Had a fabulous meal at Vincent’s uptown Christmas Eve courtesy of my bro in law, who enjoys fresh fish, frequently. Woke up Christmas day and put on a gnarly 20# prime rib, cooked breakfast for my family, and opened gifts. Restrung 2 reels while Diane handled the shrimp remoulade. Best remoulade sauce in New Orleans courtesy of Steve at Quarter View, who also enjoys fresh fish. Excellent day with the family!
Slept in till 4, then rolled towards Sout Lafourche, baby. Stopped at Cash Magic in Larose for pit stop, ice and coffee, twas a might chilly. When I walked up to the counter, Josh Redd was facing the freshly shaven, bearded lady. I’m glad she respected the holiday. Josh and I exchanged pleasantries, something like were you hiding in there, and rolled south.
We combat launched at a frequented winter spot and started jigging. The water was under 50 degrees, 2 feet low, and crystal clear. I dropped anchor and started jigging a big chartreuse swim bait. Started getting hits right away but no hookups. Figured they wanted something a little smaller and tasty wouldn’t hurt, so put on a Gulp chartreuse curly tail. Dat and some super slow jigging was the ticket! Started catching nice trout right away. No monsters, but decent trout with very few throwbacks. During a lull, I cast the Vuduencork and caught a nice trout and a legal red, then back to the jig. I’d started culling bigger fish and had a limit of nice trout by 930. All this time, Josh had been hoovering as his fancy a$$ power pole wasn’t long enough. I credit my quick limit to the boat being fairly still, on anchor. So being the nice guy I am, I unhooked and loaned Josh my anchor, and my spot. I fished around and caught a few more including my biggest of the day, which I released, and pedaled to the truck. When I went to pull the boat out, I saw a bait in the water. Wound up being as “softdyne” I believe it’s called. Cool. Once the Banana was strapped down, I went to work on the bait with my handy split ring pliers and changed a damaged split ring then installed 2, #2, Gamakatsu EWG treble hooks. Well I might as well tie it on, huh? I reluctantly cut off my beloved topwater and started casting. My goal was to catch a trout from the shore on the little treasure before Josh got back, but that didn’t happen. He loaded and we drove down to Bridgeside to clean fish and have lunch. We basically had to shoo off brazen pelicans to clean fish, and the store was closed so no lunch. We rolled down to Benjamin Day’s favorite Starfish where I enjoyed a burger, fries and fresh brewed coffee. Ahhhhhh.
Rolled to Lance’s Launch and went east through some pipelines then over to the Graveyard, nada. On the way back, Josh got on a couple trout and I cast the softdyne, actually caught a little trout, on a kinda free bait, I’ve never used. Cool. We loaded up and headed to the prestigious Gallano Inn, where we checked in, unloaded and headed to Walmart. Somehow my Gulp jar had cracked and a considerable portion of the liquid had leaked out. Plus I wanted more of the curly tails for Sunday, not to mention Josh needed an anchor. Killa pork chops at Memaws, shower, unconscious for a while.
Up at 445 for coffee and labeling. Dats rite, I had to label my hand for Dan’s Outcast Trout tournament. 10 trout, I’m game. We showed up early and anchored in the same spots as the day before. The wind was a little different and it favored Josh in numbers. He took his tournament pics and speedily caught fish. I had a slower start. The trout were eating the tails off the gulps pretty quickly and I heard a bragging angler say ultraviolet. Had a Matrix Shad Ultraviolet, put it on and started catching fish. Josh and I were basically on the spot and put on a show. Everyone caught some fish, but we both limited. I started submitting at 9 trout, caught the 10th and started culling. Josh waiting till he had 25 pics and fish then put his head down to go through pics and submit. Some guy killed it Saturday and I was in second, so I dogged Josh and caught fish right next to his boat, all the while wishing him luck and 3rd place. I was lucky and had him beaten by a small measure and was fortunate enough to upgrade a couple times. I even caught a couple on the softdyne although fishing it in the wind was tough. Seems like the breeze picked it up off the bottom. I’ll have to work on that. Anyway Josh left around noon and I stayed a while longer, to no avail. I did have the misfortune of hooking a 4′ gar while trolling, but was able to get the grips on it to retrieve my well tied jighead. Loaded up and talked with Wendell, right before seeing the Delta Dawn anchored by the Graveyard, from the toll bridge. Wish I could pull over and take a pic.
Cleaned fish at the prestigious Gallano Inn, stopped and got a warm soapy for the Monsta Banana and myself. What an awesome weekend. Great fishing with Josh, excellent weather, cooperative fish. What else could I ask for?
