Crabs still ‘clawing’ along
With the wind howling at 15 to 25 miles per hour, it seemed we couldn’t get a break to go fishing. Jacob Thompson, a good coaching friend from Destrehan, had a cousin and his girlfriend from Alaska in town for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and he called to see if we could make a crab run on Lake Pontchartrain.
The strength of the wind would be the deciding factor on whether we go or not. Saturday night I checked the weather forecast and decided to go.
We set up a meeting time of 9 a.m. at the Treasure Chest boat launch at the end of Williams Boulevard in Kenner. Sunday morning I hooked up the boat, stopped and picked up two bags of chicken leg quarters and made my way to the boat launch.
When we arrived the water was higher than usual and it had a clear light green tint. -the type of water that looks good for fishing.
On the lake, white caps were rolling in at 2 to 3 feet high outside the rock barrier and the flags on the Treasure Chest Casino were blown straight out.
This indicated the winds were already going to be a problem just as Jacob, Jenny King, and Mike showed-up.
We loaded the 18-foot Kenner VX and I crossed my fingers that the trip to the Parish Canal was going to be a smooth one.
After making the turn to enter the lake, the direction of the winds made the south shore a “leigh” shoreline.
The white waves were capping up to 3 feet, but were moving in the same direction we were going.
The Parish Canal is a 2-mile westward boat ride and The waves made for a bumpy ride.
Jenny and Mike were enjoying the ride because being on Lake Pontchartrain was a treat for them, and when we made the turn at the mouth of the Parish Canal and the water was calm.
Jacob had started cutting the chicken leg quarters and had a few dropnets baited and ready to go.
We set the first net out 100 yards into the canal. Every 40 to 50 yards we would drop another. A total of 36 nets were baited and set out.
After the last net was dropped, we went back to the first net. With the outboard running in idle, Jacob grabbed the cork line and raised the catch.
Eight crabs were scurrying at the bottom of the net. He quickly dumped the crabs in a big blue bucket and reset to catch more.
Just in time, the next cork line was coming by. Again, he repeated the procedure of pulling up the nets, dumping, and resetting the drop net.
At the end of the string of nets we had 8.5 dozen of nice size Lake Pontchartrain blue claw crabs on the first pass.
Jenny said, “We look like an episode of the ‘Cajun Deadliest Catch!’”
Mike wanted to try his hand at raising the dropnet, but he hit himself in the head with the cork and decided he would help take the crabs out the net and re-baiting.
Jenny stepped to the side of the boat and started raising the dropnets. She was so excited to catch plenty of blue crabs in every net.
I, myself, was surprised to see a female lawyer from Anchorage, Alaska enjoy herself catching crabs in Louisiana.
The temperature in Alaska was a cold 45 degrees, while here we were in 82-degree weather, with windy overcast skies on Lake Pontchartrain.
Without hesitating, we headed back for the third round. The crabs were eating the meat out of the nets so quickly.
Some nets had just chicken bones left and others didn’t any bait left.
With over 12 dozen crabs in the boat, we decided that after the third run, we’d call it a day.
We had to hug the south line to stay out of rough waters on the way out, and by noon we were back at the boat launch loaded up and heading home.
We made plans to go home, clean up and rendezvous at my house for a 2 p.m. crab boil.
Big bass on the spawn again in Lake Cataouatche
On Monday, Norma Lucia, my cousin, wanted to go fishing. So I arranged for her to meet me for a trip.
We launched at Pier 90 and took a boat ride to the Louisiana Canal off Lake Cataouatche. Again, the wind played a role in where we were going to fish, but protected water was where I was going.
I had gotten reports of good catches of bass, bream, and goggle eyes being caught in the Tank Ponds and the Netherlands.
Fishermen were using watermelon and red-metal flake Baby Brush Hogs, 6-inch green sankos, white spinner blades with gold willow leaf blades, pearl and bream-colored Baby Minus-1, and red blood-line rattle traps in ¼ ounce for bass.
For bream and goggle-eye, worms and crickets have worked best.
Tube jig in red, white and chartreuse, black, red and chartreuse, and black and chartreuse with 1/32 blue micro jig also work.
Use a 1/32 or 1/16 jig head with the tube jigs, 12 to 18 inches under a cork.
Catfish are being caught where ever you can find moving water at the cuts in Lake Cataouatche. Earthworms and cut baits have worked the best while catching cats.
Blue-channel catfish from 1 pound to 20 pounds can be reeled in.
The flow of the Davis Pond Diversion has been averaging 7000-cubic feet per second this past week. The water on the western end of Lake Cataouatche has been very clear. On cloudy and overcast days, bass, bream and catfish have been abundant.
Last week some of the 5 and 6-pound bass had eggs, which means the bass are going through another spawn session.
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