Macaluso: Major front should alter conditions

The first true-to-life cold front is sweeping its way into south Louisiana and it’s likely to cause trouble for folks planning a trip around LSU’s open-date weekend.

Prevailing east winds will give way to northeast, then strong northerly winds Friday into Saturday and will move lots of water, and make traveling even inside waters problematic.

Turning this around, it means this first strong northerly push will move water from ponds, which means finding runouts and drains should produce some action on redfish, flounder, drum and, possibly, trout.

Same’s true for freshwater action, except that the rapidly rising barometric pressure coming Saturday could be the first to bring the “cold-front stall” to bass and sac-a-lait bites.

Weather

The shift to north winds is predicted for Friday afternoon with a 15-20 knot blow expected into Sunday. Look for 2-4 foot waves over inshore waters and 5-7 footers offshore. Expect a 52-degree morning Saturday dropping into the mid 40s north of Lake Pontchartrain and near 50 along the coast into next week. Afternoon highs are predicted near 70 degrees.

Look for winds to drop the major rivers’ levels to their lowest of the year.

The Coast

The good news is that this cold front might push speckled trout to the big move into the marshes and the deep lakes. Trout are not in Lake Pontchartrain nor Sulphur Mine Lake (Golden Meadow-Montegut) and continue to hang in open-water areas like Lake Borgne and the bays along the Central Coast. Windy conditions will prevent trips to these places for the next several days.

It’s likely this will be the first fall weekend to get into the marsh to look for redfish feeding on whatever is following the push of north winds shoving water from marsh ponds and small lakes.

This will also be the weekend to work live bait and artificials on the lee side of marshy points. Water moving on the wind will blow through these grassy areas and come out clear on the other side. The wind also pushes lots of shrimp, crabs and other food to predator fish waiting to feed on these downwind points.

Freshwater

The high skies and rising barometer will mean more than wearing a jacket for early morning trips. Being that this is the first major front, we can expect water to get blown from the swamps and that runouts and points should be the major feeding areas for bass, sac-a-lait and catfish.

Even though water temperatures will remain warm, a bright sky sends bass and sac-a-lait to heavy cover, so finding cover near a runout or point with moving water is the likely pattern.

And you want to work slowly moving baits like jigs, small soft-plastic “creature” baits and lighter colored plastic worms (or darker baits in muddy water).

It’s time when mixing water should be productive.

Winds should keep folks off open-water lakes like Old River and Grand Lake.