Macaluso: Post-storm action OK most places
Saturday is the day to be on the water. Sunday will be iffy, and from the post-Isaac reports, there’s plenty of water producing fish.
The likely freshwater hot spots are the Atchafalaya Spillway for bass, goggle-eye and sac-a-lait and the marshes for heavier bass and a variety of panfish.
The bayous and rivers near Lake Pontchartrain are giving up some small speckled trout and it looks like the Lake Borgne area and the beaches, lakes and bays of Timbalier and Terrebonne are holding trout from throwbacks to solid 4-pounders.
Redfish are everywhere and feeding hard.
Weather
A trough ahead of a cold front is predicted to bring rain into the Saturday-Sunday forecast. Until then, expect 5-10 knot southeast and east winds into Saturday with relatively calm conditions before winds shift to the northeast late Saturday and rough-up Sunday’s seas. Offshore conditions will be good until Sunday.
Expect morning lows in the upper 60s and afternoon highs in the mid 80s until Monday when upper 50 mornings return.
The major rivers are on a slight rise with the Mississippi at New Orleans predicted to jump from a 3.3 to a 5.2 reading by Sunday. The Atchafalaya River, at 2.1 feet at Morgan City Wednesday, will move to 2.3 feet Monday.
Freshwater
Except for the upper reaches of the Atchafalaya Basin, the spillway is holding loads of small bass. Quarter-ounce spinnerbaits with gold/silver Colorado blades and white/chartreuse skirts (blue in the skirt is OK, too) are working around stumps and grass beds early in the morning. Work the blades around smaller patches of grass later in the morning into the early afternoon. Punching grass and salvania mats with Sweet Beavers, D-Bomb and Baby Brush Hogs are working.
Small solid black/chartreuse and blue/white tubes on small spinners are attracting strikes from goggle-eye and bluegill along the banks, and from sac-a-lait, when worked deeper around grass and structure.
Spinnerbaits, buzzbaits and plastics are taking bass in the Turtle Bayou, The Wax and other marsh bayous near Bayou Black.
Some sac-a-lait holding on piers at Old River.
Saltwater
The latest is that trout have moved into the mouths of several bayous and in the Pearl River during the last week. The first trout were hitting pearl/glitter-skirted spinnerbaits, which led to working plastics under a cork for more fish.
Redfish are showing up in the Biloxi Marsh, heavier reds have moved to the Pontchartrain bridges along with some drum and flounder, and like live and fresh shrimp and Blue Moon plastics worked deep on a jig.
Trout along the Central Coast are taking topwaters (various colors), live shrimp, live cocahoe minnows and plastics (chartreuse, clear/gold & black flake) under a cork or on a jighead. Redfish are in the marshes.