Coastal Fishing Concepts
Off to an early start!
Fishing in April was really one for the record
books. Speckled trout were everywhere in the interior marshes following shrimp. Heck, gulls were
“This year you should understand that the fishing
is about three weeks
ahead of normal years.”
diving every morning trying their luck on catching
shrimp that were jumping out of the water from
predator fish feeding on them. MirrOlure topwaters, like the She Dog and Top Dog, produced
some very healthy specks and this will transition
into May. As for the redfish and black
drum, I’ve witnessed some of the
most productive and aggressive fishing this past
month that I’ve seen in
MirrOlure Catch 5’s
my 22 year career. The
best thing is that the
craziness will continue and
get even better this month. With so many shrimp
left over from 2015, spring has sprung early, and it
isn’t going to look back in any way.
This year, you should understand that the fishing is about three weeks ahead of normal years.
For the month of May, you should start looking at
fishing the patterns and areas that you would nor-
by Capt. Charlie
Thomason
Bayou Charters
(504) 278-FISH
mally fish in late May, early June. If you’re a speckled trout angler, I would start looking for the areas
where the fish tend to spawn and key
in on them at the full and
new moons. As always, MirrOlure He Dogs, She Dogs, and
Top Dogs should be your early
morning choices; but as the sun rises
and the fish slow down on these baits,
move to more of a suspending style presentation. Majority of the time, you want to
use baits such as the MirrOlure Catch 5’s or the
Brown’s Corky “Fat Boy” style once the sun rises
and the fish drop down to secondary ledges.
These fish will be on the up current side of the
areas, and you should always look for mullet! Wellknown trophy trout angler, Stan Fleenor, once told
me, “If you find the mullet, you find the big fish.” I