Every year Mother Nature seems to deal Northshore anglers a new hand. Whether it’s the unseasonably late spring that had anglers chomping at the bit for water temperatures to rise, or the impossibly steady west winds that have been terrorizing or beloved Lake Pontchartrain this summer, one thing is for sure – catching fish isn’t easy these days!

Cannon Merchantel has all but given up on the Lake and turned his attention to a spot on the Northshore that has been known to thrive in the brutal south Louisiana heat. The marsh laden Salt Bayou is starting to heat up and Cannon found out firsthand how productive the unsuspecting bayou can be. After launching his kayak at the Salt Bayou Bridge on Hwy 433, he knew he was in store for a good day. “I got out on the water early and at sunrise I started pitching Texas rigged Shu-Shu Shad mainly on openings between grass beds along the banks – within 30 minutes I has 5 bass, two of them being 16 inches! For the next half hour I fished the Shu-Shu wacky rigged into grass beds and along fallen trees and I landed two more. As the water temperature started to heat up, I switched to a chrome Rat-L-Trap to catch four more bass, two of them being 13 inches!” He said. One thing that Cannon has learned about Salt Bayou is to stay away from the mid-day heat. “Funny thing I've noticed about Salt Bayou during the summer is that she will produce a monster early morning bite, take a 9-hour break during the hottest hours, then start to pay dividends again during the evening bite,” Cannon said. He adds that he thinks the fishing will get even better in early August. “I do believe that the best time for fishing is right around the corner for Salt Bayou,” He said.

Mostly known for its fantastic speckled trout production in the spring and fall, the pylon off the mouth of Bayou Lacombe has been producing good numbers of redfish these days. Tom Kelley recently made a trip with his wife and daughter and was prepared for the worst. “My idea was to put my daughter (Kelsey Kelley) on some trash fish just for the fun of it so I stopped at Bayou Adventure in Lacombe to pick up some frozen shrimp.  She doesn't care if it’s edible or not - She just wanted to reel something into the boat so I was prepared for a hardhead extravaganza!” Tom said. He was pleasantly surprised however when on the first cast she landed a keeper redfish! “Things changed for the better when on the first cast she (Kelsey) hooked up on a good size red which we released after a few pics. Second cast ...same result a nice Redfish. This one went into the box. We had steady action for an hour. I never wet a line baiting hooks, fixing leaders, and netting fish for the ladies,” Tom said. The day turned out to be a pleasant surprise as the team headed back with a box of fish. “We finished with 7 reds and 1 puppy drum.  It was a fun, easy trip with a beautiful sunset on the ride home,” he said.

I recently overheard a conversation in a local bait shop in which two gentlemen were discussing what areas were producing bass on the Northshore.  The older gentleman was rattling off rivers that he liked to fish this month. “Tchefuncte, Bayou Bonfouca, Bayou Lacombe are all good this time of year,” He suggested. Then the old man paused and said, “Now – if you really want to put some fish in the boat you need to head on down to the Pearl!”  As soon as the word “pearl’ came out of the gentlemen’s mouth his friend threw his hands up and claimed, “Oh no! I can’t stand fishing the Pearl!” This is a common sentiment shared by many bass anglers on the Northshore. Whether it’s the chocolate milk colored water or the strong current, the Pearl River can be mighty intimidating for most bass anglers.

I had the chance this week to join Northshore fishing Guru Jeff Bruhl and the “up-and-coming” fishing prodigy Luke O’Neal on a bass fishing trip to try and learn why this river is so polarizing.

We started the day early as Jeff launched his 21 ft. Phoenix bass boat at the public boat launch off of U.S. 90 on the Louisiana side.  It didn’t take me 5 minutes into the trip to garner my first tidbit of Pearl knowledge.  As I sat foolishly in my seat waiting for him to crank up the 250 Yamaha SHO, I saw him step on to the bow, reach down for his rod, and cast up against the bank. We weren’t 10 ft. from the ramp and Jeff was already working a white Ribbit Frog along the grass line.  Jeff says that he can usually pick up few right away without even cranking the engine.

As the sun peeked from over the horizon we made the move upriver past Interstate 10 and as soon as the trolling motor hit the water Luke flung a white buzz-bait near the cypress riddled shoreline. It didn’t take long before the noisy propeller on the lure came to a screeching halt and with a loud splash the lure suddenly ceased to be a “top-water” lure. Luke cranked in the first fish of the day and everyone’s blood started pumping.  Jeff manned the trolling motor while we trolled the shoreline anxiously expecting to pick up another bass. The mood on the boat slowly diminished as no one was able to pick up another fish along the long stretch of shoreline until we reached a small cut that lead into the swamp. I watched as Jeff casted to the point and with a big swing and a miss he repeated the cast and this time set the hook on another keeper bass. “The river is falling right now so the water is coming out of the woods and these drains are where they’re coming out first. That’s just pattern fishing on the pearl. Some day’s they might be along the cypress knees, the next they might be in the drains, and the next they’ll be on points in the marsh,” Bruhl said. As we approached the next drain we picked up two more bass and it was clear what the pattern was. As the day went on it we continued picking up fish out of each drain like clockwork. We ended the day with a total upward of 30 bass but Jeff says we could have ended up with more if the water would have been falling hard like it was supposed to do. This is another reason why the Pearl is so perplexing to most fishermen. “That’s one thing with the Pearl – The tides from Lake Ponchartrain dictate what’s going to happen but you also have to pay attention to the winds. Sometimes if you have an outgoing tide and an east wind, that wind will negate it. So you really have to pay attention out here,” Jeff says.  

They say necessity is the mother of all invention and perhaps no one can attest to this more than Mandeville resident Chip Moore. Chip has been boat-less for the past 4 years after selling his flatboat upon entering college. After college Moore started commuting across the Causeway and says it didn’t take him long to know that he had to figure out a way to fish the bridge. “I would drive home every afternoon from work across the bridge and see everybody else fishing so basically I got tired of watching other people fish!”  Chip said.  Not long after that he figured out that he could fish from his 3 seater, GT SeaDoo Jet ski he received as a wedding present. One day after work he grabbed a pole, launched at the Mandeville Marina, and cruised out to the bridge. “I caught three of four specks that trip. Nothing big – it was just an afternoon trip,” He said. 

After a little practice Chip now maneuvers the pylons like its second nature and says there are some things that you have to get used to when fishing from a jet ski. “Obviously it’s easier to jig from a boat just from the sheer angle of the line but you get used to it. As long as you keep your line tight and keep your eyes on the line everything works out. One of the biggest obstacles I have to overcome is position. I don’t have a trolling motor so basically I have to position the Jet Ski and drift,” Moore said. His efforts haven’t gone unnoticed. He recalls a trip in which he started hearing clapping coming from the other boats. “Last year I was fishing the bridge and it started getting really rough out there. There were about three or four boats fishing around me and all of a sudden I hear applause come from the surrounding boats. So I’m sitting out in the middle of the lake on a jet ski receiving applause from total strangers,” he said. Chip says this year hasn’t been a good year for speckled trout at the bridge because of the high large numbers of undersized trout. “I’ve been catching a lot of small specks this year – really small fish - like six or seven inches!  The water was beautiful on my last trip – clean water and good movement. All I could manage was a bunch of small trout,” Moore said. For now, Chip says the SeaDoo will have to do but he plans on getting a boat so that he can fish with his wife and daughter. 

Fishing in Late July can be downright miserable for most anglers. You know the kind of days I’m talking about! Sweat dripping from your forehead even before the sun peaks over the horizon, hot!  Ronald Pierre of Denham Springs says these are just the type of days you need to hit the water when you’re targeting bass with artificial frogs. Ronald has been destroying the bass on the Tangipahoa River and says the best time to target bass with frogs is dawn and dusk. “I like to concentrate my efforts early and late in the day to beat the heat. Not only are these times cooler for fishing but bass tend to be more active and feeding during these times,” Pierre says.  Ronald recommends concentrating on structure when frog fishing. “I like to skip the frogs back under overhangs, run outs, or any isolated cover that sits near deeper water. Bass use these types of cover as ambush points to feed and will not hesitate to inhale a frog when it is presented in front of them,” he says. Most frog fishermen make the mistake of setting the hook too early only to see the frog fly past them. Ronald says there is a trick to use when this happens. “A lot of times a bass will hit and miss a hollow bodied frog and won’t give it another look the second time around. This is when a Senko comes in handy. As soon as the bass misses the lure, quickly reel in the frog and pitch the Senko to the same area then dead stick the lure. Most of the time the bass will see the soft plastic lure falling and will think it’s the wounded prey it was just after and they will come back to eat it,” he says.

Just off of the Tchefuncte River there is a small canal that fisherman bypass everyday on their way to fish “better spots.” Whether it’s the Causeway, Lemo’s Reef, the N1 Reef, or the Lake Pontchartrain Shoreline, it’s almost certain that this canal isn’t even a blip on their radar when they pass by. 

Mandeville High Student Luke O’Neal is guilty of casting aside the small waterway in search of greener pastures or bluer waters. On his most recent fishing trip he and two friends planned on fishing the artificial reef located out of the mouth of the Tchefuncte but the predictably unpredictable Lake Pontchartrain winds kept them from making the run. “We had planned on running out of the mouth of the river to Lemo’s Reef. The winds weren’t forecasted to be high but as we approached the lake we saw whitecaps, so we had to come up with a plan b,” O’Neal said. Luke fishes out of a 16 ft. Express and the like most anglers who use a flatboat, Luke’s Lake Pontchartrain trips are often dictated by the winds. As they idled at the mouth of the river they  analyzed the water and it didn’t take Luke long to come up with that plan b. “The water all the way from the 4th St. Launch was high and muddy. As I got closer to the mouth, I noticed black water coming out of the cuts.

 Automatically I thought the Rice Fields is where it's at!” he said. He convinced the two other friends to make the run down the long canal to a spot that is known for its boom or bust productivity. “My friends and I actually debated going in there for a bit but I finally convinced them to make the run. We ran down to the tranasse just before the bulk head and we saw a boat coming out of the duck pond. I asked if they had done any good and they told us they caught three or four. Their poles looked to be rigged up for shiners which made me think we were in for a tough day, “he said. Luke threw his friends a bag of Shu-Shu Shad in Victory Red color and told them to Texas rig them. He positioned the boat on the outside bank of the canal so that they could fish the bulkhead where the water was flowing out, but before he could get anchored he heard a commotion. “I looked back and I saw my two friends reeling in fish at the same time. That got me excited! I grabbed my pole with a Texas-rigged Shu-Shu Shad on it and got in on the action,” Luke said. The three friends sat in that one spot and as they pulled bass over the side of the boat. “We were catching fish like madmen! Bass were busting shad and mullet all around us! We watched the numbers climb – 10, 15, 20, 25 and by the time the action quit we were just shy of a 3-man limit,” said Luke.   The Rice Fields Canal is known for its strong tidal current and fishing it can pose problems when the current is strong. Luke says he thinks they had so much success that day because of the slower water movement “A big key to our success was having a light falling tide rather than it roaring out,” he said. 

Down south you don’t hear the term “smallie” being referenced all that often, but that’s exactly the term that’s becoming more and more prevalent amongst Lake Pontchartrain anglers these days. No they aren’t referring to a type of bass that’s often caught above the Mason Dixon Line. When you hear the word smallie these days you’ll undoubtedly hear other references such as 5-1 ratio, too short, and wasted shrimp. What started out as a few reports of small speckled trout outnumbering keepers has turned into the norm. The good news is that the lake is chock full of speckled trout! The bad news is that it looks like ole’ lady Lake Pontchartrain has thrown yet another curve ball to the fishermen who stay loyal to her. The NW winds have kept the water murky so far this summer and anglers have another obstacle to overcome. Rick Sauvage has been fishing the Trestles and says the water in the lake is not quite where it needs to be. “The water at the bridge is still "off" colored but fishable,” he says. Rick says they have been catching good numbers of specks, the only problem is most of them are undersized. “We started chunkin' Lemonhead Matrix Shad just north of the north drawbridge, and began to get strikes on almost every cast!  Problem was the fish must be too small to get the hook into their mouths.  We did manage to boat about 16-18 fish but only kept 7-8,” Rick says.   Jeff Kreller fishes the lake weekly and has a bit of an optimistic view on the small trout. “I’m not upset that there's a ton of tiny trout in the lake right now. I hope it's a great sign for big numbers of trout to be in the lake in the future for folks to hook into. Hopefully it’s a great sign of a strong healthy hatch this year. The fact that so many little ones are roaming in so many areas in our beloved lake is very exciting. My theory is that they are checking out the real estate, liking what they're finding, and are sure to return as piggies one day!,” he says.

Kevin Veillette recently tried his luck at catching speckled trout along the bridge when his fishing trip turned into more of a hunting trip. “We decided to start throwing around the pilings to see what we could pick up. We caught some little trout, but nothing for the ice chest. After a few hours we decided to give the spearfishing a shot. My friend threw on his mask, snorkel, and fins to go take a look at what was down there along the pilings. He went down and came back with a sheephead right away,” Kevin said. After the second fish, Kevin decided that he wanted to get in on the action. “My friend went down again and came up with another sheephead!  I then decided - it was either now - or never! I threw on his extra mask, snorkel, fins, and loaded the extra spear gun. I jumped in and couldn't see very far. I was nervous and wasn't sure what to expect. I made a few dives, but could never get down to the bottom where the fish were. By this time my buddy already threw a few more sheephead into the boat. It was getting dark and we decided to call it a day and head back in. It was a lot of fun and plan to go out a little earlier next time so we have more sun light to work with,” Veillette said.