was removed to make a waterway deeper or create a new one. This is where
the “Spoil Canal” in Hopedale got its name - from all the spoil that lines its
northeastern shoreline. Not all dead-end canals will have tall spoil; but some
do, and those that do will have varying spoil heights.
As long as the wind is not blowing straight down the canal, you will have
protected water to fish.
I talk a lot about the great fishing of the MRGO and its versatility, especially south of the Rock Dam. The southwest shoreline of the MRGO has really tall spoil. It is so tall that, according to one of my fishing reports, I was
able to get out of 15 knot winds on a sight fishing platform.
Any kind of tall structure is good to hide behind to get away from tough
winds. Man-made structures like natural gas platforms, docks, and buildings
are great examples, but so is natural structure like roseau cane, which is
found throughout the marsh.
FINDING A LESS WINDY ROUTE
One of the things I hate most about a tough wind is that I am forced to
stay out of large, exposed bodies of water. Obviously you don’t want to
cross Lake Borgne in a 16ft flatboat with a 15 knot wind. You are asking to
have your back adjusted by a chiropractor the next day! I avoid every open
body of water and take the smaller, more “protected” bodies of water instead. This may make for a longer trip, but it will mean a safer and more
comfortable trip.
For example, if I want to fish the Biloxi Marsh from Breton Sound Marina,
I won’t take Lake Borgne to get there. Instead, I’ll use Bayou LaLoutre and
run through Stump Lagoon to get where I need to go. In some cases, you
can use larger bodies of water to get from point A to point B, but you want
to stay in the “lee of the land” and not get blasted by big waves.
Sometimes it isn’t enough, and you will end up using straight aways
aligned with the wind. On one fall fishing trip last year, there was a bad
east/northeast wind blowing. When we ran down the lengths of Bayou
LaLoutre aligned with the wind, we got blasted by the whitecaps rolling