Past Fishing Reports OCTOBER 2003 - MARCH 2004

MARCH 2004

March 28,29, 2004- As conditions improve, so does the fishing...Paul Brown and his wife Gayla got a real early start with me on the 28,th to try and beat the wind. We arrived at our destination before sunrise to find slightly stained water from all of the wind that has been blowing, but this did not stop the specks from feeding. Paul and Gayla had never before fished with artificial baits, but it wasn't too long before they were into the specks and boating some pretty good ones. Tightlining 101 was the course for the morning and Paul and Gayla were excellent students of the instruction. Our offerings of tightlined assassins were successfully recieved by some hungry specks as we were anchored in some fairly uncomfortable, but "doable" seas. Even after Paul boated a good number of trout, it seems he still was amazed that these specks were nailing plastic baits. Presentation is everything right now. These specks are still awaiting the shrimp to move in and for now they will hit baits that resemble what little feed is that is available to them. Glass minnows were being thrown from the trout as they came flopping aboard, so the assassins were the perfect bait to offer them. We had to leave these hungry specks feeding as the seas started getting a bit too rough and uncomfortable to fish them. We ended our trip with Paul and Gayla totaling 35 good specks.

The following day we had spectacular conditions. Seas less that 1' and the water clarity had much improved. Brent Necaise, hailing from Pass Christian, MS along with his dad Pat and 6 of his co-workers from GE Plastics were the crew for the day. Capt. Ernie had four guys and abord my boat were, Brent, Pat, Tim and Jerry the "Trout Slayer". These guys were all excellent anglers and made my job real easy today. As soon as the guys' lines hit the water their tightlined assassins would work magic on some real hefty specks. This action in this area would quell as the tide had totally quit on us. We did have to visit a few areas to get on the numbers, and the slack tide did not help us, but hard work and persistance paid off with 50 gorgeous specks in the 14-22" class, averaging 15-16", and one 29" bull red. We also had quite a few fish break off and spit the baits, but none of our fish today were even close to having to be measured. Real quality fish today for a real quality crew. Capt. Ernies' crew caught well also. It appears that this season is really starting to shape up. With the fishing as good as it is right now, just imagine in a few more weeks what will happen as the traditional influx of shrimp move in and big sow trout start bedding on the reefs and islands. The spring crop of croaker are starting to size up now as well by reports I am getting from some locals on the island. In a matter of 3-4 weeks (depending on water temps) these little guys will be reaching the 2-3 inch size and will be the prime bait needed to get on the big sow trout. Can't wait....

March 26, 2004- The hard E/SE winds that have hampered lots of fishing trips for us in the last 5 days would, of course carry over to one we would try today. Butch Spradling of New Orleans, had his brother Jackie and his grandson Wes down for a visit and wanted to fish as well. We all knew this would be a tough day out on the water. We would be confined to the protection of the Delacroix Island Marsh in March, with high tides, and a hard S/E wind at 18- 22 knots and gusting to 25. This scenario is probably one of the hardest to fish in. First you have to find good water, then protection from the wind, and the toughest of all find fish that will feed in these conditions. We started off extremely slow with only 2 keeper specks and a stingray by mid-morning. Not too exciting. I decided to make a radical manuvre to the perimeter of the marsh and fish some lagoons that I knew would be protected from the wind, but the question was would there be clean water and feeding fish. Well this would be the ticket to finding some huge bull reds in the 30-32" class. Jackie and Wes had not fished reds before. Being from up-state Mississippi near Tupelo, they dont see too much salt-water and had not yet had the experience. Well you could just about put anyone on the end of a light tackle rod opposite a 10-12# redfish in 2' of water and just sit back and watch the expressions of amazement and awe doing a shallow water battle with one of these guys. Wes and Jackie were amazed at the power and stamina of these bronze beauties of the marsh. We fished reds for the next couple of hours and had some break off and boated a few smaller reds in the 18-19" class. We wound up drifting over a slightly stained area of the lagoon we fished and came across a decent number of speckled trout. These school sized specks would provide us with a good bit of action to finish the day, but most of these would be juvenile and were released. The guys ended up with a decent catch for the tough conditions, and had a great time on the water. They left with firm hand shakes and promises to return in, hopefully, better conditions to see what awesome fishing our area can provide. I also want to thank Butch, Jackie, and Wes for hanging in there with me on this tough fishing day. It wound up paying off in a big way.

March 18,19, 2004- Two awesome days on the water out of Delacroix Island...Lots of fish caught and you just couldn't ask for better conditions to be out fishing. We caught bull reds, big speckled trout, roe mullet (yes!! 5, 2-3 lb. mullet were hungry and slamming our baits like big trout and were boated and released) manta rays, channel mullet all taken on assassins rigged tightline on light spinning tackle rigged with 10 lb. mono. My trip on the18,th was with Mark Kusniewski hailing from McHenry, MI. This snowbird was down in the "Big Easy" for some business and of course some R&R....This day we found fishing just a bit slow but it was steady and the fish were all quality....This was a catch and release trip for Mark, and we finished this day with a total of 24 specks 14-19" and 10 reds 18-36" and the mixed fish as well. Mark was certainly an excellent angler and it was a "reel" pleasure fishing with him. On the 19th it was most certainly a "what a difference a day makes" trip....Don Anderson, Jody Brown and Tracy the "Trout Slayer" were on board for a trout slam. I don't know what it is about these guys, but they are always catching piles of fish. The last 2 trips they had out with me in the winter, they got their limits....and today in the middle of what can be the most difficult months of the year to catch well, they fell just a bit short nailing 70 specks and 2 bull reds. If we only could have gotten "The Trout Slayer" off of that steel leader from the get-go, maybe we could......well, I won't go there. Ha-Ha!! Just kiddin' Tracy. Once again the boys from Mississippi Power Co. have done it and done it well. All fish on both days were caught on tight-lined assassins.

March 11, 2004- What an awesome day on the water..."Marsh Madness" has shifted slightly to the south as the perimeter bays are really producing some real big specks and reds. Today I was joined by Maurice Miller and Irvin Roy of St Bernard, La....we started out at mid-morning and our first lines hit the water around 10:30. The awesome action on Specks and reds was nearly non-stop as by 1:00 p.m. we were limited on bull reds and specks. Lots of double and triple hook-ups on trout as they were really eatin' up our offerings of bass assassins under floats as well as tight-lined most of the specks were real nice in the 13-16" class and there were probably over 20 trout in the 18-26" class. It was like fishing Breton Sound and Black Bay in the peak of summer with the numbers of fish, the action, and more surprisingly the size. There were trout flirting with the 5# range. The bull reds were pretty thick as well but we could only keep our limit of 3 that were over 28". There were lots of 12" trout that were released also. The only bad thing that happened today was a lack of storage spece for the fish...we had to incorporate the use of our food box to store the fish we had today. Looking near perimeter islands with good hard shell bottoms was the ticket to getting on a beautiful catch as we had today. My customers that are lined up to fish with me next week are in for a real treat if the weather conditions hold. Sorry about the lack of good "on-location" images....the batteries went dead in my digital camera so we could only get shots back at the ranch. Lots of good specks and lots of bull reds are in the Delacroix Island area and are just a cast away. Give me a call to book your spring/summer session trip for that awesome action on big sow trout. You will be glad you did !! Titelines!! 1.877.847.7846. Great on-site accommodations are also available.

FEBRUARY 2004

JANUARY 2004

January 4, 2004- More "Sooners" onboard today....Terry and Cheryl Keylon of Broken Arrow, OK were out with me today for some of that "bull red" action on light tackle. We departed the dock at 9:00 and were soon on the big boys. Our tight-lined offerings of assassins were the ticket to lots of good action on these copper-clad warriors. We found a decent bite on all good sized specks as well. All of the trout were 14-19" and were taking the same offerings as the reds were. All areas that we visited produced fish with the exception of one. Terry and Cheryl were a real treat to fish with and were both excellent anglers. We lost a few but 8 of the monsters that were boated were released to fight another day, but all 21 of those tasty speckled trout made their way to the ice-chest. There was little water movement today as we were between tides. This made fishing a little more like work that the last 2 outings. The specks were really starting to turn on good as the incoming tide was starting to roll, but we headed in ending our day with some beautiful 18-20" specks. I would have to imagine that the specks would have really stayed turned on and feeding until twilight, but this will only make the anticipation for my next outing here even greater.

January 12,14,15 2004- DELACROIX ISLAND REPORT Monday the 12th I fished with Irvin Roy and Maurice Miller both local boys from St Bernard. This was the first fishable day for almost a week as arctic air and strong winds had the water temps plummeting into the 40's, and water "fishability" was poor. We started late in the a.m. with water temps at 51.8 degrees, and managed to find specks biting almost everywhere we went but were releasing 11-12" fish all morning with the exception of about a dozen 13-14" trout. We did also find a herd of reds in Oak River but the majority of these were small as well. It was not until early afternoon when water temps were 53.6 degrees, that we found some real nice specks in the 14-19" class, and they were really eatin' up our titelined offerings of curly tail assassins. We pulled the plug on this one at 2:00 with 41 real pretty specks. Wednesday I fished with Jerry Lee of Kenner, La. and Steve Hudson of Covington, La. We put in early and headed out in search of bull reds. After 3 stops and no fish our 4th area would produce some awesome action on huge bulls in the 28-30" class. Well it only took a few minutes to get our limit (3) of these brutes, but it would be catch and release on these drag screaming monsters, and all you could handle. It doesn't get a whole lot better that doing battle with these 12-15 pound brutes on light tackle and out on calm and windless seas. We did manage to find 4 more reds to put in the box that were just under the 27"mark. When leaving this area to head to the dock we came across a mammoth school of bull reds, when Jerry noticed somethig odd about the water. It had this eerie kind of orange glow. We shut down the motor and lowered the trolling motor and soon we were in the thick of hundreds if not a thousand big bull reds on the surface covering what was about 1500 square feet of surface area.. This is only the third time I have seen this in my life and Steve and Jerry had never witnessed this rare sight. I will post images of this in hopes that the resolution loss will not be too great and you can enjoy the pictures I took of this rare sighting. Thursday I had Don Anderson of McHenry, MS and his partner Jody Brown of Gulfport, MS on board for a trout slam. Our morning started off slow but steady on some keeper 13-15" specks doing a drift in a lagoon just west of the spider canal. After this played out it was on the hunt for more numbers of fish for the box. We fished a number of areas and caught fish at most but couldn't get on a steady bite. Trying to stay off of the beaten path, we came across more specks some keeper reds, flounder and black drum but nothing steady. Persistance would pay off in a big way as our early afternoon stop in an area off of Oak River would not only produce a steady bite on specks but some real nice specks with only a few 12" mixed in that were released. There were a lot of 13-15" specks here that were feeding hard on our curly tail assassins tight-lined in 6-8' of water, and quite a mess of 18-20" female specks as well. It was"pitch-and-catch" in this our final spot as we would easily limit out on specks with a lot of legal fish released today. Don and Jody are regular clients of mine and are both excellent anglers making my job real easy today. This was a good thing as I was still hung over from the previous day doing battle with those bull reds on light tackle.

DECEMBER 2003

December 21,26,27,29, 2003 & January 2, 2004-DELACROIX ISLAND REPORT- I am sorry these reports are as late as they are, but between lots of company over at the house on different occasions, and 4 days of boat, motor and trailer maintenance, I was not able to get these posted in a more timely manner. I would like to thanks my guests onboard starting with the 12/21 trip...Glen Hammontree from Gulfport, MS along with his son Chris Hammontree who is presently serving our country in Iraq, and hails from Memphis, TN. Don and Corolyn Cox from Covington, LA, Bubba Andrews and buddies Bradley and Randy from the Alabama coast, Preston Marx also from Covington, La along with 13 year-old son Matthew, and buddies Andrew and Grady, and Sooner Fans Jim Dunford and 13 year-old son J.D. hailing from Edmond, OK. All of the trips were loads of fun....some groups got limits and some fell a bit short but a lot of very nice specks were caught on each trip. The vast majority of the speks were taken on tight-lined presentations of bass assassins down in 6-8' of water and fishing over oyster-laden bottoms. The specks are plentiful and biting pretty good at numerous areas around the Delacroix Island marsh, and good numbers of these sweet eatin' beauties are just waiting for your lines to hit the water. Some of the aforementioned trips were in very windy conditions with fast moving tides. These conditions make it very difficult to get on and most importantly stay on fish in. But I am very fortunate to have some pretty good anglers onboard to get some good numbers of fish in the chest. The two most exciting points in all of these past trips I want to share with you were the two young men Matthew Marx, and J.D. Dunford. Both of these young and up-coming anglers were definitely in the novice category with very little fishing experience, but were both focused on my instruction and implementing the technique to a tee resulting in Matthew catching a beauty of an 18.5" speck in some very tough conditions and J.D. catching a whopper of a 19" speck. I must say that I was extremely impressed with both of these youngsters as they both caught the biggest fish of the day on their respective trips. Congratulations Guys!!

December 8, 2003- Lots of speckled trout all over the Delacroix Island Marsh. You do not need to work hard for limits of specks at all right now. All fish taken on plastics and rigged tight-line in 7-9' of water. We did work a bit harder today to get on better fish. Irvin Roy and Maurice Miller were my fishin' buddies today and after a few hours of roaming over the marsh and catching and releasing all of the 12-13" specks at every spot we visited, we finally hit paydirt at an old spot in Oak River. This area has an oyster laded bottom and a small slew that drains a lagoon into the river. A great falling tide is all we needed here to get on and stay on 14-16" average specks with a few going up to 18" on presentations of various assassins fished off of the bottom. The bigger specks were holding tight to the oysters and really slamming our baits. Best colors were white sea-shads with pink tails in slightly stained water. The river water is starting to work its way into the "near-dock" areas so you have to run a bit farther that a week ago, but it is not a real problem right now on the Delacroix side of Oak River. We caught over 100 fish today all on plastics but released all but a few for the table, and left the big trout biting in Oak River. Sorry! No images for this trip but you can still view the images from previous trips.

December6, 2003- Well I sure hope everyone had a great holiday. I certainly did with a few days of R&R in Lafayette, LA visiting family. Today I had Don Anderson of Mc Henry, MS and his buddy Jody back aboard. They keep up with all of my fishing reports and wanted in on the action. We launched at 8:00 and were on the fish after a short ride. These guys are both excellent anglers and are always a pleasure to have on my boat. Don and Jodi were steady into the specks as various, tight-lined, bass assassins would be the ticket to a limit of beautiful specks and then some. A lot of 12" specks were released on this trip, and all fish were caught on artificial baits. There was not a live bait onboard for this one. There were quite a few double and triple hook-ups at times, and there were also some periods of non-activity due to a non-existant tidal movement. We covered a lot of area with the troll motor and were able to achieve our limit by going to the fish. Jody had 2 whopper trout. One in the 3# class that measured 22" and another a bit smaller. I thought that I captured that image of his whopper speck but when I went to download the images from the trip this morning, I discovered that "THE BIG ONE GOT AWAY" Sorry about that Jody. I hope Don will vouch for you on that one for your co-workers. The box full of specks image did come out though. The water temps have dropped sufficiently now and the area I have been working is holding good specks down deep in 8-10' of water. The shrimp have left the marsh in this area and this is opening the door for artificial presentations. The trout in this area are feeding on small marsh minnows and are ready to jump on most plastics rigged tight-line and fished just off of the bottom.

NOVEMBER 2003

November 24,25,26 2003- The group I had on the 25th were my good friends Kip Williams of St Louis, MO and Larry Norvelle. They were joined by Betty Williams and Derrick. We had a pretty tough go at it on a very windy day. We did come across a good mess of fish but the majority of the specks and reds we found were juvenille fish. We did find action on some bull reds and reds in the 25-26" class as well. Betty seemed to really enjoy her first, rod bending/drag sreaming event of a 30" bull fighting hard for its freedom on a light tackle rig using 10# mono. The crew managed a good catch of this huge fish and they also had a few break off as well. It was great having Kip and Larry back onboard, and they will return for more action in the spring when they are down in the "Big Easy" for Jazz Fest.

The next trip for me was with a couple of local boys. Irvin Roy and Murph Miller made up this crew on this breezy cold morning. We launched at 8:00 and headed for the deep water bayous of the Delacroix Island marsh that are wind protected and we commenced to slam the specks. Our presentations of various assassins rigged under floats and tight-lined would yield our limit of 75 specks 13-18" and we were back at the launch before noon. Great trip guys. What a difference a day makes!!

Last, but certainly not least, Charles and Curtis Hemmenway were back onboard with me to get in on the fun. They were joined by Shelly and 11 year old Nick. The weatherman really got this one wrong. Light winds and fog were forecast for this day, but the winds wound up howling 15-18 knots and gusting over 20. We got a late start this morning but were fishing by 8:45. The bite was slow but staeady all morning long and the crew managed to boat 50 pretty specks in the 12-18" class. The bite was pretty good at first with some live minnows and assassins under floats, but that would come to a halt and the only way we were boating trout would be to tight-line plastics down into the tideline of a draining marsh in 10-12' of water. This is not an easy way to catch fish especially in a widy condition. I was extremely impressed with little Nick as he really picked up on this fairly difficult technique, and boated his fair share of good specks including one of the biggest trout of the day. Somehow you just know this little guy will mature into an excellent angler. I have cancelled my trip for this Friday due to an extremely harsh forecast with yet another strong front will rear its ugly head over our area on Thanksgiving night. Titelines and Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

November 18, 2003- My guestes on this blustery fall day were John Munoz of Austin, TX and Cliff McKenzie of Dallas. We were faced with 20-25 knot south winds and I turned my direction to a new area that was very protected from the wind. Our first stop was really all we needed for the day as the specks were there and hungry. They were blasting all types of presentations of live and artificial baits. This was a catch and release trip for the guys, who by the way, were both avid fishermen and really showed their skills. John and Cliff were steadily hooking up with some pretty specks mostly in the 13" class with a few going up to 15". There were some juvenille specks in the mix as well. This area also produced a few bass and flounder as well. We left the trout biting at this spot and ventured out into the open marsh to try and find some redfish. The wind conditions really made it difficult to fish some of my regular areas, but with the flooded condition in the marsh I was able to get them into a small pond that produced a couple of real nice 25" reds. With some severe weather starting to move over the marsh we high tailed it back to the dock for some protection and ended the trip. We managed about 25-30 specks and 2 reds, along with mixed fish. If this would have been a "meat hunt" trip for the guys, I do believe we would have stayed on the specks we found early and probably would have achieved their limit, but this was planned to be a fun trip and this was an absolute success as it was great fun fishing with these guys.

November 12, 2003- Good day on the water with the "Bank One Crew". Matt glatt and his fishing buddies Tim and Jason were aboard this morning. We had a good trip with lots of action on speckled trout, but a lot of the fish are running small. The guys worked hard with me visiting a number of areas that were holding fish. We probably caught over 70 fish during the course of the day including rat reds, juvenille specks, sheepshead, black drum, and bass, but our tally in the box by quitting time was 34 good specks 12-16", and 5 reds 16-30". Tim had the "hot-hand" today as he hooked, fought and landed his 3 biggest fish of his carreer. An 8, 10, and 12# redfish would broaden the smile on any anglers' face, but this was an exceptional day for Tim as he boasted his catch of 2 big redfish and 1 in the bull class 30" long. Matt would also boast the catch of a beautiful, multi-spotted specimen of a redfish. I am impatiently awaiting some long over due cold weather that will certainly get the better specks biting once again. normaly by this time of year we are experiencing water temps in the low sixties and upper fifties. It is still in the seventies and the fish are scattered all over the place following the shrimp. The late afternoon bite still rules as I am getting reports of fast limits on good specks. As the shrimp start to run for the evening and lift off of the bottom, it really gets the trout in hard feeding frenzies making the fast limits on specks a lot easier to come by than in the early morning hours. lets hope the cold front coming for the weeks end keeps us in cooler temps for a longer period of time to get the water temps down and the bigger fish feeding better.

November 8, 2003- It was a breezy start this morning for my guests Lanny Mc Donald and his wife Deanna of Amarillo, TX. We found a partialy protected shoreline close to the dock that was holding some good trout over grass beds. We all started hauling in specks from the first cast using assassins under floats. There were some really gorgeous trout in the 20" class that fell victim to our offerings. Lanny was really puttin a hurt on the 13-14" specks and 'ribbin Deanna to keep up with him. All it took was Deanna to hook up with a awesome 20" speck to quiet down hubby. After about 30 minutes of great action, our bite really slowed up and we started working hard for our fish, but steadily added to the tally of specks in the box. There were a lot of juvenille trout in the area and the action on these undersized fish was good but I opted to move to another area in search for bigger trout and some redfish action. The second area we worked really paid off. Immediately the specks started slamming our baits, but we had to work through juvenille trout to get more good sized trout in the boat. This area produced a lot of mixed fish as well, including. sheepshead, flounder, rat-reds, and stingray. We did manage to get on a few real nice reds as well today, but the steady bite on these brutes of the marsh would not materialize. It was opening day for duck season, and all of the boat traffic from hunters as well as anglers would not help our cause but we ended our trip with 40 good speckled trout 12-20", and 3 good reds 4-10#. Lanny and Deanna were great fun to fish with and I look forward to a trip with them again soon along with their 3 kids. I did see a lot of birds and there was a lot of shooting going on, and discovered that the hunters had an awesome opening day as most got their limits of greys and teal.

November 6, 2003- Tough day on the water...I fished with Jerry Lee of Kenner, La., and Steve Hudson of Covington, La today, and we really had a tough go at it. Both the speckled trout and redfish had a good case of "lock-jaw". We covered an enormous area of Delacroix as well as Point-a-la-hache fishing different presentations of live and artificial baits to try and find the bite. All we could muster up for 6 solid hours of fishing was 10 keeper specks, and 3 good reds 3-8#. This day the late afternoon/evening bite would probably materialize. We did find a fair amount of juvenille fish that would feed in some areas and they were a treat to catch on this tough fishing day. They can't all be good. Sometimes the fish just dont bite especially on a west wind and a blue-bird day. I do expect the great action that I have had to resume in short order.

November 3, 2003-Today I fished with Bill Cole of New Orleans, La, and his buddy John Ferrara of Shreveport, La. We had a great start this morning with John immediately hooking up with a beast of a redfish. With all of the mullet schooling around this tide swept point, I really thought we were going to do business here, but surprisingly this would be the only take in this spot. We were targeting trout to start off but had a bit of a stuggle as our next 2 areas did not produce a fish. Our next stop would be in an area that has produced for me for a good while, but it does take a bit of work with artificial baits over grass beds. This would be the ticket to a pretty good trout slam. The live and fresh shrimp presentations would not produce strikes in the heavy cover, but after rigging Bill and John up with the proper rig (assassins under floats) they were slamming the really nice specks right along with me. After 41 good specks in the 13-19" class were resting comfortably in the ice chest, John just couldn't stand it any longer. He wanted reds and big reds like the 9# beast he landed earlier. The red hole would be ON today. 12 real nice reds (all 25-26") would have Bill and John's rods doubled over and their drags screaming for mercy. The big fish wore these guys out in fairly short order, and we would leave them biting to get back to the dock with a 125 qt. ice chest nearly full. These guys were excellent anglers as they really worked over the trout and reds today without missing a beat, and I thank them for a wonderful time out on the waters of the Delacroix Island Marsh.

OCTOBER 2003

October 30, 2003- Matt Glatt was my guest this fine morning in the Delacroix Island Marsh. Actually "fine" is an extreme understatement. "AWESOME" better suits this stellar morning. Both presentations of assassins and live shrimp rigged 2' under floats would produce our limit (50) of big speckled trout (14-19") by 8:30 a.m. and only 8 minutes from the dock. These hard fighting specks were absolutely slammin' and eatin' up our baits. They were really turned on to, and feeding hard on a good number of shrimp that are in the area, and have been for quite sometime now, but the average size on these seatrout was way up. Lots of these trout were in excess of 16". By 9:00 a.m. we headed out to my hole for reds but could only muster up 3 good ones in the 7-10# class, as the water levels have gone up since my last trip here a few days ago where we did very well on the big fish. There was a lot of action on small specks and throwback rat reds here, and Matt and I had a great time on these smaller fish as well. This was the 18th trip Matt has made with me, and he and a large group are scheduled to fish with me again in November. The bigger trout have moved into the close in areas of the marsh right now, and the redfish are doing business as well.

October 24, 2003- Due to "Pea soup" fog conditions, we really were not able to get into good fishing areas until mid-morning. My guests were Dr. Phil Isaac along with his 2 colleagues Dr. Steve Connor and Dr. Jerry Maxwell of Oklahoma City, OK. I knew we would struggle on good numbers of speckled trout, but we did manage to get a fair number of beautiful trout in the boat. A good number of these were 16-20" and were taken on bass assassins rigged under floats over grass beds.. After the fair bit of action we could muster up on trout, the clock would read noon. By this time I was pulling up into an area that has been a bit of hit and miss for me on redfish, but this day it would be a hit. It wasn't too long after our arrival here that 2 rods would double over and big reds would be rippin' line off of the spools. These would be the only reds accepting our offerings in this spot, but about a 100' shift down the shoreline would really produce a lot of action on the big bronze brutes of the marsh. The action was fast and furious as the big fish were eatin' up presentations of live and fresh shrimp rigged 2' under floats. There was also a "beast" of a jack crevelle that totally spooled 75 yds of 12# mono off of a light tackle rig. Fortunately this jack did not "spook" the action on the redfish we had come upon. There were also a few good specks that were lost in this spot. It was certainly a great feeling hearing all of the jubilant cries of forearm cramps from all of the good doctors. What was looking like a bleak start to our excursion, really turned out to be a stellar trip for Phil, Jerry, and Steve. I truly had a great time with all of the guys aboard, and look forward to another trip with them soon.

October 17,18, 2003- "Transition Fishin" continues in the Delacroix Island Marsh. On Friday the 17th, I had the pleasure of fishing again with Don Anderson and his partner Jodi from Gulfport, MS. These guys had fished with me back in August and had a great trip catching a box full of specks. Today I would try something a bit different attempting to find better quality trout. We got an early start and headed out to Black Bay. Out first stop at a rig in close to the marsh would produce a good bite on bull reds. We did manage to get a couple of these brutes out of the structure that they were hanging on, but most of the hookups on these bad boys would end in break-offs as the light tackle equipment we were using would prove to be no match for these drag screaming monsters. We visited a few more structures and wells looking for trout to no avail. So we worked our way back through the marsh to get fish in the box. We came upon an area that produced some nice reds and big jacks. Don hooked up with a 25# + jack crevelle and did battle with this huge fish in 14" of water. After about a 15 minute battle chasing this beast with the troll motor, we successfully landed the monster and quickly snapped a few images and released her. Seems that we would have to get to the area that has been producing specks for me, and we would just have to work through the undersized fish in order to get some trout in the box. This payed off as our presentations of bass assassins under floats and over grass beds, would immediately produce a good trout bite for us. It was tough having to get on trout in the late morning on a blue-bird day, but we managed a good mess of specks with our efforts, and ended the day with a decent catch of speckled trout 12-14", redfish 5-10#, and other mixed fish.

The next day was really looking tough as a front had roared through on the night before and really had the area waters churned and badly stained. I fished with Jerry Lee of Kenner, La. and Tom Stoker from Rowlette, TX. As we left the dock the N/NE winds were still going 18-20 knots and during the morning gusting over 20. The plan of action today would be to find clean water to fish. The bite we found on a few keeper trout fishing semi-stained water would just not materialize. I wanted to look at an area that has produced for me in the past on very windy days. It has some protection behind a tree line and the water in the adjacent lagoon was clean and holding fish. We found a fast bite on good specks, flounder, sheepshead, bass and undersized reds, but it was fast action and a lot of fun. Once this bite quelled, a short troll over to the next point on this shoreline would get the bite going again. This spot would produce some line spooling reds, big sheepshead, and some real pretty specks up to 22". You just never know how a trip will turn out, even in harsh conditions. We ended our trip with 20 specks 12-22", 4 reds 5-9#, and lots of mixed fish. I am still seeing a lot of juvenile redfish in the Delacroix Marsh. I really like seeing this as these "mighty mights" will be bending our rods and smokin' our drags by next summer and beyond. Transition will continue in S/E Louisiana for a while longer. Traditionally by mid November we will have had some stronger and much colder fronts come through that will drop the water temps down and really fill the marsh with trout that will school up and definitely increase the numbers of fish in the box. I have trips coming up later in the week and will report then. Titelines!!

October 8, 2003- Lots of action today in the Delacroix Island Marsh. Bill Cole from New Orleans was my guest today. We started out about 7:00 a.m. and a 10 minute ride was all it would take to get on a good mess of fish. Our presentations of dead shrimp and bass assassins under floats is all it would take to get on our limit (10) of beautiful redfish 18-28", and about 25 keeper trout 12-18". There were a lot more juvenille specks in the area today than is days past. Still, the plastics and fresh shrimp are all you need to get into a great mess of fish and have a great time. My past 3 trips have shown that the fresh shrimp and plastics have out-performed the live-bait. Best of all I have made 4 trips out and have only burned 25 gallons of fuel. There are a lot of shrimp in the Delacroix marsh right now, as witnessed by shrimp "feelers" showing in the mouths of fish that we are catching on artificials. This is a great sign in being able to hold and still draw a good number of fish in this area to promote a lot of good catches on our sweet eatin' speckled trout and hard fighting redfish, from here on out through the winter. There were also a lot of sheepshead and black drum caught as well to fill up the 90 qt. chest to the brim. Give me a call to get in on the great action that the Delacroix Island Marsh has to offer. 1.877.847.7846 You will be glad you did! Titelines!!

October 3, 2003- Fished today with 2 guys from "Joisey". Bob Miccio and his partner Fred, from New Jersey, were in the "Big Easy" for a bit of R&R and took in a day of fishing during their stay. Bob and Fred fish the bays up in Jersey and target spotted weakfish. These seatrout species are just a slightly different strain of trout than our native spotted seatrout or speckled trout. After a late start our short 10 minute ride over to the area I have been catching well at, was all it took to get the floats dissapearing and the specks coming in the boat. The specks were soon schooled all around the boat, and it wasn't long before we were into lots of double and some triple hook-ups. The specks were eatin' up our presentations of live and dead shrimp and bass assassins under floats and tight-lined. After the guys got their limit of 50 specks, we triped over a short distance to get on some redfish action. Immediately a big red was rippin' drag and doing battle with the light spinning rods we were using, but the big guy won this one out by cutting the 8# mono. The rest of the action on reds in this spot was great but the reds were all undersized and were released. It was certainly good to see all of the juvenille reds stacked up, and were still a real treat catching on ultralight tackle. Bob and Fred were a hoot to fish with and went off with a bucket full of filets. The specks are really moving in well and limits of these beauties are just waiting for you to wet a line. Titelines!!

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