Conventional wisdom would have you believe that the salinity in Lake Pontchartrain has taken a hit due to the west winds that have plagued the area this past summer. But according to the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, the salinity is surged upwards of 10 PPT (Parts Per Thousand) in the month of August. This is in stark contrast compared to the salinity levels measured at this same time last year. An archived Hydrocoast Map that monitors the salinity levels in the Lake shows salinty levels at the Twin Spans in Slidell at 5 PPT in August of 2014. Salinity levels for the month of August this year show a measurement of 10 PPT at the same location. This is fantastic news for the saltwater community who fishes the Lake for speckled trout, flounder, and redfish. John Guilliot has been concentrating his efforts on Sac-au-lait this month but couldn’t help but notice how far the salt water has pushed up into the Pearl River. 

On a sac-au-lait trip near the Wastehouse on the East Pearl River, John and his brother came across a redfish patrolling the shoreline. “We both saw the fish - I reacted quicker and pulled my shiner out of the way just in time to see the gills pop and Greg's shiner disappear. After the hook-up the fish moved into 20+ feet of water. I had to stand by the trolling motor to chase the fish enough so Greg could get some line back,” John says. Several times Greg’s spool almost ran out of line during the fight. “Those mini-spin type spinning reels have zero line capacity and the redfish put him extremely close to the last wrap a couple of times. After the landing, we looked at the line on the jig pole and it was ruined -twisted up to a point of no return,” John says. While the water at the Wastehouse is still fresh, John says he thinks the saltwater coming upriver has improved the bait in that area, “The observations I'm seeing this summer leads me to believe that there is much more saltwater bait fish than I am used to seeing. Crabs too! I can only assume the reds followed the food," John says.

Salt Bayou Still Top Option

The Salt Bayou area including the W14 canal that runs along Hwy 433 has been one of the most consistent areas for producing limits of bass this month. Chris Hood came all the way from Baton Rouge to fish the hot-spot in Slidell. “My brother and I had a chance to fish the W14 canal area and we had a blast! We started fishing at daylight and finished until around lunch time,” The team ended the day with 15 keeper bass and says during the heat it’s important to get an early start. “The early morning bite was great! We caught most of our fish early. By 10:00 a.m. the bite had pretty much stopped,” Hood says. 



Freshwater Vegetation

To quote Mark Twain, “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” 2014 Northshore Angler of the Year, Jason Pittman and his son Trenton, have won 1st place in NBS  Tournaments so far this year. So if you had to pick a winner in the most recent FPBA Tournament in Manchac, the odds on favorites would have to be the team of Jason and Trenton Pittman. But theres one caveat - “The team” was reduced to “The kid,” due to his father being out of town on business. “Since Dad was out of town, it was my idea to fish the tournament solo. I had taken the safe boaters course back in January and have been fishing by myself a few times around our house so I was pretty comfortable making that decision,” he says. The morning of the tournament came and Trenton says he didn’t get a lot of sleep. “I was up two hours before my alarm was supposed to go off.” As far as expectations go, the Covington teen says he just wanted to to catch a limit. “I didn’t have high expectations for the tournament. I really didn’t think I had a shot at winning. I was just hoping to go out and catch five decent fish,” Trenton says. The numbers were called and Trenton drew #9 out of 19 boats. It didn’t take him long to realize that he actually had a shot at winning. Trenton was fishing top-water early, a technique commonly used by tournament anglers to entice large bass to strike during the morning hours. “The big fish hit on my 15th cast of the day. I pitched my topwater bait under a dock and when the fish first hit it, I didn't think it was that big. When I started to boat-flip it, I realized that it was a lot bigger than I thought it was, and I still boat-flipped it!” he says. Trenton “boat-flipped” a 4.11 lb. bass and started to shake with excitement, but he called to mind something that his father had taught him about tournament fishing. “The biggest thing that my dad has taught me is that no matter what happens, just keep my head down and keep fishing,” Pittman said.

 Trenton texted his dad with the news and kept fishing.  Trenton kept his nose down and fished hard through the day and weighed in an 8.98 lb. 5-fish limit that was good enough to win first place.  Trenton’s father, Jason, recalls the moment when he found out his son had won. “Once he was on his way home after my dad Floyd picked him up, my phone rang. “The conversation started with a hello and then me asking if he was able to catch fish number four and five to complete a limit. He responded with a ‘yes sir and I was able to cull a couple times’ then he dropped the news like it was no big deal ‘had one over four pounds to win big bass and a limit weighing almost nine pounds to win the tournament.’ This was said in a humbled yet excited voice and I had nothing for about 10 seconds, just soaked it in and thought back six years when we started seriously tournament fishing together. It was like all the tournament days in the past rushed through my head in an instant and I realized he wasn't my ‘little fishing buddy’ but a stand alone competitor,” Jason says.

Wastehouse Slabs

The words “Sac-au-lait” and “August” are two words you’ll rarely see in the same sentence, but Mississippi resident John Gulliot has been catching 40-50 a day near the waste house on the East Pearl River. John says “ The crappie are starting to bunch up on structure, weed lines, and drop-offs. I Caught 175 in 3 trips. The size is not great but we caught several 1 lb. to 1.5 lb. slabs,” Gulliot says. John reminds anglers that it’s important to be patient when fishing them in the August heat. “The bite is very slow - they just mouth half of the shiner. You have to let the crappie swim off with the shiner then slowly load the pole or the hook just pulls out,” John says. John uses a 11’ BPS light jig pole with a tiny mini-spin reel. At the end of the line he rigs a #2 Aberdeen hook with a live shiner and adds “The East Pearl water is getting very clear so fishing should continue to improve.”

9-year-old Blake Polk of Pearl River recently made a frogging trip on the Pearl River with his family and says the frogs were plentiful but small. “The frogs started out small - They were practice so when the big ones came I would be able to catch them with my hands,” Blake said. With a little perseverance, the bigger frogs did show up and Blake says one even jumped into the boat! “I missed one that jumped in the boat but caught him by his legs when he went to jump out of the boat,” he says. 

Bayou Cane

Ask any local angler and they’ll tell you to wait for the cold weather to show up when trying to catch bass on Bayou Cane. The small, shallow bayou in Mandeville is known for producing limits of bass in the winter months. But Tony Cyprus Jr of Mandeville, just couldn’t wait that long to put some bass in the boat. Tony fishes out of a 13’ Chapman Pirogue and says he knew it was going to be a good day when he spotted a friend on the water. “He already had five bass when we crossed paths. He gave me a tip about where he had found them, so I started pecking away”, Tony says. Cyprus was using a 7.5” Culprit Worm rigged weedless with a red Gamakatsu wide-gap hook. Within a few hours he had his limit of chunky marsh bass. Tony gives some tips to finding bass on cane. “Try to nice swooping curves in Cane and start chunking adjacent to the lush grass beds early.  When it heats up, start tossing towards the middle of the bayou where the real big boys and girls hang out!”

Crankbait Kid

12-year-old Peyton Waller has always liked fishing with crankbaits. “My dad and I have always been interested in square-bill crankbaits. Until a few weeks ago, wooden square-bill crankbaits were the rage in our house,” Waller says. Thats until Peyton and his father discovered W.E.C. Crankbaits which are made of balsa wood. “Even though those crankbaits were $21.00 each, we couldn’t resist. We bought two and loved them,” Peyton says. Waller loved them so much he decided to try making his own. “Since I was already fascinated in making my own lures, I figured I’d give it a try and make my own crankbaits,” he says. Payton’s father brought home all the ingredients to make their own lures including balsa planks, knives, saws, epoxy, and sandpaper. Peyton slowly started creating his own lures. “I got my mom to trace out a crankbait body on paper. She then drew the design on the balsa.  I got my saw and started cutting off the edges. I took my knife and shaved balsa off all the edges. Next, I started sanding - lots of it!  I took my sandpaper and sanded off whatever looked like it shouldn’t be there. I kept my set of calipers close by and set to the correct length, width, and height to get my crankbait close to being even,” he says. Upon finishing his creation, Payton tried his new lure out. “I had to test my bait out, so I went to my pond to see how the bait would react. As I reeled it in, the bait had a wide wobble and an incredible hunting action.  This gave me the idea to call my bait “The Beagle.” If you’ve ever seen a beagle hunt, it has its nose down and tail up as it runs through heavy brush, running back and forth. My bait had this action,” he says. Payton liked the action so much that he decided to use it during a tournament. He entered the Bass Assassins tournament on the East Pearl, where he finished in first place in the “Little Tanglers” Division. “To win with something that you created is amazing. Anybody can purchase a lure, but most people can’t make them, and won’t take the effort to make one. I’ve always been a creative person and enjoyed making things, so making my own fishing lures is an enjoyable experience,” he says.

As anglers, we are accustomed to tried and true fishing knowledge that is embedded in our subconscious from generation to generation. One of those tidbits of knowledge passed down for centuries is the simple, but very true, statement; “Find the bait and you’ll find the fish.” I had the pleasure of fishing with Ponchatoula angler Todd Oalman, where that simple fact was nearly overlooked by the both of us. We started out the day early, knowing that our best fishing would be before 8:00 due to the vicious heat of late July. Our first stop was the W14 Canal that runs along Old Spanish Trail in Slidell. We headed up the canal until the trees and vegetation forced the canal to look more like a small ditch. As we fished the grass lines and ditches the first thing we noticed was the lack of surface action from the baitfish that was usually plentiful in that spot. Cast after cast we came up empty. Our conversation filled the void and pretty soon we were deep in discussion about what might be going on. The discussion ran the gambit, from a possible fish kill, to the bass just not feeding that day. After 2 hours went by, we decided to try and “save the day” with an early return. Todd cranked up the engine on his 14 ft. flat boat and we headed back down the canal, already lining up our schedules in our heads, for the rest of the day. Then we both noticed something, about half way to the launch we spotted a tranasse on the left with mullet scattering on the surface. I turned back to Todd and made a casting motion which he silently agreed to with a nod of his head.

 Todd shut down the engine and I jumped up on the bow for my first cast. I made a cast to the opening where the tranasse spilled out an immediately saw a boil just under the water’s surface and I set the hook. I reeled in an 11” marsh bass and with an excited murmur, I heard the words “find the bait” come from his mouth. Todd joined in on the action and before we could get out lifejackets off, we had 2 fish in the boat. We followed that tranasse into the marsh picking up bass after bass. At one point the action was so fast that I rigged my line with a double rig, which consisted of a two Shu-Shu’s in the Watermelon Wreck color rigged weedless on #1 worm hooks.

 After catching a few single bass I set the hook on what felt like a small bass. After reeling him about halfway to the boat I felt the second one jump on and my rod bowed over. I slung two the two bass into the boat and we celebrated quickly and returned back to the action. Todd and I finished the day with a limit of bass and headed back to the launch with the satisfying feeling of figuring out the fish. Todd says “Those fish aren’t in there just for the heck of it. They are in there feeding, and 9 times out of 10 if you can find the bait, you’ll find the fish.”

Buddy Hereford of Slidell made a red fishing trip to Bayou Biloxi and says the amount of bait in the water made it tempting to throw his cast net. “There was bait everywhere! I almost succumbed to a cast net full of 2” mullets in the live well, but decided to stick it out with a gold spoon,” Hereford says. Buddy couldn’t manage any takers with the spoon so he switched over to a Lemonhead Matrix tipped with Halloween shrimp, 12” under a popping cork. That did the trick. Buddy managed a limit of reds by 10:00 but he wasn’t finished there. “Plan B was to head to Lawson Bay to try some islands for specks but the red action was too good to pass up so I made my way through miles of canals and broken marsh, he says. Buddy caught and released four more keeper reds and a couple of undersize ones. The highlight of the trip was when a redfish decided to hit Buddy’s cork instead of his lure. “I made a nice cast into a small pocket and after a few pops of the cork; I started reeling back to the boat. Then and a red rocket almost went air born and inhaled the cork! He made 2 good runs before it was decided this was not what he wanted for lunch.  I have had lots of reds hit the cork instead of the bait, but never had one hold on that long,” Hereford says.


Halfway to the fishin’ hole

Roger Sissac’s planned to make a run out to the mouth of Carr Drive in Slidell to try and put a few bass in the boat. Halfway to his destination, his motor started buzzing which is often is a warning that the engine is overheating. Roger checked the oil and the water pump and couldn’t figure out the problem. So he did the next best thing he could do at the time. He started fishing! “I was almost to my fishing grounds so I started fishing,” he says. Roger started casting into a cut that came out of the marsh. “I started fishing with a green Shu-Shu at the mouth of a cut and picked one keeper bass. Then I went to the next cut where I got several hits and caught two keeper bass,” Sissac says. Roger soon forgot about his motor problems as he started to target structure along the canal. “Next I fished the bulkhead and pilings and picked up two more keepers and finished up my limit fishing the pilings along the road,” Roger says. Before heading in he decided to fish the same cut where he caught his first bass “I trolled to the first cut I tried earlier and bam! The fight was on! I thought I had big bass but it turned out to be a nice red,” he says. Roger tossed him in the ice chest and decided to call it a day with a limit of bass and one redfish.



Hot Water Canal Going Cold

While winter time fishing is far from everybody’s minds these days, a significant announcement was made by ENTERY that will affect a canal that a lot of saltwater anglers frequent during the winter months. ENTERY announced that the canal known by locals as the Hot Water Canal, will go cold in the winter of 2016 due to a 30 million dollar upgrade to its electric power transmission. The Chalmette facility currently uses water to cool the machinery and discharges it back into the canal resulting in warmer water temperatures. Steve Smith lives in Slidell and fishes the canal in January and February routinely. “That canal stacks up with redfish every winter so I am curious to see how the cooler waters in there affect it. Hopefully the fish will continue to be in there despite the water temperatures returning to normal,” Smith says.



Three Rivers Blueway

St. Tammany Parish Government, in partnership with the Louisiana Land Trust, the City of Covington, and the National Park Service’s Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Assistance Program, has been working on a proposed Three Rivers Paddling Trail.  The project area includes the vicinity where the Tchefuncte, Bogue Falaya, and Abita Rivers converge. The overall goal of the project is to develop a blueway, or water trail, that is enhanced with launching points, signage and areas of interest for kayakers, canoeists, and paddle boarders as well as providing environmental conservation to the area. While still in the planning stages St. Tammany Parish President Pat Brister says “We hope this project will serve as a model for future blueways projects across our Parish and will highlight our abundant natural resources and beautiful environment.”