Bayou Dularge 1998 Reports

November 1998: Spent Thanksgiving at the camp on Bayou Dularge. Rice dressing has never tasted better. Found the specks scattered in Lake Mechant. Mostly undersized - easy pickings with a popping cork and chartreuse beetle. Left them biting because we had so many throw backs. Lots of people out - most boats i've ever seen in the mouth of Deer Bayou. We found very few specks in their usual wintertime spots. I guess the warm weather has them out in the lakes again. On Friday and Saturday we switched over to Reds, and had good success with gold spoon or tuxedo H&H Cocahoe against the shorelines. Three reds were over 23" - perfect for BBQ. Saturday night enjoyed the Trojan's victory over the Irish along with redfish on the half shell. It doesn't get any better. P.S. Saw a lot of ducks flying on the North side of Bayou Dularge around Deer Bayou and Bayou Fred. Saw no ducks flying on the Sister Lake side of Bayou Dularge. September 1998: Fished area around Bayou Dularge this weekend with Bill and Sherry Morrison and my beautiful wife, Sophia. Saturday afternoon, caught 35 Specks in Mud Lake. Tactic was to drift up on shcools marked by birds. Caught a lot of throw backs though. Bait used: the always bulletproof chartreuse sparkle beetle under a popping cork. Don't know why, but this rig always catches schoolie trout, and the good thing about it is that it allows you to keep your bait over the school longer and it makes noise to attract the fish. The only thing that spoiled that beautiful afternoon on the water was the fact that we brought the radio along which allowed us to listen to the LSU Game. Sunday Morning, tried the same tactics, but the wind was up from the south. We headed into Deer bayou and picked up a few specks here and there and a couple reds. Still was a nice Sunday morning until noon when we turned on that infernal device that Marconi invented. . . but let us not speak of such things. 8/4/98 Fished all weekend in the Bayou Dularge/Lake Mechant area. Fishing was very slow, but managed a couple nice reds and about a dozen trout. The reds came from fishing along the bank with plastic cocahoe minnow and gold spoon in the bays near Bayou Saveur. Took a trip to Pelican Pass on Sunday and caught about a dozen nice sized trout on the morning bite. It shut down about 9:00 though. Trout hit a variety of crocodile spoons, cocahoe minnows, and chartreuse sparkle beetles under a popping cork. THe wind was high and made fishing difficult, but at least it cut the heat a little bit. Caught lots of big crabs at the camp, but they were skinny on the inside. Keep those drags screeeeaming! July 1998 Fished Bayou Dularge area with "the infamous" Coogan Ryan and friend Ralph Alexis.  Temperature was scorching, but the fishing was so cold, it was almost time to break out the ice skates.  We fished Saturday afternoon at Pelican Island on a hard falling tide.  The water was somewhat murky and the wind was running against the tide.  Picked up only about 4 specks before heading into Lake Mechant to troll the banks for Reds.  The water in Mechant was about as clear as I've seen it, and we caught another couple specks and a red, along with a flounder who blew up on a top dog.  Sunday was more of the same, just without the tide movement. Ran to the passes at Grand BDL and the morning was off to a good start with a couple 22 inch specks on topwaters.  Lots of boats passed us heading out to the ship shoal rigs.  THen it slowed and we tried Pelican Pass, Lake Mechant, Raccourci Bay picking up a couple more specks and reds.  THere were a few boats in Pelican who were waiting for the tide to start heading out.  If the fishing ever turned on, I'd like to know.  Coogan hooked a big redfish on shrimp under a popping cork, but it immediately parted the line just above the cork.  We could see the cork swimming along in the shallows so we chased it with the motor.  Coogan grabbed the cork to yank the red into the boat, but the line parted again at the hook and we watched the big old red swim away into the pond.  All in all it was a good weekend of fishing, even though we didn't remotely slam any trout.  Can't wait till the weather cools a little bit.