FLOUNDER BITE SAVING THE DAY

Pessimist or not, you have to believe that as sure as you are reading these words, the wind will blow this weekend.Perhaps it is because it is howling out of the southeast right now and its only Wednesday!

In spite of how many tough trips you have already endured due to wind and muddy water, there is a bit of good news to report.The water is a little clearer along the Louisiana shoreline (you would have to have seen it last week to agree) and the flounder bite continues to improve.

Also of interest to the folks fishing one of the tournaments this weekend, we are running into small pods of redfish pushing immature baitfish up against the shoreline.When we catch a random red it is invariably an undersized fish, but when we intercept fish pushing a wake, they are upper slot fish.

We have really gone “old school” to take advantage of the flounder bite.I have great confidence in a 3-inch Usual Suspect Swim Bait as well as a chartreuse GULP curly tail grub rigged on a one eighth ounce head, but I haven’t tied either one on my line over the past week.

Instead, we have relied on either a Chicken Boy Bubba Clucker soaked in menhaden scent and rigged on the same one eighth ounce head or a two inch chartreuse curl tail grub rigged on a horsehead jig tipped with a small piece of shrimp.I can’t tell that one has worked any better than another so if you don’t like messing with bait shrimp, you are still in the game.

The redfish will hit the same two lures, but you are at a disadvantage when they do so due to the smaller wire hooks.For that reason, we keep a weedless spoon or 4-inch Swim bait tied on a second rig.Not only are you more evenly matched for the ensuing battle…… you can make longer casts as well.

I haven’t seen a lot of folks running the bayous and backwater looking for reds as of yet, but those numbers will increase as we close in on the weekend.The Orange County CCA Chapter is hosting their first High School team tournament and it should be a lot of fun.

CCA turned saltwater fishing around for thousands of coastal anglers years ago and they are still your only voice when it comes to ensuring the future of the sport.If you don’t catch a single fish, simply supporting this organization is worth the modest entry fee alone.You can still sign up at the Captain’s meeting at the Orange Boat Club Friday night if you haven’t already entered your team.Each team will consist of two high school students between the ages of 12 and 18 and a designated captain at least 21 years of age.

You can’t blame Velma Sensat for wondering what all the fuss over white perch is about.“I like eating sac-au-lait as much as anyone,” said the Grandmother of nine grandkids that apparently like to fish as much as she does following a guided white perch trip on Toledo Bend, “but catfish aren’t bad either!”

“Kids really don’t know as much as they think they do,” she added. “They kept trying to make me throw back the catfish we would catch every once in a while, but I told them I would clean them.That night, I fried them up and they disappeared faster than the sac-au-lait.”

“I have to book two trips each year to get all my babies on the water, but I’ll bet you one thing,” she added with a confident smile. “My next crew won’t be throwing back any catfish!”

Congratulations to Melvin Anderson for his catch last weekend on Toledo Bend. Melvin was drifting the flat between Six Mile and Housen with a Carolina rigged white fluke when he stuck his big bass.“I thought I was hung up and put the rod in the holder so I could reel in my other line,” said Anderson.

“I was excited, but a little embarrassed as well when I slid the 10.6 ounce bass over the side of the boat.It was so tired it hardly fought at all and my six year old, Cade, asked me…….Do you let them die before you reel them in?”

All’s well that ends well. “He was excited when he saw that she was still alive and I let him put her back in the water. I think he still likes bream fishing better!”