SaltyCajun.com - Big Lake 4-19-10 PM

Now that my fun but unsuccessful Turkey hunting season is over....it is time for some relaxing fishing.

I made one trip last week, in the Prien Lake area. The water looked fairly good in the 210 bridge area.....but not a lot of salt in the surface water. There was bait everywhere along the banks.....and fish chasing the very small Shad. I caught a couple of Rat reds and one nice 19" trout. I hooked another nice trout, but it got off as it came close to the boat.

The water north of the Port of Lake Charles was fairly muddy. It could have been stirred up from one of the ships at the dock. I did not go farther north.

4-19-10 Report

After watching the almost calm north winds during the morning.....I hooked up the boat to go see if the good reports would hold true for another day.

I got to Hebert's landing about Noon. There were about a dozen trailers in the parking area and many of the guide boats were out on the water.

Coming through Lake Charles......the flags were showing the wind to be ~ 5-7 mph out of the NE. At Big Lake the winds were about the same but coming from the West or SW. I guess the "front" must have still been just north of Big Lake.

Once out on the water it looked very good and there was just a little “ripple” to the surface. Had some "green" color and visibility was ~ 18". It tasted fairly salty......good.

There were a few Gulls working down the East bank, and I don't pass up an easy chance to catch some fish, so I circled the birds to get up wind. [Note: there was another boat fishing the birds, but I was 200+ yards from him]. After a few cast, this is when I realized the winds were out of the West and I was on the wrong side of the birds.

The birds were not concentrated in one spot and moving fairly fast. After I finally got near the fish, I caught my first “Big Lake" since before Turkey season and scouting time. The birds moved on, but they had told me where the fish were…….and I caught a few more in that spot.

I moved on farther south, and found a few more birds and caught a few more Trout. I drove up near the first weir but did not fish there. There were 2 guys standing on the weir and fishing the back side. Where are the GW when you need them? The water was going into the marsh fairly hard.

By 3 PM, the wind had picked up to 10 to 12 mph from the SW and the lake was getting fairly choppy for my 15’ boat. I kept heading south and tried fishing along the bank to see if I could find some Reds. Nothing after fishing for a ½ mile of bank.

To get out of the wind, I headed for Grand Bayou. There were 3 boats fishing inside……….all legal!!!! That is a first in a long time. They said that they were only catching Rat Reds. I caught some bait with the cast net and tried Lamberts bayou…..did not get a bite. When I got back to Grand Bayou…..there were no boats there. That should have told me something, but I had to give it a try. After catching 3 Rat reds and about ½ dozen crabs [ ~4.5” to 5”] For you guys with bigger boats……..the water was about a foot higher in the lake and coming through the weir fairly hard.

I headed back out into the lake to find some more trout. I tried Baskin reef and along the bank some more but did not get a bite. There were a couple of “Waders” a mile or so north of Grand [~ 4 PM] was that anyone on here?

I found a few birds as I headed north……but could not locate any fish. By this time, my boat was bouncing a lot in the ~ 1 foot chop. When I got up near Hebert’s, I headed west to see if I could catch some more fish. The only thing I found was water “spray” from hitting the waves at a bad angle.

I called it a day with 13 nice trout 13” to 19” in size. I caught all the Trout on Glow/char Sand eels. I talked to a couple of other boaters and they said that the bite was very good early in the day when the lake was calm.