The Northshore Fishing Report

Cold weather presents small windows of opportunity

1/22/2014

Keith Lusher Jr

Despite what is adding up to be the coldest winter in over a decade, anglers are still finding good numbers of bass and sac-au-lait in the freshwater tributaries along the Northshore. The key to finding fish is to watch the cold fonts. Fishing before cold fronts can pay high dividends in January for two reasons; warmer temperatures and dropping pressure.

Bayou Cane

For those of you bass fisherman looking to put together a limit of bass, Bayou Cane in Mandeville has been on fire as of late. The tiny shallow bayou that meanders in between Fontainebleau Park and Big Branch Wildlife Refuge is producing steady limits of bass and is slowly developing a reputation as a better spot to fish in the winter than in the summer. John Zeringue has been out of bass fishing for 15 years but recently has decided to rekindle his passion for the sport after seeing the latest reports on Bayou cane. John talks about how excited he was the night before. “I went to bed around 10 pm and couldn't sleep. I felt like a kid leaving for Disneyworld the next day. I finally fell asleep at some point because I woke up at 5:30, fifteen minutes before the alarm would go off!” After arriving at the launch that morning John says he was nervous about launching his kayak. ” I had never fished out of a kayak before and I was just hoping I wouldn't flip it while getting in. I dropped the 10 ft. plastic boat on the ground by the bayou and loaded all my gear from the truck. Then I had my first success of the day, I got into the kayak and was still dry! John said he struggled for a while but finally hit pay dirt when he came upon some clean water. “It wasn't until I came to a cut coming out of the marsh with good clean water flowing out before I finally caught a fish. I made a few casts with the brush hog then decided to switch to a white and chartreuse, 1/4 oz. spinner bait. Three casts later I got a hit! Not only was it a hit, but the fish was still on! I landed my first fish of the day and the first fish for the kayak.” One complaint that anglers have about bayou cane is it is often easily muddied after a passing front but John says to find the mixing line where the clean water mixes with the muddy water. After switching to a crank-bait, John says he found his biggest fish of the day along the mixing line in the water. “I tried throwing a crank-bait got to where the water was mixing the fish was on! I set the hook and he made a b-line for the middle of the bayou! He turned my kayak 90 degrees and after a short fight I landed it. It was a solid two pounder! After unhooking I got back in position and for the next six casts I picked up five keepers and released one eight inch bass. John finished the day with a limit of bass and says he will definitely be back soon!

Sac-au-lait

The Sac-au-lait bite is on! From now until spring, anglers should be able to locate active schools of these “white perch” bunched up near drop-offs and structure. Lacombe resident John Farley has been fishing regularly on Bayou Lacombe and says that he has been catching them steadily but also stresses checking the weather as these fronts play a significant role in their feeding. “I was fishing for sac-au-lait almost every day in December and catching maybe a half dozen per trip but on my last trip I caught 25. The day I caught them was about three or four days after the last front when things settled down. So I think that these fronts are definitely affecting the bite,” John said. Around this time of year these fish are not quite ready to venture into the shallows like your will see in late February. Look for sharp drop-offs with deep structure. “I like to target those drop-offs because that’s where the water is usually moving a little bit. Look for logs or pylons around bridges and they will be hanging around those things.” John says the fish he has been catching are larger than usual and on his last trip he caught one that weighed in at 2 lbs!

Upcoming Tournaments

Liars and Lunkers is holding their next tournament on Sunday, February 9th on Lock One. For more information call Chad at 985-502-3217.

Slidell Independent / Tammany West 1/15/14

1/16/2014

Bass tournaments garner interest from youth

Keith Lusher Jr

I recently attended the weigh-in at the last RP3 Bass Tournament held at Heritage Park and I noticed something that I haven’t noticed before. Amongst all the tricked out $30,000 fishing machines flocking towards the dock on Bayou Bonfouca, one boat stood out. It was a 14 ft. flat boat manned by what looked to be a boy. The youngster was on the bow of the boat operating the trolling motor and the first thing that crossed my mind was, “maybe his engine was acting up.” Then I looked at the engine and to my surprise. There was none! This peeked my interest as I wondered if he was one of the anglers competing in the tournament. I watched as the boy pulled up to the bulkhead where all the other boats were tied. He walked up to the weigh table and assumed the familiar pose of leaning back and arms folded just like all the other men there in anticipation of the winners names being announced. This peeked my interest as I began asking some other anglers if he was entered in today’s tournament. One after one they nodded yes and each one of them couldn’t help but smile. Zachary Zimmermann is a 14 year old bass fisherman and has competed in two tournaments here on the Northshore. He is only in 8th grade but he is already making waves in the bass community. In Zack’s first tournament he showed up ready to compete but there was one thing that separated him from the other anglers besides his age, In the back of his father’s truck was a kayak. Tournament organizer Ronald Pierre says when he saw him with that kayak he knew he just had to offer him a spot in his boat. Ronald talks about fishing alongside Zack in the RP3 Tournament, “He was so excited when I opened up the motor. I let him wear one of my extra helmets and he was all pumped up! He had all of his gear together, had his maps with him, and waypoints. He was determined to catch fish that day. That guy is an animal or better yet, a little "manimal" when it comes to determination and fishing for bass!” Not only does Zack fish hard, he also puts in the time to study different spots. I asked Zack if he studies for school as hard as he studies for tournaments and he said “If I did as much homework for school as I do for fishing, I would be valedictorian! Whatever venue is being fished I read all of the past reports and could probably recite them off the top of my head. I make maps with points of drains and cuts, or a group of trees all on Google Earth. I watch hundreds of videos on bass fishing and read magazines. In the morning when my alarm clock goes off I jump out of bed faster than Usain Bolt! I have my clothes laid out and ready to go!”

Zack Zimmermann

After the RP3 Tournament all Zack could talk about was getting a boat and Christmas presented the perfect opportunity to ask for one. Zack talks about the excitement he felt on Christmas morning, “It was literally the only thing that I wanted for Christmas! It felt like the night before a tournament because I couldn’t get any sleep. Christmas morning finally came and I woke up to no boat, but opened a couple tiny boxes to see a picture of a flatboat. It was a 10 ft. Alumacraft with a 30 lb. thrust trolling motor. My parents said that it hadn't come in yet and we would get it the next day. I was so excited!”

Zack wasted no time in christening his new flatboat. The next RP3 Tournament was the following week on Bayou Bonfouca and Zack was there bright and early ready for blast off! Chris Basey fished that tournament and recalls seeing Zack on the water, “I saw him running down the bayou with his trolling motor headed down to Palm Lake which is miles away from the launch. I almost stopped to give him my number because I was sure he was going to need a tow back. I talk to his dad at the launch and told him I would like to see him with a bigger motor but his dad said, ‘No, don’t give him a motor, that boy will be running all the way across the lake with that thing!”

For Zack the future is bright and he only looks to get better with age. His goals this year are lofty. Zack says he wants to qualify for the Nothshore Bass Series Classic at the end of the year. “I want to make the NBS Classic when it’s all said and done, that would be so cool!”

Lee Hillman

Tournament Results

The RP3 Bass King tournament on Bayou Bonfouca is in the books and it was Lee Hillman came out on top with a 4-fish bag weighing in at 6 lbs., 12 oz. Ricky Benitez took second with a 3-fish bag that weighed an even 6 pounds. In third was Darren Paternostro with 4 fish that totaled 5 lbs., 4 oz.

Slidell Independent / Tammany West 1/8/14

1/9/2014

Cold Water Cane

Keith Lusher Jr

With the latest installment of winter here on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain, anglers may find themselves opting for the comfy confides of their living rooms instead of braving the elements that have made fishing almost unbearable this month. The ambience of a roaring fireplace with playoff football on the tube is a hard thing to resist even for the most dedicated fisherman. Throw in an extra three hours of sleep and for most, it’s not even a question. But for 16 year old Luke O’Neal of Mandeville, the question wasn’t whether or not to go fishing; the question was where to go. I recently made a fishing trip with Luke to a bayou that may not be too familiar with bass fisherman on the Northshore. Bayou Cane is a shallow waterway that stretches from Hwy 190 in Mandeville and spills out into Lake Pontchartrain near Green Point. With over 4,000 years of history, Bayou Cane boasts one thing that none of the other rivers on the Northshore can, an unchanged shoreline. With its border of Fontainebleau Park to the west and Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge to the east, man-made alterations have been all but non-existent allowing Bayou Cane to retain its natural state.

Luke shows off his first fish of the day

As I pulled into the parking lot at the launch I was greeted by Luke unloading his 9 ft. Bass Buggy into the water. Luke shook my hand and asked “did you bring your ice chest for the fish?” It was at this point that I started thinking that we might actually catch fish here. After all, who am I to say you can’t catch fish in 40 degree, rainy weather? We pushed off and into the rain and fog we went. As I looked down at the muddy water I suggested to Luke that we should head down the bayou further to find cleaner water, but as soon as I finished my sentence, Luke hooked into the first fish of the day, a solid largemouth that weighed almost two pounds. I saw the excitement in Luke’s eyes and I have to say it was quite contagious. He held up the fish and showed me the lure he was using, a ½ oz. Rat-L-Trap in Baby Bass color. Luke said he likes to use lures with vibration or sound when fishing in muddy water. I was sold on the lure as I have had much success with that color in the past. Unfortunately I didn’t have another one in my tackle box so I tried on the next best thing, a silver trap with the black spot that resembled a pogie. We continued down the narrow, foggy waterway and it didn’t take long before our next victim put an end to my slow retrieve. THUMP! My line cut through the water sideways and within 10 minutes of starting out day we had two fish in the boat. They say in football, winning solves everything. Well I guess you can say the same thing with fishing. Luke and I caught one fish after the other for the next few hours and somehow the cold air wasn’t so cold anymore. The rain spots on the water that we were monitoring so heavily were of no consequence. The eerie silence that filled the air when we first started fishing was now full of laughter mixed in with the thumping of fish in the box. Luke and I ended the day with a box full of bass, but more importantly, I was reminded of these small waterways that I used to fish with much success when I was younger.

Fog rising off the water on bayou cane

The Northshore is full of small canals and bayous such as Bayou Cane. Try fishing off the beaten path every once in a while and you might discover that some of these little fished waterways can out-produce the more popular bass fishing destinations. Bayou Cane offers access to the anglers who are bound to fishing from land also. From the launch, you will find a trail that snakes along the shoreline deep into the woods. If you want access to the marsh, take a ride through Fontainebleau Park and look for a set of trails when you near the lake. The “Alligator Trail” will take you all the way to the shoreline of Bayou Cane where it empties into Lake Pontchartrain.

Tournament Results

The St. Tammany Bass Club held its latest tournament and it was Tommy Quave coming out on top with a total of 7.17 lbs. In second was Kevin Williams with a total of 4.16 lbs. Robbie Warned finished third with a total weight of 2.53 lbs.

Upcoming Tournaments

The Tchefuncte River Winter Series will be holding its next tournament on the Sunday, January 12th at the 4th Street boat launch in Covington. For more info please call Scott at 504-450-9556.

The St. Tammany Bass Cub will be holding their next tournament on February 1st. For more information please call Walter at 264-6360

Slidell Independent 1/2/14

1/5/2014

Causeway Mules

keith Lusher Jr

The speckled trout run that lasted all through December has trickled into January and anglers are taking advantage by putting quality trout in the boat. Todd Shultz fishes the Causeway and says that he can’t remember a time when he was catching this many fish so late in the season. “We had a few people come into the shop and say they were catching a few out there but I never expected to have the trip we had with it being what is almost the middle of winter.” Todd owns a trolling motor repair shop and can always tell when the bite is on at the Causeway because of all of the repairs he sees at his Mandeville shop. On his most recent trip to the 24-mile bridge Todd and a friend filled the ice box with big beautiful trout and says the secret to their success was trolling. “We stopped and jigged up against the poles for 5 or 10 minutes but we didn’t do much so we decided to start trolling. We started right by the drawbridge and caught fish all the way to the next crossover about two miles down.” For most people, trolling is something that they would rather leave to the so called pros. Common excuses for not trying this technique are not knowing what lures to use, what speed to travel, and what line to use. But Shultz says that it’s not rocket science. “We weren’t doing anything special that trip. We were trolling along with the trolling motor at first, and then we cranked up the big motor and put it in gear. We weren’t dragging buckets or any of that stuff. We were just pulling brightly colored Rat-L-Traps behind the boat and that did the trick.” Another preferred method of trollers is attaching a soft plastic trailer lure behind the main lures to ensure a higher hook-up ratio, but Todd says on that day he didn’t want to take the chance of two fish jumping on one line. “I was going to put a trailer on but with the size of these fish, I just didn’t want to take the chance of two 5-pound fish grabbing hold of one line. These fish were mules! We caught 23 and out of those fish we didn’t have any throw-backs. The smaller fish weighed two pounds.”

Darren Pradat and Todd Schultz display their Causeway mules

This great stretch of fall fishing should be coming to an end soon for the 24-mile reef so anglers who want to take advantage of this unseasonably late run should do so without delay. Once the water temperatures reach the upper 40’s these fish will be yesterday’s news and those anglers who wish to fish the Causeway will be forced to wait until the spring.

Lake Pontchartrain Catfish

Miriam Davey and her 19lb catfish caught at Lemo's Reef

With the water temperatures dipping into to low 50’s, those big freshwater catfish are starting to make their appearance in Lake Pontchartrain. Todd Oalman runs trot-lines everywhere from the Tchefuncte River to Manchac and says that the reason for the bigger fish in the lake around this time is the salinity and the food supply. “With the North winds and rainfall during the winter, the lake's salinity drops. The bigger catfish are looking for easier meals than the river has to offer so they migrate to the lake and eat crabs that are dormant and the abundant clams. It’s much easier to feed on those slower things than to chase bream or shad. When I clean the bigger fish they are always full of clams and crabs.”

Miriam Davey and her husband Rex where jigging for trout at Lemo’s Reef when Miriam hooked into one of those monster catfish. “The fight seemed like it lasted forever! I finally managed to get it to the side of the boat but trouble hoisting it over the side of the boat so my husband netted it.” Miriam says that they were using a pink a chartreuse plastic shrimp tipped with a small piece of market shrimp. “After we got it into the boat we marveled over all of the old battle scars on it!”

Slidell Independent 12/26/13

12/26/2013

Cold weather bassin' on Bayou Bonfouca

Keith Lusher Jr

Ask any knowledgeable bass fisherman on the Northshore what areas are good to catch bass in the winter and he will probably launch into his standard speal about targeting drop-offs and deep water. With this being the holiday season he may have a few drinks in him and even let slip on or two of his coveted hot-spots. But when it comes to bass fishing the Northshore’s rivers and bayous in the winter, all you need to know are two words: Bayou Bonfouca. Bayou Bonfouca has been lights out this month and the great bass fishing those anglers are experiencing looks to extend well into January. Anglers are routinely finding limits of quality fish along the grass-lines and deep channels that branch off from the main bayou.

Daniel Sissac and his father, Roger Sissac has been fishing Bayou Bonfouca heavily this winter and it all started a Roger noticed an all too familiar site for those who fish the bayou with any regularity. “We began fishing the lake and surrounding bayous last year and my dad started going to Heritage Park to fish for bream and bass along the bank. He was there one day and saw a big school of menhaden. That intrigued him, but what really got him excited was when he saw bass literally jumping out the water while attacking the menhaden. He told me about it and we made our first trip to Bonfouca soon after.” Roger says on their first trip to Bayou Bonfouca they limited out on bass and they were hooked. On their most recent fishing trip to Bonfouca, Daniel says he picked up on something from a previous trip that helped him figure out what the bass where feeding on. “I remembered from last week's excursion that a couple bream were spat up by some bass, so I swapped my crank bait for a bream-colored spinner bait. Apparently, that was sound thinking because I boated a nice bass on the first cast! We kept working our way down the right shoreline and found our limit there.” His father, Roger talks about some things he has learned from fishing Bayou Bonfouca in December, “I find that the fish have pulled away from the shorelines and have moved to deeper water. They will move to shallower water if it's a sunny, warm day, but when it's cold, I generally concentrate in locations with deeper water.” Deep water is easy to find on Bayou Bonfouca because of all of the man-made canals that wind in and out of the subdivisions constructed along the bayou. Some of these subdivisions have channels with drop-offs that are taylor-made for bass looking to escape the ice cold surface water.

Daniel says that the boat traffic on the bayou is drastically reduced during the winter months and that only sweetens the deal as far as they are concerned. “It's funny, because it seems like a lot of people stop fishing during the winter months. We've only fished Bonfouca last December and once so far this December, but it seems there are fewer boats. During the summer there are many days when it's hard to find a parking spot at Heritage Park, but during December and other winter months, there are times when we are the only vehicle there.”

In the few years that Daniel and his father have been fishing Bayou Bonfouca they have built up tons of confidence in the area and Daniel says that he is trying to get his father to try some other rivers and bayous but has been unsuccessful so far “There's no doubt that Bonfouca quickly became our favorite bayou to fish. Most of the time, we don't even have to discuss where we will be fishing because it's a given that we'll be going to Bonfouca. I am trying to get my dad to try some other locations like Bayou Liberty and Bayou Lacombe, but with the success we've had on Bonfouca, I certainly can understand why we keep going there. I guess there's a reason he calls Bonfouca our "sure thing",” Daniel said.

Upcoming Tournaments

The RP3 Bass King Tournament will be help on Saturday, January 4th on Bayou Bonfouca. Weigh in will be held at Heritage park in Slidell at 1:30. For more information please call Ronald at 985-991-3681.

The Tchefuncte River Winter Series will be holding its next tournament on the Tchefuncte River on Sunday, December 29th. Blast-off will be at safelight and weigh-in will be held at 3:00 pm at the 4th Street launch in Covington. For more info please call Scott at 504-450-9556

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