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Jun 25

Written by: Salty_Dog
6/25/2013 4:35 AM 

                                              Fishing Shell Beach with my son, "Salty Dog"

Markham throttled back in the no wake zone and came off plane. On our right, a white oyster boat, its lower hull newly painted sky blue, bobbed gently in the little waves from the southeast wind. The deckhand washed the last debris over the side. A gull dove at a tidbit in the stream of water between the deck and the surface of the canal. The gull reached his target just as it entered the water. Too late. The catfish had moved up from the bottom as soon as the wash had started. The catfish was almost full, but had just room to suck in one end of the gull’s prize and haul it down below the bird’s reach.


The harbor was a section of canal was protected by the marsh, but the wind was stronger than usual this morning, hence the waves.  Bad for us. We would not likely be able to get out in the open water to the rigs where Markham has been catching fish. A big alligator gar rose just ahead of us and gulped air into its swim bladder. Before the ripples could spread, another one surfaced on our left. They are just moving into this part of the canal, in their annual movement pattern. The fish cleaning dock here will hold them throughout the summer. They are fishable, but this marsh is so fertile that there just isn’t time to go after everything.


We turned south, into a canal that will take us out into the marsh. Markham’s hand moved to the throttle, and he brought us back up on plane and quickly to forty miles an hour, the wind fresh in our faces. Boat captains who relish fishing, and who do it most days have no patience for cruising to the fishing grounds. They go as fast as the boat and the conditions allow. Get to the fish.


On our left the sun was still low. The whole day was ahead of us and that brought on a flush of feeling of well-being. As if to add their agreement, a pair of mottled ducks wheeled and pitched into a pocket nearby. They are special anytime, and fit well into the glow of a morning with my sons.


The miles passed. Markham moved the boat in gentle sweeping arcs, staying on the deeper side of the channel and avoiding an occasional sunken vessel. He knows the marsh well, and has learned to move about in it freely. He knows where the fish are as the tides rise and fall, and as the winds change.


Once, he came off plane to watch a flock of birds working over a school of shrimp. There would be fish under them. He didn’t stay long, saying that they were most likely catfish and small trout in this part of the marsh. When he first came down here and was still learning the ropes, he would have tried them and wasted a half hour, but now he knows better and we moved on.


Two miles ahead we were nearing the outer edge of the marsh, still protected by the last of the grass, an area called Athanasio. There were more birds, several different flocks working a large open area. With the wind pushing waves up offshore this would have to do for now, and we moved upwind of them and cut the engine. We baited with live shrimp under popping corks, casting to the part of the flock that dove at the shrimp most aggressively. If you put a shrimp right under birds that were looking directly down at the school of bait, you caught a trout. Some were keepers and others, throw-backs. We found that DOA artificial shrimp on a jighead worked just as well, and that the weight of the jig took the lure down past the smaller trout. When the school broke up, we looked around for the largest, most active flock of birds, and went to them. Half a dozen trout at a time, we were steadily building up a cooler.
Things slowed, but as we considered our next move, we noticed that the waves seemed to be laying down. That didn’t make a lot of sense. The winds usually pick up during the afternoon, and the forecast had been for that pattern. But you can’t argue with what you see, and besides, the good fishing lay south, across that flat water. We needed no coaxing.


Out into Breton, we pulled in behind rocks and caught a couple of good trout. Down went the cork and the deep bend of the rod told that this next one was no trout. The big head shaking in fury on the other end of the line could only be a bull red. This was what we had really come for, to put Michael, Markham’s younger brother, on some fish that pull. Michael likes to do things for himself, and Markham had hooked the fish. Michael declined the first offer, but wisely relented and took the rod. The wind could come back up, and this might be it for the redfish. The bull red was game and the battle lasted a while, but Michael stayed after him, and the fish was in the net and in the boat. High fives around, befitting a prize as worthy as a sleek, full-bodied redfish.


After another good trout or two, we hooked something solid. Markham has seen the way these fish fight, and called it a big black drum, cousin of the red drum or redfish. This was a really big one. Back and forth they went. With Michael gaining line a foot at a time, only to have the fish strip back all of his progress and more in a few seconds against the drag. Markham counseled for keeping a full bend in the rod, saying that that was what really wore on a fish. Even with that, this baby would take time. It was big, and it was strong. Now, Michael was getting full measure. The bull red had been a great warm up, but this fish put him over the top in his need to see what a real fish fight is.  Three or four times, the giant black drum saw the net and turned back, but at last we had him in the boat and with him a surprise visitor, a remora attached to his back. We took pictures and quickly set about releasing then. That proved tricky, as remora, or “the lamprey” as we were affectionately calling him are super-slippery and hard to handle. In the end, Markham prevailed, the pair were freed, and we were left with the satisfaction that Michael had gotten more than his money’s worth. The thirty-five pound drum was a rare catch at that size, one of the biggest that has been taken from the “Glossie Mae”.


Encouraged by our success in Breton and the continued calming waves, Markham headed further south. The rig we stopped at was active, a barge making plenty of ruckus. In addition, the water was on the cloudy side, maybe just clear enough. A big red answered that question, a twenty-nine inch fish, perfect grilling size. It and another soon hit the ice. Then we were catching them in doubles and triples. Rods were handed under one another to keep the lines from crossing, and Markham reeled with a camera in his hand to fight a fish while he videoed! The reds were on fire! We caught them constantly and left them biting, limited out and off to look for trout.
Five miles further offshore, we pulled up to a small rig. It wasn’t really a rig, just a few poles, but that made it somewhat of a “secret spot” of Markham’s.   And it didn’t disappoint, with big Breton trout on every cast and just enough redfish mixed in to keep us on our toes. Michael was fully on his own by now, doing it all for himself. Toward to end, things really turned his way when he got on redfish and slab trout, one after another, using DOA shrimp, and he had the hot rod for the last half hour. Before we realized it was coming, the lid on the nine-four quart cooled would barely close. We cranked up and headed back north, satisfied and at full peace with the world. Now to clean fish, clean up, and look forward to some tasty New Orleans food.


Going over our options for the second morning, we quickly eliminated a trip back out to the rigs. We had scored so well there, why not try closer in the marsh for a change of pace. Fishing the where the marsh poured out into Lake Borgne would bring the tide into play. We needed a falling tide that would wash the shrimp and baitfish down the bayous and into the open water of the lake. The chart showed that a strong falling tide would begin after lunch.
Not a problem. The wait would give us all morning to work on the boat. Always a few odds and ends that need fixing. We finished with those and headed out to fish with the tide beginning to fall perfectly. The ride to Campos was short. Markham hasn’t fished the lake much this year and was looking forward to gaining the experience. It would be good to have the option some other day, if strong winds kept him inshore. Within fifteen minutes we were on the east bank, working the mouth of the cut into Borgne. The tide was flowing out hard enough that we anchored just up at the mouth where the cut entered the lake. The trout should be here, and they were, nice fat sows that jumped on the shrimp almost every cast, then came up shaking their heads on the surface. That never failed to bring a cry of delight from Markham. He does love seeing a good trout come up on top and dance!


We were filling the box again. These were big, thick fish. We were catching them so fast that we could afford to enact a no-net rule, just take up the slack, get her head moving, and sling her in. Who says you have to go out to the rigs. These were even better trout than the secret spot fish. Can you imagine a marsh this fertile, where it seems that most anywhere you go, you catch a cooler full. Of course, it does help to be fishing with Markham. He has always had a knack for fishing, and that started in the ponds, when he was five!


We left the cut and moved along the edge of the marsh to Jankie’s reef. It has been known to produce some oversize trout. We only caught a couple there, letting the tide push us out and working the edges of the shell bar, but true to Jankie’s reputation, they were good ones.  From there, we went out into the open lake to try the rigs, but the waves increased the further we got from the shelter of the marsh grass. Also, the water was more stained here. I had little confidence. Markham must have shared that feeling, and it wasn’t long before we headed back, angling up so that we could work the shoreline. I thought it might well be over for the day. Was I ever wrong!


At the edge of the grass we found a likely looking spot with scattered pockets and a point where the reeds come a short distance out into the lake. It had all the feel of redfish water. Markham and Michael kept throwing live shrimp under popping corks, but I switched over to a redfish spinnerbait, purple, with a spinner that produced a strong vibration. You could feel it all the way up the rod, and all those vibes would call a redfish, if it was anywhere close. A half dozen casts to the edge, and I felt a solid hit. That’s what we’re looking for, a slot red. We could keep fifteen of them, and they are prime.


Not far from that lone fish, on the near edge of the little point, Markham caught one on a shrimp. Then we had a double on, Michael on a shrimp and I on the spinnerbait. Keep ‘em coming. This was what we needed to top things off, a few slot reds in the cooler. From the bottom of the livewell that held our live shrimp, Markham netted a double handful of “bait” shrimp and used a cutoff plastic bat to sling them over the water where the fish were holding. Chumming can keep the bite going, especially in shallow water, where a fighting fish could spook the school, or at least slow them down.


The more we caught, the faster the bite. They must be coming in from all directions. Most of them were slot reds, and we were headed to a limit, but mixed in were trout, ladyfish, and the icing on the cake, a platter-size flounder with thick “shoulders”. This is too much! I’m wouldn’t be able to decide what the first cookin’ would be. I paused long enough to freeze the memory in place and watched a heron across the cove. It was perfectly still, but its neck was cocked and rigid, ready to spear a little crab that drifted toward it in an eddy of the tide. Above us, the wind was pushing billows of cumulus out over the lake. In the lee of the grass our water was calm, just little ripplets appearing here and there under a gust of breeze. The heron caught his crab and flew into the marsh to find a spot where he could eat it in peace.


We hit the magic fifteen-number on the slot reds and started letting them go. Then I had a more solid hit on the spinnerbait, and felt the heavy, steady pull of a bigger fish. It angled out toward me, away from the shallows. It wasn’t shaking its head like a redfish. The pull was slow and constant, but strong. I was thinking black drum. I worked to keep any slack out of the line, as the fish moved toward me. That turned out to be more important than I thought. Just past the boat, I could see that the fish was coming up. The line buzzed with the tension and droplets flew from both sides at the waterline as the fish came up and its huge head appeared through the stain of the water. Then it rocketed out, shaking its head violently from side to side, trying to free the hook. It was an alligator gar, thick- bodied and over four feet long, a lot of fish for the light tackle. But the fish’s size and my tackle wasn’t the real issue. The inside of the snout of an alligator gar is nothing but bone, covered by a thin, tough skin. At the tip of the upper bill, where my hook was, there are few little bowl-shaped cavities, nothing but hard boney hollows. The hook couldn’t penetrate. The tip of it was in a hollow, up against the bone, but if I kept the slack out, and if the gar didn’t shake the lure, I might still have a chance. As long as the fish stayed on, I would just do whatever I could to keep it that way. Several times we tried to get him into the net, but he wouldn’t fit. Then we got his head in, and Markham wrapped an arm around the middle of his body and rolled him into the boat. What a fish! Markham will have some zip tie work to do, repairing the net, but the gar was ours. Richard would clean and cook it. That’s a job best left to someone who knows the ins and outs of gar.


With the gar caught, we had officially put the crown on a champion marsh trip. We had caught a trophy black drum, tripled on bull reds at the rigs, limited on fat specs, worked a school of marsh slot reds as hot as Markham gets only once or twice a season, and then ended with the alligator gar on a spinner bait. Somebody shake me, I’m dreaming!
 

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 Salty Dog Charters LLC

 New Orleans, LA

 

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