Early redfish, speckle around Lafitte

Last week the winds calmed down so Pete Cassange, Andrew Callias, and I decided to head to Lafitte for some redfishing.

Pete’s boat had been sitting up for the winter and spring and he wanted to run it. We launched Pete’s 22-foot Champion and cranked the 200ph Yamaha four stroke at C&M Marina around 1 p.m. last Wednesday.

We headed across the Bayou Rigolets and headed south. We made our first stop at the bulkhead on the eastern side of Bayou Rigolets opposite C&M Marina.

The water was very muddy and chocolate stained. Fishing with market shrimp on a ¼ ounce jig head on the bottom, Pete quickly caught two 15-inch redfish, which he threw back.

“It’s a good start considering the weather we have had in the past 2 weeks.”  Pete said.

After 30 minutes without a bite, we motored south to the first cut on the eastern side of Bayou Rigolets along the rocks. Pete started throwing a purple/chartreuse cocahoe, Andrew was throwing a ¼ ounce gold spoon, and I kept the shrimp on a jig head.

Again, Pete beat us to the punch.

He caught two bass before we could get a bite.

“The Davis Pond Diversion has pushed a lot of freshwater below Lafitte. This the first time we have caught bass this far south.” Andrew said.

We decided to move again. This time we were heading towards Little Lake.  We ran through the Harvey cut and stayed on the eastern shoreline of Turtle Bay.

We started fishing at the first cut in Turtle Bay. Plenty of bait was moving with an incoming flow of clear green water.  On the point of the cut, there was a blow-up of minnows and we all scrambled to throw towards the action. I rigged a black/white tuxedo with a gold #1 spinner, Pete stayed with his purple/chartreuse cocahoe, and Andrew threw the gold spoon.

This time a 24-inch redfish hammered my black/white tuxedo cocahoe.  Fishing into the cut, I picked up two speckle trout with shrimp on a jig head.  Both fish were 14 inches and had eggs.

Fishing back into Turtle Bay, Pete landed a 22-inch redfish on his purle/chartreuse cocahoe.  We managed to find a few redfish but they were too small for the ice chest. We finished our fishing trip when Andrew caught a 15-inch throw back redfish at Ferdy Point.

It was a great fishing trip – light wind, cool temperatures, and light wave action.  We made the trip back to C &M Marina by 6 p.m.