With 210 of the 350 bays opened on the Bonnet Carre’ Spillway, all attention has now been turned to the closing. The Army Corps of Engineers forecasts that 210 bays will remain open until the river starts to fall. They estimate that  210 bays will remain open until the first week of February.  So far, there have been no reports of the invasive Asian Carp anywhere in Lake Pontchartrain or it’s tributaries. 

As fisherman, we often get caught up in the present, asking where are the fish biting right now and what are they biting on? After all, who wants to waste time looking back at what are now memories. But they say the past is the best indicator of the future, is what happened in the past, and nothing can be more true than fishing here on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain. So as we ring in 2016, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back at the best baits of 2015. I’ve ventured across the North Shore and stopped in at four bait shops from Slidell all the way to Ponchatoula to see what the best selling lures were in 2015.

Go into any bait shop on the North Shore and you'll hear talk of it. Turn on the television or radio and you'll hear the doom and gloom.  Yes, the Bonnet Carre' Spillway has been opened, flushing Lake Pontchartrain of it's normally brackish water and turning it into a muddy mess of river water and driftwood. The thought of 4 times the water of Niagara Falls flowing into Lake Pontchartrain enough to fill up the Superdome in one second has sent the fishing community here on the North Shore into a state of depression. The last time the Spillway was opened was in May of 2011 wiping out any hope for a good spring trout run that Lake Pontchartrain is known for. 
 Take a look at what is unfolding now. What we are seeing is the earliest opening of the spillway ever seen. it's January, a month where most anglers are sitting by the fire and watching NFL Playoff games or sporting the the latest Mossy Oak camouflage outfit in the woods. January, a month where the water temperatures in Lake Pontchartrain dip down so low that the correct response to the question - "Wanna go fishing?" would be - "What...Ice fishing?" The fact of the matter is if the spillway has to be opened, this is the one of the best times to have it happen. Roy Pendergraft of Covington says he does 90% of his fishing in Lake Pontchartrain and there's no time like the present to open the spillway. "The earlier they open it, the better. I don't really venture far from the 'Lady P' for 90% of my fishing, so I just make the best of it. The end result will be some good fishing later in the summer and into the fall," he says.
Lake Pontchartrain is not a true lake, it's an estuary, meaning that it is in a constant state of change from brackish water to fresh. Roy reminds everyone that river water into the lake is something that has been happening for quite some time. "I kinda look at it this way - Prior to the levees, and the spillway, the river used to flood and make it’s way into the lake, but the lake has always rebounded," he says. 

Andy Hammer, of Metairie says that he likes to use the freshwater to his advantage by targeting isolated areas of high salinity that occur in the southern-most parts of Lake Pontchartrain. "The trick will be finding where the pockets of salt water are.  Once they are found, I think the fish will be there. The last time the spillway opened, we were able to catch them in the Rigolets.  The tide should bring a wedge of saltwater in, regardless of how much freshwater is in the lake," Andy says. Another thing to remember while fishing the lake is that saltwater is denser that freshwater forcing the freshwater to the surface. Andy says he can recall the last time the spillway was opened. "The last time it was opened, the top of the lake looked awful, but we were pulling specks, drum, and reds off the bottom in the deeper areas of the Rigolets and where the Rigolets meets the Lake," he says. 
The opening in January doesn't guarantee that the spillway won't have to be re-opened this spring. But remember one thing. The high water levels in the Mississippi are due to the rainfall up north. That rainfall is normally snowfall that packs in and combines with February and March's snowfall. What this all means is that we are getting half of the runoff that normally see from the melting snow, in late spring. 
Jeff Kreller is one of the very few who fishes the lake year round and says. "I refuse to go into a deep depression over the doom-n-gloom every time the spillway opens. I love Lady P, and that's where I'll fish no matter what the conditions may be. So I guess I'm an optimist," Kreller says. For the pessimists, Jeff jokingly adds, "I declare that the lake will be dead until 2018 and no one should try for trout with my hidden motive being that there will be more trout for me alone to find."


Hydracoast Map
There has been considerable improvements in monitoring Lake Pontchartrain since the Bonnet Carre' Spillway opening in 2011. One improvement is the Lake Pontchartain Hydrdocoast Map that is featured on the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation's SaveOurLake.org website. The map monitors salinity in the Lake Pontchartrain and surrounding areas. The organization urges anglers to use the map to their advantage by monitoring the salinity levels in different area of the lake.

With the new year upon us, Lake Pontchartrain has gone into it’s so called “dormant stage” as far as fishing goes. Although we’ve seen an extended fall in 2015, Old Man Winter, assisted by one of the wettest Decembers to date, has turned the lake into one of the toughest places to fish on the Northshore. 

For Slidell angler Buddy Hereford, to stop fishing in January is not can option. Buddy says there are two options that he turns to when the raw weather hits. The Biloxi Marsh and The Great Wall on the Intracoastal Wateway. On a recent trip, Buddy says the wind was just a little too much to deal with on Lake Borgne so he decided to make a trip to the wall. 

“I wasn't looking for an adventure, just a nice relaxing fishing trip.  Crossing Lake Borne didn’t seem like a good idea with the 15-20 mile per hour winds, so after a few discussions with myself, I finally settled on the Wall,” Hereford says. Buddy launched at South Shore Bait & Marina on Chef Menteur and started fishing some cuts on the ICW. “After a short ride to a few drains in the ICW, I was casting for 9:30 and started catching right away, but all were 11” long at both the cuts I fished,” Buddy says. Hereford decided to leave the drains and head on out to deeper water. “I Tried all my favorite areas and managed some nice specks all tight-lined using Lemonhead Matrix on a 3/8 oz. round white H&H head,” Hereford says. After the wind picked up, Buddy decided to call it quits and head in. He ended the day with 14 speckled trout ranging from 13” to 20.”



Pond Fishing

With the cooler weather here, it’s no secret that the 10+ ponds from Sildell to Covington, that were dug out to create the Interstate 12 in 1957. John Givens of Folsom, says he can always tell when the large pond at the I12/190 intersection in Covington is producing. “Every winter around this time of year, I’ll start to see trucks pulled on to the side of that pond. When I see that, I know it’s time to catch some sac-au-lait,” Givens says. John has made three trips in the lat two weeks and on every trip he has caught no less than 20 sac-au-lait. “These are really big slabs we’ve been catching. Usually I’ll have to pick through a few smaller ones to find the keepers but this year they all seem to be huge,” says Givens. A popular choice among crappie fishermen is live shiners but Givens says he has been having no problems at all catching them on jigs. “I started using shiners but found out quick that they’ll just about hit anything right now. I’ve been using the traditional blue and white plastic skirts on a 1/18 oz. jig head,” John says.


Stolen Tackle

Ponchatoula angler Richard Bennett is warning residents of Ponchatoula to be on the look out for tackle thieves in the area. Bennett had 22 Plano 3700 boxes of tackle, 4 Duckett rods and 4 Lew’s Tournament Pro reels taken out of his boat that was parked outside of his house on Brown Road in Ponchatoula. Richard says, “Each box contained several colors of each style bait, completely stuffed. Please, if anyone has any idea of where this stuff is call 985-981-3599.  I would pay very well to get it back even though it's a long shot,” Bennett says.