Here is the long awaited final part of this series, where we jump into exactly what can be done to adjust to the river water pouring from Bonnet Carré Spillway.
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Catching Trout And Reds Near River Water
River water can make for tough inshore fishing, but I won't cover that here, that's already been done in Parts One through Three:
Instead, this blog post will refer the actionable steps you can take to overcome this inshore obstacle and break it down by species.
First, let's start with the species inshore anglers love most.
Speckled Trout
It's springtime, the time of year trout begin noticing warming water temps and longer days.
If it hasn't already, their urge to spawn is kicking in and they've begun moving outside of the marsh towards saltier water.
Why saltier water?
Speckled trout need salinity to be at least 15-17ppt in order to successfully spawn.
This is because fertilized trout eggs depend on the higher salinity to float and not become smothered at the bottom of the water column.
Given this pattern, I think we will find speckled trout in their usual springtime haunts, just not the ones covered in river water.
Community honey holes like the MRGO Long Rocks will most likely see a strong run of speckled trout this year.
How to avoid river water?
Speckled trout don't mind low-salinity water (in fact, they thrive in it) but don't want to spend their time in river water because it's tough on their eyes and gill plates.
It would be really good to know where river water is before going fishing, right?
Well, how do we obtain this information?
Easy! By using daily satellite imagery to see a picture of Louisiana as seen from space.
This image resolution of 250m/pixel does a great job of detailing the location of river water.
Want to learn more about where to find this resource and how to use it? Just click here.
Redfish
Also a favorite of Louisiana's inshore anglers, redfish are great to have in your back pocket because of their dependability.
In fact, they do great in not just low-salinity, but also straight freshwater.
This is good because regardless of how much river water there is we can depend on finding them somewhere nearby.
This article on finding awesome redfish spots is a great start, as well as this one about catching redfish in dirty water.
But, the absolute best fishing advice is found inside this module from Sight Fishing Mastery School:
Important Note
The above module is for members of LAFB Elite only.
It is the best inshore fishing knowledge designed to take anglers from zero to hero, and has been a worthy investment for those wishing to stay on top of good redfish bites, all on their own.
See How I Do It
You can use the above resources to your benefit, but if you want to cut down on a lot of time (and a lot of learning stuff the hard way), then I suggest watching my Fishing Trip Reviews.
I'll show you how I do it, so you can apply the same strategy to the pattern in your area.
What's a Fishing Trip Review?
Arguably the best learning tool inside LAFB Elite, a Fishing Trip Review is a recorded fishing trip broken down into three parts:
- 1Planning Video
- 2The Fishing Trip
- 3Post Trip Review
Fishing Trip Planning
The Planning Video goes over the current and predicted conditions, latest fishing reports and other key details in order to decide where to go fishing.
The Fishing Trip
The Fishing Trip itself is comprised of videos for each spot, so you get to see exactly how each spot is fished and the decisions made as conditions change.
Watch part of the 1/15/19 FTR below.
Post Trip Review
For the Post Trip Review I take the day's GPS tracks and upload them to Google Earth, where I go over the fishing trip, detailing how it went, where exactly I went, lessons learned and how things could've gone better.
It's really great, and anglers love it, which is why I encourage you to join LAFB Elite.
