Hello all and a Big Lake Question
 

Hello all! I was referred to this site on The Hull Truth by a couple of members here. My name is Chip and I live in the frozen north around Alexandria, LA. Born and raised in Walker, LA and graduated from LSU in 2002. I started saltwater fishing a couple of years ago when my buddy from work brought me to Big Lake. I now have a few Venice trips under my belt and my own boat, a 2007 Sea Hunt Triton 232 with a 225hp E-TEC. I am taking my wife and little girl (8 years old) on their first fishing trip on Sunday! Due to schedules, we are only able to fish on Sunday. So, we are driving down to Lafayette to drop off the youngest daughter at Mimi's on Saturday night and heading to Lake Charles to fish Sunday. I have been there about 5 times fishing, so I am somewhat familiar with it. The weather looks nice so far. I am putting in at Calcasieu Point Landing. Any pointers for the area right now? I want them to catch something besides dang hard heads. I am planning on running down to the lake (Turners Bay and Reef area) at daylight to try drifting with the birds for some trout before we move to a couple of spots I normally fish. I have been given some coordinates of the old south jetties and the basket reef area I will try also. Thanks for any advice! I am not going to try Cocodrie or Vermillion Bay as I have never fished there and I want them to enjoy themselves without me freaking out because I am in unfamiliar waters.

you can always try the wiers or LNG you can almost always catch something either of these places with gulp or shrimp

My friend and I went last Sunday. We fished all over and did the best the north end of the lake for specks and pretty good at the wiers for reds. Wiers had tons of 15 in reds. We ended up with 13 specks and 5 reds. Reds caught on dead shrimp on bottom specks on doa under a cork.

I can ask a stupid question. We exactly are the weirs and LNG?

If you launch at Cal Point, you're in LNG, just go East. The weirs are located in the SouthEast part of the lake.

Best thing is grab a hook n line map from academy and its labeled gr bayou in se of lake and as paul said go E from cal point....plus the map will have some points on the way to either!

Thanks guys! I have one of those maps at work my buddy gave me. I will check it in the morning.

204 views and only couple nice guys. I heard the are catching them around Old Camp. Seems like alot people are heading to SE corner of the lake. Good Luck.

Its not that i'm not nice per say, I'm just trying to determine if this is a troll attempt.

He was asking for pretty much a sure thing as he wants to put his wife and 8 yo daughter on some fish. The weirs and LNG are as close as you can get to a sure thing on Big Lake in my opinion.

Light southeast wind on Sunday, east bank should be good. Commissary is a community hole but worth fishing as is the old blue camp area. If you do not have one already get a hook and line map (any of the local tackle stores sell them and they are sponsors). This map also will have the weirs marked for you with GPS coordinates. As a new person on the lake pick up some live shrimp for the kids.

exactly

Common on. REALLy. He lives almost three hours away. Not like he is going to fish biglake every freaking weekend. He may be able to make what three trips a year. WOW if you don't want to give out info then why troll this forum? Lord send the guy a PM then. If anyone every wanted saline larto info heck ill help you out. Dang it's a dang fish and lake that's feed by the Gulf of Mexico. Not like this lake will run out of fish like a land locked lake. And you probably have more trout in your deep freeze than you can eat now. Sorry I was raised on help thy neighbor, and God will bless you in the long run.

Thanks for the info and help guys. I am appreciate it a lot. I am not looking for anything more than a few suggestions of where I can put my two ladies on a few fish. Type (except I have a deep burning hatred of hardheads) is really not important. Neither one of them has every been salt water fishing. I just want them to have a good time and catch something. I have fished Big Lake about five times with a buddy of mine. He has fished there a good bit. I am just not up on the terminology of the places very well. Again, I understand the hesitation and I really appreciate the help. I will try to post some pics of them having fun on Monday.

Have a great trip and let us know how you did. If you do end up fishing at the weirs do not anchor past the signs and you will want to be fishing on the bottom their not with a cork. Bring lots of tackle as you will break off very frequently in the rocks. Regarding live shrimp I think Calc Point has them now or so I heard.

Did you not read my post it was post number 11. What more could I have told him? I guess I could have offered to buy the map for him and have it shipped to his house.

Welcome Aboard fella, if you want to avoid hard heads don't use shrimp, that's about the only advise I can give you. I don't know the area. But keep this in mind, as bad as you don't want to catch your Daughter has never caught one and would probably be stoked to reel in any fish.

Big Lake can humble you until you figure it out. Buy the shrimp and make a big deal about it when your daughter does catch a catfish and they will have a good time. With a southeast wind all of the reefs on the east side are not a bad spot to try and if you have live bait they will catch something.

I fished over in Grand Isle most of my life until we bought a camp in Hackberry and it does take some time to figure the lake out. Over in Grand Isle I could get by with a lot less skill and planning. Once you figure it out Big Lake is a great fishery.

The reason I recommended those places are 1) he said he just wants to catch something 2) just because you tell somebody where a reef is doesn't mean they will catch fish there. Because they are not familiar with the area and so don't know the conditions it takes to catch fish there. I don't want him wasting time just sitting in an area with wife and daughter getting bored. 3) he mentioned the type of boat he has in the first post and it not the best for fishing the reefs in big lake due to the absence of a trolling motor. 4) I have caught trout both at LNG and the weirs. 5) I haven't fished the lake in a few weeks so I don't want to just say go here or here and give the guy false information. That to me is even worse than not saying anything

Rant Over

To the OP. If you do fish decide to try to fish some reef on the hook n line map, remember swing wide around them and shut your motor off. start fishing 100yds or so off the reef and drift with the wind over the reef. If you start catching, either place your anchor in the water and let out a little line till it catches or keep drifting. When you stop catching circle back around and drift over it again.

Thanks folks! Meaux, thanks for the advice on the reef fishing. I have a cajun anchor and usually my buddy and I will do like you said. Drift until we catch something and then plant the cajun anchor and fish for a little while. ckinchen, I plan on not fishing at all. I am going to help my wife and daughter fish and I will make a big stinky deal out of anything they catch. I am kinda hoping one of them hooks into one of the big ole black drum I caught last time I was there. I won't eat it, but the big ones a hoot to catch. Again, thanks for all the advice folks. I will post back on Monday how we did.

I was directing it toward LSUFISH. He said this guys was trolling.

Good luck man! Y'all will have a good time no matter! Those winds are finally gonna die down this weekend. That'll be the big plus.

That is the perfect attitude and approach, I hope you guys have a productive day and stay safe.

Guys he's not trolling, he was on another site and I and a couple others directed him here.

Welcome to the world of Salty Cajun Cwhite. Shoot me a text and I will let you know where and how we did.

It's fine, everyone has helped him now so he should be in good shape. Hopefully he catches some fish with his family.

Thanks Doug! I will text you tomorrow evening probably.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news. But rain chances just went up to 50% by 10 am. Be prepared incase y'all get wet.

Dang! Well, we are still going. I have a rain suit and the wife and daughter have rain jackets. I will keep my VHF on the weather channel and I will monitor it. If it starts storming we will seek shelter near the bank and ride it out. All part of fishing. I have a tarp also I can stretch across the back of the boat from the t-top that will give us some rain protection. At least it will be decently warm!

As long as the the thunder and lightning hold out ill be out there also. Good luck

Questions on the weirs.

New to fishing big lake. i see boats actually in the canal right in the front of the weirs. do people tie up to the weir?

i have a 25 ft sea chaser bay runner. Can i safely get in the canal?

thanks for the help!

Its got signs that tell you how far you have to be back on either side, they will write tickets!!

so i guess they either anchor up or drop power poles??

If you are skunked or just want to catch something, go directly across the channel from Calc Point boat launch and a about 200 yards left (west) and tie up to that structure. drop a dead shrimp on the bottom and you will catch something (croaker, white trout, and maybe a big ol black drum), flounder and reds in that area as well

I may try that.

I just read this topic, or I would have posted sooner.

FYI......there are 5 weirs along the east and soutn banks of Big Lake.

The first weir, going south from Commissary Point reef, is about 3 miles farther south and the second is about 5 miles. These wiers you can tie off to the weir....there is no restrictions.

The 3 rd weir is called Grand Bayou. When fishing there you must stay 250 feet away from the weir while fishing. The fine is $ 225 per person that is in the boat....unless it has gone up???? This weir is the only weir that has a boat bay where you can drive through it to get back into the East Cove unit of Cameron Prairie NWR. If you plan to fish here.....like others said, bring lots of extra hooks. I would suggest some 1/4 and 3/8 oz jig heads. Have 10-15 jigs per person. Shrimp of some cut bait is good.

The area around Grand Bayou is a good place to catch crabs [5 dozen limit] which could be fun.

About 2 miles farther to the SW is Lamberts bayou weir. Fishing can be good there also but keep 250 feet back from the weir.

The 5 th weir is about 3 miles farther west.....but is surrounded by private land so keep away from that one.

If you do go down toward the SW part of Big Lake......be aware that there is a old rock jettie that is about 2 miles long. A good portions of the rocks are now under water [high tide = lots of the rocks are just under the water]. DO NOT try to cross this jettie. The jettie runs ruffly from the SW corner of the lake and heads out towards the ENE direction.

LNG canal.........Warning......if you leave Calcasieu Pt. landing and go east down the LNG canal, be advised that the area along the north side, all the way to the east end is a "Security Zone" for the LNG plant. You must keep 500 feet away from the plant. [500 feet = about the middle of the canal].

There is another "Security Zone" [another LNG plant] along the west side of the "Ship Channel" a couple miles north of Hackberry. Keep away from these plants or you will get a visit from the Coast Guard.

Have fun fishing.

Good advice Gerald, I didnt know that about LNG, that would be a nice surprise visit

Fished Fri. TOUGH

Talked to more than a dozen people, including guides, and it was 10 or 12 for the vast majority with several in the single digits.

Live shrimp will help. Commissary reef is a community hole as Casey said, but there are some fish on it. Go south from there and you will see boats on the other reefs. Just be courteous as Meaux said and you can fish them.

There were a few birds picking in Turners, but there was several boats trying to fish them.

Water was definitely cleaner further south, but fishable pretty much everywhere.

Thanks for the info!

They did real good in Turners yesterday from what I heard...m lots of limits some On live some on artificial

That is where I am starting in the morning. All I have been able to find so far is dead shrimp, but the wife ad daughter don't care what they catch, as long as it is something.

That is where we will be starting. The wife and daughter don't care what they catch, they just want to catch something.

Get some live shrimp at Cal point... put on a light jig head under a cork and go to turners bay... guarantee you will catch fish

X2. Start 50yds-100 north of island early early. Then hit the broken marsh. They'll have a blast

Trax,
Please revisit my response. I don't see anywhere in my post that I accused him of trolling. I simply said I was trying to determine if this "could" be a trolling attempt and until I determined this I wasn't rude nor accusatory.

After subsequent posts, I do NOT think he was trolling and I hope he had a great day on the water.

Good to see another "northerner" on here. I don't get to fish BL as often as I would like, but fairly often. The wife and I have been fishing there the past few years and have found a few spots that when some don't produce, others do. My wife loves to fish so she is always there with me. Let me know next time you are going and if we have a trip planned, we can hook up and I can show you what I know (if you have 10 minutes to spare). Good luck!

update?

We went out yesterday morning right at 6am. The only bait the landing had was frozen shrimp, so we used that. It was real cloudy and is drizzled on it. We fished Turner's for a little while and caught three nice sail cats. My eight year old caught the two biggest and loved it. They went in the box. There was no way I was throwing her fish back! We moved around the back side of the island to get out of the wind and had some bits, but nothing major. We then left and went down the river a ways I tried fishing some piers I always fish, but the wind was not playing well. It got real windy for a couple of hours. We fished down the river and then came back up to Turners. I wanted to cross to the weirs, but the ride was not fun for my wife across the open lake with the wind blowing like it was. The boat handled it just fine and it was not bad to me at all. But, she did not like it. When we headed up the sun came out, the wind died and it got beautiful. We spent the rest of the afternoon tooling around up there and in the LNG. We anchored up for a good while in the sun and they had a blast catching a bunch of 15" black drum, redfish and some croakers. I even hooked a big ole stingray and they got to see that. So, all in all they had a really good time. I had a blast watching them and helping teach them the little I do know. My wife did a lot of driving the boat and that is helping her confidence on it alot. So, all in all it was a good first trip for them. Next time I hope to get down to the weirs and ship channel if the weather cooperates. I really appreciate all the advice ya'll gave me!

Aint nothing wrong with sail cats. My family eats them. Glad yall had a nice trip.

cool. glad yall had fun