Inshore Fishing 101

Inshore Fishing 101

In this course you will gain the foundational knowledge needed to select the correct tackle, safely navigate the marsh, find your own fishing spots and put limits of specks and reds in the boat.

Course Instructor

Captain Devin Captain Devin Chief Instructor

Devin is a veteran of the Iraq War and former fishing guide. He founded Louisiana Fishing Blog in 2012 to share his ideas as a charter captain and still writes in it today. Since then he’s created a fishing university called LAFB Elite where he hosts courses teaching inshore anglers his knowledge of fishing Louisiana’s coast.

Member Pricing

FREE
MEMBER PRICING

LAFB Elite members access this course for free. Are you a member? Enroll to add Inshore Fishing 101 to your Student Dashboard and start watching videos.

Introduction to Inshore Fishing 101

Understanding The Marsh

Understanding The Fish

Introduction to Google Earth Desktop

Fishing Spots For Speckled Trout and Redfish

Advanced Inshore Navigation

Fishing Tackle

Planning Your Fishing Trip

Create Routes & Upload to Your GPS

Executing Your Fishing Trip

Long Term Success

  • Wayne Bendily says:

    Learning more each time from you thanks for the help

  • Jeffrey Shelton says:

    Do you address how to determine when very low tides are likely to occur? Specifically, if I am planning a trip two or three weeks ahead of time?

    • Hey Jeffrey, thanks for asking.

      Yes, that exact thing is covered in detail inside Inshore Fishing 101, specifically inside the Master The Tide section.

      In it I cover how there’s more to water levels than just the predicted tide, such as wind velocity, false neap tides, the influence of large rivers such as the Mississippi River and how the shape of Louisiana’s coast causes water levels to vary with the wind.

      However I would like to note that it’s virtually impossible to know what the exact water level would be 2-3 weeks ahead of time. A more realistic time table would be 2-3 days. The closer you get to the day of fishing, the more accurate your forecast would be.

      Hope that helps, and please don’t hesitate to reach out again.

      Tight lines!

  • Tim Shepard says:

    i am in eastern nc can this info help me

  • Gianpiero Perez-Presti says:

    I’m just starting fishing for Spec and Red, my main place is Cypremont Point. I’m a kayak angler. Would this course work for me?. Thank you!

    • Yes, because it’s the foundational knowledge needed to understand and fish Louisiana’s coast. Everything else builds on top of it.

      Additionally, Cypremort Point is one of the more challenging locations to fish. It’s directly affected by nearby river water and features lots of open water, forcing you to choose your wind.

      The Cove gets loaded with boats when the fishing gets good, too.

      I’d suggest making the longer drive to somewhere more protected, like Pointe aux Chene Marina. They’re also kayak friendly.

      I know that’s a drive, but it’s hell of a lot better than getting your ass kicked in V-Bay all day. If you’re just starting out and wanting to catch fish I’d strongly recommend only fishing V-Bay when the conditions are good (low river, strong tide and low wind).

  • Hey Capt,
    I have a question. Why is it that sometimes when I go out to the Biloxi Marshes, I see no one out there and even birds are not active. What do the other fisherman and birds know that I don’t?

    Saturday as an example. I just applied much of what you teach in Inshore 101 and was very optimistic about catching lots of trout. I live in Long Beach and keep a boat in Pass Harbor. On Saturday, Tides4Fishing showed an outstanding report (using Cat Island data) for about two hours beginning at 06:30. On Friday, I had studied the Google Earth photos for the Biloxi Marsh developed a game plan of where to fish on Saturday morning given a falling tide, white shrimp coming out of the marshes, and the trout returning from their spawn.
    I was in my boat at 06:10 and hit the first spot at 06:45ish. I was surprised that while some boats were going out, the ramp parking lot was no where close to being full and I saw almost no boats on the water fishing or even birds. We hit about 5 spots working our way along the East side of the marsh down to the south side. Tide was still pretty high when we started, so after no luck south, we tried each spot in reverse looking for greater outflow. The first and last spot was a broad street, deep on one side, shallow on the other, connecting to a sizable pond. Current was flowing pretty good there later in the morning and I used my sonar to confirm active shrimp and the best location showing fish. In all, we caught only two specs, and one white trout. There were two of us, and we used a variety of lures including DOA and Voodoo shrimp, (white or speckled with chartreuse tails), chartreuse and silver jerk bait, and even a top water plug.
    Coming back around mid day we saw virtually no birds or boats.

    • Hey, thanks for commenting. I think this would be a good conversation for the LAFB Elite Community, but I can tell you what I think here:

      “On Saturday, Tides4Fishing showed an outstanding report (using Cat Island data) for about two hours beginning at 06:30”

      I don’t know what that means. I can give you better feedback if you’re more specific as to what a “good report” is.

      “I was surprised that while some boats were going out, the ramp parking lot was no where close to being full and I saw almost no boats on the water fishing”

      Good. Great. What’s wrong with that? I don’t give a rusty duck fart what other people on the water are doing (or not) so long as they’re being courteous. No people = more fishing for you.

      What did you see out on the water? Was it ripping out on a hard falling tide? How many spots total did you fish? Did you see any jumping shrimp at all? Did you fish the bottom at all?

      Thanks, I look forward to hearing back from you!