Man the big bulls were running this past weekend. In order to crack the top three each day you had to be over 30lbs. Dat's a big bull! My beautiful daughter, Emma, and good friend Bruce McDonald were partners on Saturday evening. God blessed us with this beauty that weighed in at 33lbs that Emma fought and landed. Biggest bull for the tourney was 36lbs. Cracked crab was the bait. Seemed to be more bulls stacked up around 4 Bayou than Caminada. Ours was at Caminada obviously from the picture. Go get you some!

It was a great trip to Grand Isle last Friday and Saturday. Three of us fished numerous oyster reefs around Grand Terre and 4 Bayou and caught some really nice size specks. We fished swim baits in either a glow or pearl with and without a chartruese tail. Had to really work it just off the bottom and kept a constant motion going. Caught roughly 60 on Friday and on Saturday the wind picked up a good bit and we still managed to get 25ish. Looks like this weekend could be a banner one? The winds are looking like they will lay starting Saturday thru Monday, we have good tidal range and the moon is in good position. I'm getting everything ready! I'm hoping I can finally get the boat on the beaches. See 'ya on da' island! How did you do last weekend?

Not a bad opener at all at our lease. We hunt in southern Terrebonne parish. Thank the good Lord we got our front on Saturday morning. What a blessing!

Life has been busy and we barely had time to get out to the lease to do any work on blinds prior to. The two blinds we did get ready before dark on Friday night turned out they were high and dry after the front blew all our water out. We scrambled to figure out where to hunt just after daylight. The greys and teal did not disappoint even after setting up and getting settled in just before 8!

On Sunday, water came back up some and again the birds cooperated.

It was a great opener considering the early reports.

On another note, also had a group of 10 fiends that hunted the public WMA's in Venice and they all limited out easily.

This weather pattern is expected to continue, hopefully the ducks will to!!

Happy to report that out opener was fantastic!! I shot more shells than I shot the whole first split combined. On Saturday the 12 of us all limited on mostly greys with about 25% teal and a lone Greenhead. Sunday about the same, the rain cut some of us off, we all got a wet butt. The picture is one of my son's and some happy friends, another son is taking the photos - cool picture he took!

Hopefully this will continue?

Merry Christmas to all!!!

Well maybe it won't be so bad after all? Wonder what happened to the grey ducks (gadwalls)

http://www.louisianasportsman.com/details.php?id=11545

Good luck out there this weekend. Let us know how you did.

Thanks!

Opening weekend was almost a.complete bust for most all lease holders in our area. Very few birds. I was beginning to wonder if the season was going similar to last year with a very poor first split with a real decent second split.
Last weekend was.a big turnaround. Lots of birds and some fantastic hunting! Hopefully this week will be more of the same!!
I hear that the NE corner of the state and most of Arkansas is bone dry.except where they have pumped. Each front should push a lot of birds down. The aerial survey that was done just prior to the season indicated we were holding half of the birds compared to last year....ill bet that has changed significantly?
Good luck hunting, be careful and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I know a lot of you at one time or another have caught a nice bull and often wondered if it was a record or not. If the formula used to estimate the live weight of a redfish is correct, then a 53-inch tank caught and released earlier this month out of Venice could have been the new No.2-ranked red drum in the state record books.

Captain Boola Landry, with Reel Tite Fishing Guide Service out of Venice, said Jim Voyles of Ohio landed a giant red that measured 53 inches with a 30-inch girth using a Johnson gold spoon tight up against the canes on June 5.

“The biggest scale I had won’t go over 50 pounds, and it pegged that one out,” Landry said. “Myself and the customer agreed to release the fish unless we knew for sure it would be No. 1 in the state, but I was certain it was a Top 10 fish.”

Using a formula from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to determine redfish weight is pretty easy: just measure the girth at the fattest part of the fish and the length of the fish from the tip of the bottom jaw to the V of the fanned tail, and then plug that information into this formula:

(Girth x Girth) x Length/800
The resulting number is the estimated weight.

So on Voyles’ fish, 30 X 30 equals 900.

Now, multiply that by 53 (the length), and you get 47,700.

Divide that by 800, and the weight of the fish is estimated at 59.625 pounds —3 pounds heavier than the current No. 2 fish in the books, and less than 1 ½ pounds from the official state record 61-pounder caught by David Weber in 1992.

The wife wanted to go to the camp in Grand Isle for Mother's Day - God bless her!! We fished Saturday on the beach at Elmers and did decent - it was pretty windy. My son had snuck around in the lil' bay behind Elmers and was spanking some decent trout. By the time we got there he was approaching a 2 man limit. We were able to put a decent box together.

Sunday was flat and the beaches were on! Caught a nice mess and called it a day. The real story that day was the shrimp on the beach at G.I.. folks were cast netting multiple ice chests of decent sized shrimp with quite a few jumbos mixed in. My son's pulled my (licensed) test trawl on the beach and we had a nice dinner of boiled shrimp, crabs and some fresh fried speckled trout.
If you haven't noticed every Monday morning the weather has been perfect. Well, not to be at the office on Monday looking out the window and 'wishin i was fishin', we stayed the night. Monday morning was perfect! We decided to fish a few oyster reef and my goodness it was unbelievable. Plenty of 3lbers and nothing but monstas! And to top it off...all on plastics. We used the 3' Tsunamani white pearl and vodoo shrimp tightlined. Probably best trip in quite some time on plastic. I think this may be the year of the big trout? I know the moon in May helped, but jeezum these G.I. trout were huge! Anyone elae having the same luck?

My podna, Blaine Babineaux caught this big girl on a chug bug in Des Allemands. She weighed 8.78. Nice fish!! One of the biggest I've seen this year from there.

Huge 10 lb bass caught in Bayou Bienvenue. Unreal!

More info on front page of site.
http://www.louisianasportsman.com/details.php?id=10608

According to the duck survey that just came out...we now have the highest number of birds in Louisiana in over 17 years. Read the story on the front page or click here:
http://www.louisianasportsman.com/details.php?id=10377

Don't know if you saw the story on the front page of the site or not. We may have a new state record buck?

http://www.louisianasportsman.com/details.php?id=10322

Seems like every year we kill less and less birds in the first split. This weekend took the prize for the worst on record. 10 guys on Saturday and we killed 6. I think we shot a total of 15 shells. On Sunday, most of us slept in and got some work done around the camp. Only hunted two blinds on Sunday, they raised our average and came back with 4 between the four hunters. Ouch!!

I'm reading the reports from SW La, Delacroix, and the mouth of the river and it was a great opener on Sat with a marked slow down on Sun. Our lease is loaded with feed but it seems something is changing around Lost Lake area? Hopefully our season will turn around.

On a different note, seeing signs of the highly destructive apple snails all over the fresher parts of our marsh. I'm hearing stories of complete vegetation wipe outs in parts of Terrebonne Parish.

I'm stoked! Waterfowl study leader Larry Reynolds flew the coastal marsh in SW La. And saw lots of ducks through out the survey. SE La. Do NOT get surveyed. We'll report on that later tonight. Hopefully the birds are spread throughout the coast? Heard from a few folks along the coast in the brackish marsh south of Houma and they were seeing lots of birds. I'm headed out da' camp. Good luck and be careful this weekend! If you can, post a report on Monday. From the front page:

http://www.louisianasportsman.com/details.php?id=10209

How about parents posting some youth reports and pictures here. Would enjoy seeing the pictures and getting a few reports. The youth weekend will give us some insight on the season opener. My kids are all grown up now. Used to love the youth hunts!!

My wife stopped on side of the road to fish and was able to film one of the most inventive minnow traps I've laid eyes on. Very simple and works.

We got the chance to fish Ride the Bull again this year in grand isle. The weather gave everyone a break and roughly 600 potential bull riders took off from Bridgeside Marina to fish Caminada Pass. My wife Ann was our only team member to catch a bull red. Over 130 bull reds were caught. The top ten fish were all close to 30lbs and over. 1st place went to 16 year old Brock Miller from Baton Rouge with a 34.56. Congrats Brock!!

Most fishermen in Grand Isle know trout catching has been tough lately. Guess it's fairly typical for late summer around Grand Isle. Seems this weekend I finally starting hearing some decent reports around the island. We fished Saturday in the CCA Legislators tournament and had Representative Marcus Hunter and his family aboard. Having raised four kids on Grand Isle I forgot how interesting it can be to fish with kids!! Saturday was kids day.

Sunday I got the opportunity to fish with Representative Melinda White, her husband Danny and their son Parker. Parker was part of the LSU bass team and hadn't fished saltwater much - he took to it well! We ended up around the back of Four Bayou and caught a good mess of nice sized trout. We found 'em pretty late in the morning but they were hungry and willing to bite plastic. All fish were caught on a pearl colored swimbait.

The beach was pretty much impossible to fish all weekend. Apparently the tropical storm in the lower gulf caused some big rollers in the gulf all weekend and when they hit the beach it was time for a surf board!

Arrived at Sand Dollar just in time to take a picture of a world record 188lb junior world record tarpon. The girl, sorry I did not get her name, was fishing with none other than the famous Lance 'Coon' Schouest. They were trolling...of course a 'coon pop' invented by the Chouest family. 'Coon' tells me they were right out of Barataria pass within sight of the island. I hear that was where the majority of the tarpon were caught for the Tarpon Rodeo. I'm sure our internet editor, Pat Bonin, will have the story and the girls name soon on the front page. If any of you know her, please post her name. CONGRATS!!

What a day Sunday! Had been hearing the trout were a lil slow in the morning so we headed out to the rigs just off the beach in Grand Isle. Ended the morning with 15 nice mangroves, a lemon and lots of triggerfish we couldn't keep. Too bad you can't keep triggers in June and July - they are delicious. U would think the folks that regulate triggers don't want recs to catch any?
Seems the mangroves actually preferred the dead pogies to live croakers! Talked to the mangrove/lemon master - Captain Kenny with 'Bite Me' charters and he expressed the same sentiments. We free lined and used light weights, both seemed to work. The lemon fish also hit the dead pogies. We only boated one lemon, missed another bigger one. We ran from storms all morning and then got back to the camp for a fantastic fresh fish meal and got horizontal for a couple of hours.
When we woke up that afternoon there was no wind and nice and cool after all the storms. So we went look for some trout. First stop Independence island - dirty water, went to the beach and noticed hundreds of Pelicans feeding. The trout were thick, fat and biting!! Tsunami swim baits were the ticket. Beautiful afternoon, fished till dark and then ran back with the running lights. Don't get no better!