Trestle Time!

Taylor shows off one of many reds caught along the train trestles.

Right on cue! The Trestles are heating up and those warm weather limits are becoming more and more common place. Slidell angler Taylor Valios has been doing a lot of fishing on his off days recently, which keeps him at odds with his fiancé. “It keeps me in trouble with my fiancé most of the time, he says.  So, on his next day off, Taylor had a choice to make. “Sunday night I thought to myself, should I fish the Trestles, or sight fish reds?” The undaunted angler decided to load up his 15 ft. flat boat and fish the tracks. Along with a buddy, Taylor brought along a bucket of live shrimp and made his way to marker 174. “We got all the way to the 174 marker and trolled around there. The wind was coming out the SSE with a small incoming tide. Shrimp were popping on the top water enough to make an avid angler fill with excitement,” he says. They casted there rods with live shrimp on a Carolina rig, and it didn’t take long for the team to start hauling fish over the sides of the flat boat. “One after another, we pulled in fish using live shrimp - specs, drum, reds -all that the lake had to offer,” Valios says. The trip was so good that Taylor decided to head out the next day for a repeat performance. This time, he only brought 20 live shrimp. He says the action on this day was just as good, and by 7:45 am, he had 10 specks in the chest and was completely out of shrimp. The 24-year old reached down into his box and grabbed a bag of Matrix Shad. “Being that the water clarity was great, and the shrimp I bought from the bait shop were light brown, I decided to go with the Magneto Matrix color. “First cast - I let that bait sink to the bottom, popped it up, and could feel the spool on my Curado ripping drag. I'm looking for that STAR winner so I always get happy when drag rips,” he said. Valios flipped a 2.5 lb. trout into the boat and had his limit of specks by 10:00 am. While it’s probably best for Taylor not to give relationship advice, he does offer his thoughts on the next few weeks at the Trestles. “The Trestles and surrounding areas are only going to get better as we go through April and May. Grab your favorite baits and hit the water!


Fly Fishing Eden Isles

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Mike shows off one of his bass he caught on the "Eden Isles Special"

If you’re a fly fisherman on the Northshore, the sight of pollen on the water and shallow water wakes will have you “breaming” with excitement. But perhaps nobody is more excited than Eden Isles resident Mike Fandal. Mike is an avid fly fisher and owns Old Town Fly Shop on Pontchartrain Dr. in Slidell. Mike says the hot bait right now is something he calls the “Eden Isles Special.” It’s a custom made soft popper and the fish are inhaling the surface bug in the Eden Isles canals. “It’s the best bream fly ever and will out-fish any fly on the market,” He says. Orange and black is the color combination that has been doing the best Fandal says. Along with the perch, Mike says he’s been catching some bass up against the wooden structures that are so predominate in this area. “Most of the fish I’m catching right now are up against the bulkheads or underneath the docks. I like to hit the bulkhead and let the fly fall. It imitates a bug falling from the structure perfectly,” Mike says.

 

Tournament Results

Bass Assassins held its tournament on the West Pearl and it was Jimmy Dorris who came out on top with a 5-fish limit weighing 10.2 oz.  Jimmy also won the big fish award with a lunker that tipped the scales at 5.3 oz. Blaine Williams took second with a bag weighing 8.15 lbs. 

Upcoming Tournaments

The next Liars & Lunkers tournament will be held on April 19th at Crawford's Landing in Slidell, La. For more information, please contact Chad Hartzog at 985-502-3217.

Bass Assassins will be holding its next tournament on April 19th on the East Pearl. For more information please call Chris Basey at 985-707-7857.

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