E
ver sat in front of the TV and watched
professional bass anglers go at it on the water?
Their attention to detail and the speed at
which they make decisions is amazing. As
they scan their depth finders and study the
ground contours, water depths,and temperatures, they quickly put together a
game plan and go to work. With a
dozen rods neatly placed on the deck,
endless amounts of tackle stacked
and organized in compartments
throughout the boat - leaving
them thousands of options to
comb through every second their minds are racing through a
constant checklist of the next
lure to try, the next stump to attack, color changes, weight
changes, line changes - the options are endless. While some
people watch these shows and
fool themselves into thinking that
they too would catch big fish if
they were fishing exclusive bodies
of water, another group of viewers
think, "Man, if I could have one day
on the water with a pro, I would ask
questions about every cast, bait choice,
target choice, and anything else that might
possibly give me an edge up on the fish and
on surrounding anglers."
Well, this month I got to put all of those
questions to rest when I rode along with a local
professional. Capt. Matt McCabe is a local saltwater charter captain who specializes in chasing
speckled trout throughout Lake Pontchartrain
and surrounding areas; but what a lot of people
don’t know about Capt. Matt is that he spent 12
years on the pro-bass fishing circuits competing
in the Bassmaster Southern and Central open
divisions. His knowledge of saltwater was limited growing up as his focus was always on the
prized largemouth bass; but since leaving the
tour in 2009, Capt. Matt quickly turned his education to speckled trout and that turn has
earned him a successful charter business. What Capt. Matt may have
lacked in youthful trout knowledge is
outweighed by his attention to detail
and the desire to be successful.
Our trip started well before the sun
even considered waking up. As we
rolled out of Southshore Bait and
Marina, the 300 Yamaha was purring
and just waiting for the throttle to
hammer down and push the 24 foot
Skeeter on its way. As a cold front
had just rolled through, the temperatures plummeted nearly 20 degrees and the wind was blowing a
solid 20 knots, I knew the day was
going to be a tough one; but in
the back of my mind, I knew I was
with a captain who had endured
these types of fronts in the past.
Finally the hammer fell, and we
were off through the darkness and
up the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW)
to battle the elements and conquer
Mother Nature.
On a cold New Year’s Eve day, I
originally thought we were going to
fish the “great wall”, but as we passed
under the famed “green Monster”, I
knew we were going into unchartered
waters for me. As Capt. Matt eased up
on the horses and the Skeeter began to
come off plane, he was constantly glued
to his depth finder, not his GPS, but his
sonar. He quickly pointed out we were in
40 feet of water and to watch the bottom
as it was going to gradually come up. At
the point of about 30 feet, he shut down
the engine, dropped the trolling motor
and gave me a play-by-play of what the
bottom contour was going to do. As he
walked me through the play-by-play, I
was constantly glued to the screen, until
he mentioned that we could start fishing. He followed that with, “We can
catch a few fish here, but where they
really are is about 150 yards up where
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