Outstanding October
The fantastic, speckled trout bite across Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne that began early this month is continuing into the latter half of October. In addition to specks, anglers are seeing a healthy dose of white trout, redfish, and even a few flounder mixed in.
Jason Legaux made a trip to the mouth of Bayou Bonfouca where he found a plethora of fish. “White trout, specks, reds, flounder, drum, bass, croaker, and, channel cats,” said Legaux. He was using plastics tipped with Fishbites and said he threw back as many as he kept. “A few days ago they were bigger but this trip they were on the small side. I should have moved around a bit, but they were biting so good that I didn’t want to leave,” he said.
Chris Anderson of Covington made a trip and was excited to get an early start as he launched down Chef Hwy at South Shore Bait and Marina. “My wife woke up unusually early so I was excited to launch at sunrise to say the least,” Anderson said. With the forecasted falling tide at sunrise, Anderson decided to make his first stop at a community hole in Bayou Thomas where he found others with the same idea. “Obviously it’s not a secret anymore,” he said. He was using Lemonhead Matrix on a 1/8 oz. jig head under a cork and picked up three keeper specks fishing under seagulls. After the bite died, he moved over to another community hole by the Castle where he again found more boats than he wanted to see. By this time the tide was falling hard, and the water temperature was 75 degrees. The husband-and-wife team caught several nice speckled trout there with some white trout mixed in. They were using double rigs with different weighted jig heads. “On the bottom rig was a 1/2 head and on the top was a 1/4 oz. jig head,” he said. They fished there until 2 p.m. and caught 29 speckled trout, 2 bull reds, 1 slot red, and 1 bass.
Flounder Season
The 6-week closed season on flounder has officially begun and anglers are reminded to release all southern flounder caught in Louisiana. The closed season will last from Oct. 15 to Nov. 30. and will allow mature female flounder to escape inshore waters and move offshore to spawn. The closure is projected to create a 50% reduction of harvested mature female Southern Flounder. “The closed season is an attempt to help the stock recover to a healthy biomass target by 2028,” said Rene LeBreton of LDWF.
Mathew Clayton of Slidell made a trip to Geoghegan’s Canal with his friend Zachariah Brewer where he had the unfortunate job of being the bearer of bad news. The two were fishing from kayaks and only caught one fish all morning when Brewer hooked and landed a 19-inch flounder that was the highlight of the trip. “He caught a very nice flounder! Ironically, he had to throw it back because of the start of the closed flounder season,” Clayton said.
Tournament Results
The Double Nickel bass Club fished the East Pearl River that saw tons of sunshine and no wind. The tide was going out all morning. Out of the 22 anglers who fished the event it was Tommy Watkins who came out on top with a 3-fish bag weighing 6.51 pounds. Joe Frierson won second place with a limit that weighed 5.98 pounds. Ralph Dunn took third with a tournament limit that weighed 5.80 pounds. Bob Perry caught the big fish of the day: a 3.46-pound bass. Mike Lee brought in the second biggest fish: a 3.30-pound bass.
Upcoming
Tournaments
The next Bass Assassins will be held at the Tchefuncte River on Nov. 6. If you have any questions you can email bassassassinsla@gmail.com or call Chris Basey at 985-707-7857.
Pearl River Team Trails is holding their next tournament at Crawford’s Landing on Nov. 12. For more information, please contact Charles Dauzat at 985-960-3260.
The next Liars and Lunker’s tournament will be on Oct. 30 at Crawford’s Landing in Slidell. For more information, please contact Chad Hartzog at 985-502-3217.
(Keith Lusher Jr. writes a weekly column. For more info, visit NorthshoreFishingReport.com.Contact Keith at keith@northshorefishingreport.com.)