Last weekend wrapped up the tournament season with the Redfish Tour Championship out of Chalmette, La. Drew and I had a tough day on day one weighing just under 10 lbs. On day two w/ 25 mph winds out of the North and the m ercury dropping about 20 degrees it was looking like it was going to be a tough day. We get to our first spot and land two fish over 26" in the first 30 minutes. We fished about 30 more minutes and landed 3 more reds between27 and 28". After this we decided to head back to the dock to ensure we got there in one piece. We were in my little flat bottom skiff and had a 20 mile run on our hands into a 25 mph north wind. We got back to the Chalmette area at 11 am and fished there until around 2:30 and then weighed our fish in at 3:00 pm. I was anxious to get home to my family being the super storm was on top of the Wilmington area, so we were first in line to weigh our fish and then we split. Thankfully the storm did not directly hit us like it did the northeast. Overall the fishing was tough around Chalmette, Biloxi Marsh Hopedale and Delacroix. We found several schools of bull reds from Lake Pontchartrain to the Biloxi marsh and everywhere in between. There were also huge jack crevalles everywhere as well. I burnt the gears out of one of my Sustains and burnt a couple drags up in my CI4s messing with these monsters. This was the first time I have witnessed huge jacks in less than 2 foot of water cruising the shallow banks and crushing shrimp which were everywhere inshore in LA. I saw the biggest and most shrimp I have ever seen this trip to La. We caught more speckled trout than we can count and some of the biggest ones I have caught in a long time. We caught some 4 lbers on game day chasing reds. The shallow pond bite was off this year due to Hurricane Isaac flooding the area with a 10 foot storm surge and killing all of the hydrilla and grass that is usually so thick you cannot get into most ponds we fished this year. The fish were very spooky and most had vacated their normal haunts due to their habitat being gone. We got on a decent deep bite in several areas and that is where we found most of the upper and slightly over slots. We did catch a few fish in pre fish that were wallering and tailing in shallow water-but very few. During this tournament we experienced some of the toughest challenges we have experienced during a week of fishing. We were forced to go away from our normal skillset of sight fishing and fish deeper water. Neither of us like to fish this way and we never would have imagined we would have to fish this way in Louisiana. The fishing was good if you wanted to catch trout, bull reds, and big jacks, but the tournament sized fish are not what they have been in the past. Most of the fish have vacated the flats and moved to cleaner water. The water was very stagnant in the ponds and almost had a color that would be associated with an algae bloom-it also stunk from the huge piles of decomposing vegetation that was from the shorelines all the way to the top of some of the trees and bushes. I am very glad to be back to clean water and beautiful back drop of our area. Louisiana is a fun place to fish but the area is an eyesore compared to our area. Thanks to our sponsors for their continued support and to Category 5 soft plastics and Richie Bulot-owner of category 5 lures. We used Category 5 manic minnows, suicide croakers, and shrimp minnows to fool finicky reds all week and during the tournament. We tried gulp and several other soft plastics and nothing came close to working as good as the category 5 baits. Our fish on day two of the tournament were spitting up sand eels-which was a total shock to me. I thought they were a northern thing as I see them usually getting crushed by striped bass and blue fish. Some of the eels were over 12 inches long. We used Category 5 manic minnows in the black/chartreuse tail and the green belly pattern to fool these fish.
