January 2016 Volume 17 • Issue 187 | Page 31

E ver sat in front of the TV and watched professional bass anglers go at it on the water? Their attention to detail and the speed at which they make decisions is amazing. As they scan their depth finders and study the ground contours, water depths,and temperatures, they quickly put together a game plan and go to work. With a dozen rods neatly placed on the deck, endless amounts of tackle stacked and organized in compartments throughout the boat - leaving them thousands of options to comb through every second their minds are racing through a constant checklist of the next lure to try, the next stump to attack, color changes, weight changes, line changes - the options are endless. While some people watch these shows and fool themselves into thinking that they too would catch big fish if they were fishing exclusive bodies of water, another group of viewers think, "Man, if I could have one day on the water with a pro, I would ask questions about every cast, bait choice, target choice, and anything else that might possibly give me an edge up on the fish and on surrounding anglers." Well, this month I got to put all of those questions to rest when I rode along with a local professional. Capt. Matt McCabe is a local saltwater charter captain who specializes in chasing speckled trout throughout Lake Pontchartrain and surrounding areas; but what a lot of people don’t know about Capt. Matt is that he spent 12 years on the pro-bass fishing circuits competing in the Bassmaster Southern and Central open divisions. His knowledge of saltwater was limited growing up as his focus was always on the prized largemouth bass; but since leaving the tour in 2009, Capt. Matt quickly turned his education to speckled trout and that turn has earned him a successful charter business. What Capt. Matt may have lacked in youthful trout knowledge is outweighed by his attention to detail and the desire to be successful. Our trip started well before the sun even considered waking up. As we rolled out of Southshore Bait and Marina, the 300 Yamaha was purring and just waiting for the throttle to hammer down and push the 24 foot Skeeter on its way. As a cold front had just rolled through, the temperatures plummeted nearly 20 degrees and the wind was blowing a solid 20 knots, I knew the day was going to be a tough one; but in the back of my mind, I knew I was with a captain who had endured these types of fronts in the past. Finally the hammer fell, and we were off through the darkness and up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) to battle the elements and conquer Mother Nature. On a cold New Year’s Eve day, I originally thought we were going to fish the “great wall”, but as we passed under the famed “green Monster”, I knew we were going into unchartered waters for me. As Capt. Matt eased up on the horses and the Skeeter began to come off plane, he was constantly glued to his depth finder, not his GPS, but his sonar. He quickly pointed out we were in 40 feet of water and to watch the bottom as it was going to gradually come up. At the point of about 30 feet, he shut down the engine, dropped the trolling motor and gave me a play-by-play of what the bottom contour was going to do. As he walked me through the play-by-play, I was constantly glued to the screen, until he mentioned that we could start fishing. He followed that with, “We can catch a few fish here, but where they really are is about 150 yards up where Continued