The East Biloxi Marsh (or "EBM", for short) is a great summer-time destination for speckled trout that's easily accessed from Louisiana and Mississippi. While there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat, in this guide I reveal the most simple-stupid way you can fish this hot spot without making it complicated using tools like casting tackle and sonar.
To get started we must first understand why EBM is such a great area to go fishing!
What makes East Biloxi Marsh so great during the summer?
It's the simple fact that speckled trout are spawning and that's a great place for them to feed and spawn. If you're read my speckled trout fact sheet, then you know that specks are spawning during summer and this causes them to burn a lot of energy.
They spawn at night, and feed in the morning, then rest during the day. That's their daily pattern of life, just like you have your own. Furthermore, when they spawn, they need salty water. That's water that's at least 15-17 parts per thousand, or ppt.
This kind of water is not found inside the fresher-end of estuaries, in places like Lake Boudreaux or the powerlines of West Lake Pontchartrain. Those places are better for redfish, which can be caught there year-round.
This doesn't mean there are no redfish in East Biloxi Marsh! It just means that there are speckled trout and redfish there, making it such a great place to cast a line. There's also another species you will be interested in, and I will cover that shortly.
Fish Tidelines For Speckled Trout in East Biloxi Marsh
While there's an entire circus freak show of fishing spots you can try, ranging from rigs to islands to oysters and more, the singular fishing spot this guide focuses on is the tideline.
Here you can see a tideline ripping around the end of a rock jetty.
These change from day to day, depending on what the tide is doing. But, for the most part, you can find them wrapping around points and weaving between islands. Which is a good thing, because there are tons of islands in East Biloxi Marsh that you can leverage to this end.
What is a tideline?
A tideline is a visual anomaly at the water's surface indicating tidal flow. Think of it as a highway that fish use to travel, spawn and feed in. To have a better understanding of this, I recommend reviewing my take on Highway Theory.
Tidelines are visible not only in person, but also from the air. For example, look at this picture taken from above. Do you see how the tidelines stand out?
Wherever you see tidelines contacting structure like points or oyster reefs is where you want to fish.
But your boat probably doesn't fly. That's just fine, it doesn't need to. You can see these tidelines clear as day on Google Earth. Since the marsh's structure remains the same (more or less) the tidelines tend to re-occur in the same spots.
In this imagery from 12/17/2023 you can clearly see where tidelines are flowing.
Satellite and aerial imagery on Google Earth is essentially a cheat code to finding tidelines! So, what you want to do is select about a dozen or so tidelines to fish, load those spots into your boat's GPS then fish them all in a row until you hit the mother lode of trout. Yeah, it's that simple.
You're gonna catch fish somewhere in here. This is a great starting point and what we look for people to share inside LAFB Elite's Community in order to get good feedback from experienced anglers.
Where should you fish in the tideline?
This is a question I get a lot. Should you fish the outside, the inside or somewhere else? Well, the simple answer is this: would it kill you to fish the whole thing?
No, it wouldn't. It's not a bomb, it's fishing. You'll live. Just apply yourself. Not hard.
After that, I can only say that if there is something involved with the tideline, like a point, then cast to the point, try casting away from it, then try drifting with the current and casting further downstream. That's a good investigation that would satisfy me.
If there's something like an oyster reef (and there's a bunch in East Biloxi Marsh) then try drifting the oyster reef, so long as there is a tideline running down the middle of it.
You want to setup like the bay boat is.
The Simple-Stupid Strategy You Want To Implement in East Biloxi Marsh
In case it's not clear, you want to run straight to your first fishing spot in the East Biloxi Marsh before the sun is peeking over the horizon, get your casts in, determine if fish are there or not, then run to your next spot and do it all over again.
Rinse and repeat to find the mother lode.
I bring this up because this is where people go wrong on their fishing trips. They let the Time Vampire take the steering wheel and spend way too long dilly-dallying around in unproductive water.
You have to be a little driven — a little borderline psychotic — to make this strategy work. But it does work!
So pull up to your spot, fan cast around the boat, and if you don't catch then leave with a quickness for the next spot you have picked out in East Biloxi Marsh!
Move with a purpose! Cover water! This way you find the trout!
The Simple Tackle You Want To Use To Fish East Biloxi Marsh
You want to use a popping cork rigged like this on a spinning combo like this one.
I already fleshed out those guides, there's no need to repeat myself here. Use the comments section if you have any questions! It's a great way to let me know folks are visiting my content and enjoying it!
Use this simple tackle. It's all you need for the strategy detailed here.
Additional Notes For Fishing East Biloxi Marsh for Summer Speckled Trout
There were some additional details I thought of while writing this guide, so I've decided to include them here. Enjoy, because these can really make or break your fishing trip!
Places You Can Launch
There's a slew of places you can launch from in Louisiana and Mississippi to fish East Biloxi Marsh. These include, but are not limited to:
- Campo's Marina in Shell Beach
- Hopedale Marina in Hopedale
- Rigolets Marina in Slidell
- Island Marina on Lake Catherine
- La France Marina in Bay St. Louis
- Public boat launches in Bay St. Louis
- Public boat launch in Pass Christian
- Public boat launch in Gulfport
I've used just about all of these at one time or another, and what works best for you depends on you and your needs. As for me, I live in Slidell, so trailering to Mississippi to launch from a free ramp there is a viable option.
But there's another reason why you want to consider Mississippi...
...there's stuff for the family to do. If you've got a wife and/or kids who aren't jumping up and down to get up at zero darky thirty to go fishing, then you can leave them to do any number of things on Mississippi's coast.
There's the beach, aquarium, numerous restaurants, Children's Museum, numerous parks, bars, casinos, movie theater, Edgewater Mall, trampoline park, putt-putt, go-karts, souvenir stores and a slew of other things that just aren't available in Louisiana. So that's something to consider.
But make sure you get that wind call right!
If you do launch from Mississippi to fish East Biloxi Marsh then you will have to cross the sound named after her, and that's gonna be a huge, fat "no-go" if the wind is blowing hard.
If you've read my guide to dealing with hard wind, then you know there's pretty much no way around this. You will have to launch from somewhere protected, like Hopedale Marina.
Otherwise, my favorite resource for judging the wind is Windfinder, and I wrote this guide to show you how I use it to that end.
Consider Island Hopping the East Biloxi Marsh
If you do have a moderately brisk wind to deal with and think your fishing trip is still "doable", then I recommend an island hopping strategy that takes you from one lee shoreline to another, like what you see below.
Diving birds will be a dead giveaway!
The odds of you running across a flock of birds diving on bait driven to the surface by speckled trout is pretty good in the East Biloxi Marsh. Yes, there can be mostly throwback specks under them or even gafftop sail catfish.
Should there be catfish, then I recommend using a catfish flipper so you don't get stabbed by one. Trust me, you do not want that smoke.
As for the birds, you should really consider reviewing my guide to diving birds so you know which ones to try and which ones to leave alone.
Consider these alternatives to speckled trout when fishing East Biloxi Marsh:
The East Biloxi Marsh has a lot of fishing opportunity, and speckled trout are not the only one! There are also redfish, which are as simple as throwing a cork against a point or cove. Then there's triple tail! They also visit EBM and can be really fun to target. There's no need to hash out that strategy here, I already covered it in this primer to catching triple tail in EBM.
But there's more to catching speckled trout than tidelines and a popping cork!
What I covered here is plenty to get you started and I'm confident you will achieve success implementing it! But fact of the matter is that the knowledge here is only a drop in the bucket.
See, each area on Louisiana's coast is like a puzzle waiting to be solved, whether it's the East Biloxi Marsh or Grand Isle, Venice or wherever. The key is not knowing which lure color to use, or which live bait works best, or whatever dumb marketing gimmick tackle companies are posting on social media.
No, the key is to learn how to solve that puzzle.
Well, I'm pretty good at it and have done it across Louisiana's coast from Slidell to the mouth of the Mississippi River through Port Fourchon to Vermilion Bay and back. I've got the fishing reports and videos on YouTube to prove it.
Let me show you to bring home bags of fillets ready for dinner!
What is the process to solving this so-called "puzzle"?
That exact thing is what I detail inside my flagship course, Inshore Fishing 101. Then I polish it off with my seasonal course, Summer Fish Location. Both courses are only available inside my membership LAFB Elite.
LAFB Elite Explains The "Why"
If you’re new to inshore fishing, or just looking to understand the “why” when things happen, LAFB Elite is worth the money and time invested into the courses.
The amount of information in the courses is huge.
Also the community is filled with people who mostly have the same goals in mind, so when you ask a question you get good information, not some dude giving you some generic or wrong answers.
Daniel Giglio
Lake Pontchartrain Basin Angler
Highly Recommend To Anyone Who Loves Inshore Fishing
Inshore Fishing 101 was an excellent experience. I learned a lot of good information.
I think the most important thing that I learned was how to use Google Earth Desktop to find new fishing spots and avoid hazards. I never realized how awesome of a tool it is.
Above all, I really enjoyed the attention to detail. I feel like the information inside this course is so broken down that anyone can understand it.
Trey Guidry
Louisiana Native
More Rounded Angler
I just want to say job well done, Devin!! I think anyone who completes the course will be a more rounded angler, with more ammo in the magazine, so to speak. New angles to think about and apply to their fishing game.
I know I learned a lot, have applied it and have seen the difference that more knowledge produces! Thank you, Devin!!
Jerry LaRocca
Northshore Native
But there's more...
Members of LAFB Elite have access to the Community, where we post detailed fishing reports, talk fishing and help each other plan our next fishing trip. Because everyone has taken Inshore Fishing 101 (or, at least, is in the process of doing so) we all speak the same language and understand the process to zeroing in on fish.
This is a boon to figuring out where to go and what to do, and a far cry from the hot garbage found on social media.
Either way, I hope you found this guide to fishing East Biloxi Marsh useful! If there's something you'd like to add or a question you'd like to ask, then please use the comments section below.
Tight lines, and thanks for visiting!
