Weekend fishing looks unpredictable

Conditions are changing, and for the time being that means we’re in Forrest Gump box-of-chocolates mode — you never know what you’re going to get. Expect another cold front to add a new wrinkle in this week’s fishing patterns.

For the most part, speckled trout catches are up in the Buras-Boothville-Venice corridor on both sides of the river. The Pearl River is heating up for bass and other species.

The warning for the weekend is to take along anything that can ward off gnats. These little monsters are swarming in every coastal area and make fishing troublesome on windless days.

Weather

The cold front rolled through overnight, and will bring light, northerly winds and chilly low-50s morning temperatures and light sea conditions. By Saturday, expect 5-10 knot southeast winds with waves increasing to 1-2 footers nearshore and about the same for east winds offshore.

The Mississippi River continues to run extra low in the Venice area. Look for a 2.5-foot reading on the Atchafalaya River at Morgan City.

The coast

Speckled trout have emerged from whatever Hurricane Isaac funk they were in and are moving in schools in coastal areas south of Buras. Live bait is working, but so are a wide variety of soft plastics worked either on a jighead or under a cork. The trick is to find clear (or clearer), moving water. Look for laughing gulls working to find schools of bait. Trout running 1-2 pounds are working under the birds. Heavier trout are on the platforms, over reefs and near broad, sandy points.

Redfish are everywhere in that area and like spinnerbaits and topwaters on the falling tides.

Specks and white trout dominate the action along the Central Coast. Again, shrimp, minnows and pogeys are what the trout are eating. Topwaters in the surf along the beaches are a sure way to latch onto bigger trout and redfish cruising the shallows on rising tides. The heaviest concentrations of trout are on reefs, around rock jetties and around platforms in the bays.

There is some movement to inside bayous and canals, and that means you might find specks and reds staging at the mouths of places like Bayou Terrebonne and the bayous between Cocodrie and Theriot.

The latest Pontchartrain report is that the trout have not made it to the bridges, nor the Causeway. Drum, flounder and rays continue to work along the Trestle Bridge. Use a jighead and soft plastics on the bottom.

The run on tuna continues in offshore waters. A 251-pound yellowfin at Bridge Side Marina was reported over the weekend.

Freshwater

Spinnerbaits early and plastics later is the pattern working in the Pearl River and the Atchafalaya Spillway. Clear water is a must for the Pearl, but muddy water is producing in the Spillway, where bass and sac-a-lair appear to be moving form bayous into canals.