2023 Fishin season

[outback]

So who's fishin this year. If your ripping lips, get some pic's.


No safe ice this year, so I was able to break my record of how early I could get the boat on the water. My previous was Feb. 20, 1986, this year was Feb. 12th.

Weather has been hit n miss all month, and finally crossed my first fish on March 1st.

Only a piglet and a kitty kitty



Till the 20th I'd only caught 5 more like the first one. On the 28th. after freezing temps at night, snow and rain during the past few days prior, a sow finally came to the feeding trough. (ditch leading to spawning grounds)



Yesterday 3/29

Water temps holding around 45°f, moon is heading towards the full, fish are finally committing to the shallows. Picked up 6 in just a few hours. Here's a few.





Warm rain, wind, and Pm snow in call for tonte into Saturday Apr.1, The 2nd should be on fire for numbers of fish, with some quality sized specimens mixed in.

Tc.....Tom...Ness...fish on.!

[CrescentCityRazors]

Only bank fishing so far this year. I got a few nice raised to adulthood hatchery freshwater trout the day and over the next couple weeks after LDWF stocked a nearby lake. Got a few bass to about two and a half pounds in City Park and Bayou St John. Lots of panfish, some nice channel cats to two or three pounds. Small water, perfect for spinning gear or tenkara. Sometimes there are too many joggers for regular flycasting, you got to stop and look both ways before the back cast. I just built myself a 11' fly rod out of a tenkara rod, actually. Trial casts in the back yard looked good, I will be taking it out the next day that I can get away from the house.

I have two 24' tenkara rods, basically just fancy Asian telescoping graphite cane poles with no guides or reel, just a fixed line and leader, usually used to cast flies or very small baits with a special tenkara line and usually just a short tippet, though you can use up to about a nine foot tapered leader with the longer rods. I also have a 16'er that I will be turning into a conventional fly rod, if a 16 foot fly rod can be said to be conventional. The two long ones would probably be too awkward, too much momentum to turn into oversized fly rods, and too fragile to turn into spinning rods. Just casting a fixed length tenkara line takes a bit of practice to stop slapping the water with the pole, or tangling it in the trees. What the two long poles are really good for is "bank trolling", walking the banks with the pole out over the water and working a bug or frog just outside the shore weeds. It is also good for slingshot casting a #14 egg hook with a salmon egg or a kernel of corn on it.

[outback]

Interesting fishing concept. I have two telescopic 20' cane poles that I use for European match fishing. Most sensitivity set up I've ever used. Light biters don't have a chance.

[rolodave]

One of the things I miss about living in Slidell is Redfish. A light flaky flesh that was always good. Never saw it anywhere else.

[CrescentCityRazors]

Interesting fishing concept. I have two telescopic 20' cane poles that I use for European match fishing. Most sensitivity set up I've ever used. Light biters don't have a chance.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

That's one of the two longer tenkara rods I bought. Price is right if you can wait the wait. These poles are a bit fragile, though. I broke my first one lifting a 3lb or so turtle out of the water. So if you buy one, buy two. And always take a landing net with you.

[CrescentCityRazors]

One of the things I miss about living in Slidell is Redfish. A light flaky flesh that was always good. Never saw it anywhere else.

They are common all along the Gulf Coast but I think Louisiana has the lion's share. I even caught one surf fishing, E. Coast FLA, once. We catch them now and then in Lake Pontchartrain from the boat and from the bank, usually when targeting Speckled Trout.. Also from an old disused bridge over Little Irish Bayou and we used to get them from a fishing pier on the North Shore. I have been meaning to take a trip down to Delacroix (pronouncify it like "Della-crow" so the locals don't laugh at you and charge you double for stuff.) where it is filthy with Reds. Around Hopedale and Shell Beach are good, too. Redfish is some excellent eating, yeah.

[outback]

Took a 10# blue channel cat, like the one in the pic, on mg cane pole and 4# test, while perch fishing. Big ol pole took the fight right outta him.

[32t]

Cane poles are an overlooked tool.

I like fishing stream trout with a 15' cane pole.

4' wide stream you can hide over the bank and drift your bait in front of the water cress.

I saw an old fart doing this in the 1960's and have copied him ever since.

[outback]

Sounds like me as a kid, trout fishing in West Virginia, fishing the south fork of the green briar, river. I was the only one around with a 6 1/2' ultra lite spinning rod.

We dealt with a lot of undercut banks, and the trout would pack up under the tree roots that hung over the water. Nobody could get to them with a normal rod, but with the added length of my rod, I could poke my rod under the bank ahead of the fish, then feed line out till the bait was right in their faces.

[32t]

A freind of mine was fishing an undercut bank on a Sunday morning. I heard the tree tip over and I ran down there. It barely missed him.

We now call that the Heathen hole..............