/2016

Keith Lusher

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has released it’s much anticipated results for the latest Lake Ponchartrain Radio Telemetry Study. The study has been ongoing for 4 years now and has help answer a lot of questions that pertain to speckled trout migration in Lake Pontchartrain. What makes this latest information so valuable is that it answers the question of what happens to the speckled trout in Lake Pontchartrain during and after the opening of Bonnet Carre’ Spillway.
Ashley Ferguson is a biologist with the LDWF and says before the spillway was opened they saw the majority of the speckled trout gathering in Industrial Canal. “Many of the speckled trout remained in the south eastern section of the Lake. After Christmas almost every single fish that we tagged was detected in the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal (Industrial Canal). So they went in and hunkered down for a while in there around Seabrook Marina,” Ferguson says. The spillway was opened on January 10, 2015 but before the Mississippi’s muddy water reached the Causeway, Ashely says the buoy at Lincoln Beach on the South Shore started showing trout moving into that area. “Around January 16th the trout began moving out of the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal and they were detected by Lincoln Beach. There’s a little seagrass bed that they where hanging out there,” she says. As the fresh muddy water from the river made it’s way east toward the Trestles, Ashley said they noticed that the trout were also pushed west proving the theory that the fish move along the line where water with salinity meets the fresh river water. “Almost two weeks after the opening of the spillway, as the water started moving further east, over 90% of the tagged fish were in the north eastern portion of Lake Pontchartrain. There was a high concentration of fish at the Lacombe Reef for about a week,” Ashely says.

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Telemetry Buoy help put the puzzle together

The spillway was closed on February 1, 2016 and the lake started to see considerable improvement in water quality. Ashley says about one week after the spillway was closed, they noticed the fish making there way south. “One week after the spillway had closed the fish began to move back into the south and southwest portions of the lake. So they started using the lake like they naturally do,” Ferguson says. The Hydrocoast Map put out by the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation is a tool that many anglers use for monitoring salinity conditions in Lake Pontchartrain. Ashley says she experimented with the path that the speckled trout traveled comparing it to the salinity readings from the map. “I overlaid the fish movements on the Hydrocoast Map and the fish were absolutely in the salinity.

The Fish Tracking map at FishLa.org shows speckled trout gathering near the Industrial Canal before the muddy water hit

They were in the water around one or two parts per thousand,” she says. There have been numerous discussions on whether or not speckled trout move out of the lake during the winter months and with the opening of the spillway in January, most anglers thought it was a forgone conclusion that the fish would abandon the lake. Ashley says, “We only detected one redfish that left through the Rigolets and one trout that left through Chef Pass But before the study ended, which was February 18th, both of those fish returned so they did not leave, they just avoided the plume of river water,” Ferguson says. Ashley adds that this years spillway opening was the earliest that we’ve seen and that future openings may not play out the same. “I can’t say that this is how they would behave in the future - if it was a spring opening or the water temperatures were a little different. A lot of times the fish can handle low salinity when the water temperatures are low. If those water temperatures were really high and the salinity was really low, it’s hard to say if they would remain in the lake or if they would leave,” She says. Anglers who are interested in the results of the study you can find it at www.fishla.org/fish-tracker/.

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