Beat the Heat for St. Bernard's Summer Trout

  The heat of summer is here!!!! The only thing hotter is the speckled trout bite in St. Bernard, Louisiana. Fisherman from all over flock to the trout grounds of Shell Beach, the Biloxi Marsh, Hopedale, and Breton Sound this time of the year in hopes of fast trout limits and early morning successes to beat the heat of the Louisiana summer. Summer time in this area can have you sweating more than a pregnant nun at morning mass this time of the year. So, getting out early and to productive areas fast is key, but first you have to understand the trout's mindset this time of the year. 

  Trout this time of the year are in a spawning pattern. Many people make the assumption that all the trout out there spawn at the same time. Well, that's just not true. In fact you can find trout in all three stages of spawning activity- staging to spawn, actively spawning, and recovering from spawning. Understanding what trout at each stage are doing and how to target them are keys to those early morning successes. Sure, you can get lucky and just find some trout, but more success comes to those with an understanding of these phases and what they mean for fishing and catching trout.

  Trout staging to spawn are in a building energy mode. Energy being food like croakers, shrimp, and other fin fish. These trout are held up in areas not far from the spawning grounds. The east side of the Biloxi Marsh are littered with these places, and many of them can accomidate the vessel capabilities of different fisherman. For those who choose to stay close, one of these staging areas are oyster reefs, but not all reefs are created equal. When I am looking for a reef to fish, I usually avoid reefs that are square and the same depth across the whole reef. Reefs with sharp corners, steep ledges, or reefs that are against each other that create a trench between them are often my targets. Standard Mapping offers a GPS card with reef leases on it that make the process of finding these fairly simple. If you don't have the card, then let the PVC poles tell the story. Another great place for staging trout are the famous Long Rocks, the rigs of Bay Elio, and the inside islands and points of the east Biloxi Marsh. For those who like to venture out further into Breton Sound, the rigs and wrecks of the sound are great areas. The rigs and wrecks can be tricky because trout move around them and most have snags on the bottom of them. Don't overlook the smaller chair rigs either. I've passed by the bigger rigs plenty of times and seen way too many boats on it, only to go to a chair rig near it and catch trout. Just because a place is loaded with boats and has a lot of people on it, doesn't mean you are going to catch fish there. It is far better to try spots with low traffic then to hunt down boats to fish on top of. 

  Spawning trout can be a whole other animal. These fish are mostly in kill mode. They don't want anything near their egg drop zone that can eat or harm the eggs. One of the major enemies of these spawning fish are croakers. The spawning trout on the islands of Breton Sound will usually destroy baits such as paddle tails, twitch baits, topwater, and of coarse live croakers for this reason. All of the islands in Breton will hold trout as long as the water is clean and the salinity is above 15ppt. When fishing these islands, you will need to fish the troughs in the surf to find which ones the trout perfer. I would also recommend looking to see which trough the tideline is going through and start there. One warning about island trout is that they are fickle at times. When they first show up in numbers they hit everything, but once the eggs have dropped and are floating in the tide they won't bite as much. Usually if the bite that you have enjoyed at the islands is gone all of a sudden, give it a couple of weeks and the bite will kick up again with the new wave of trout moving in. 

  That brings us to the trout recovering from the spawn. Those trout have lost all their energy from spawning that they gained when they were staging to spawn. So, what do they do? Well they go to build their energy back up in the same places they were finding food when they were staging. These fish will be back on those oyster reefs, man made structures, and interior islands of the east Biloxi Marsh. Fish the current lines along these areas with a popping cork and your favorite plastic shrimp bait to load the box. You will find that fishing for these fish will have you throwing back alot of small trout with some keepers mixed in, but keep plucking away and fill up those fish boxes. 

  Hope this helps some of you out there. Good luck catching those summer trout and beating the heat. If you would like to book a fishing trip in Louisiana and make fishing memories, give me a call 985-277-9277 

Capt. Shawn Mitchell

SaltyFrog Charters

Hopedale, Louisiana