Kelly’s Top Picks
Top 3 Summer Redfishing Baits
1) Manns Waker Crank Bait. Great over shallow
grass and reds love the rattle.
2) Halls HD Spinnerbaits. Plenty of flash and tough as nails!
3) Saltwater Assassin 5 inch Fluke; rigged weightless Texas style 4/0 offset worm hook.
Top 3 Canoe Fishing Areas (besides Lake Hermitage)
1) HWY 23 Grand Bayou Village Road
2) Port Sulfur behind High School
3) Buras around Joshua Marina
Top 3 Summer Trout Fishing
Top Water Baits
1) Mirrolure Top Dogs - chartreuse side orange belly
2) Heddon Super Spook Jr. - bone color
3) Bomber Long A - chrome and black>>>
Why canoe vs. kayak?
1) Stability - I can stand all day and never worry about flipping.
2) Storage - I can hold two full sized coolers and enough gear for two
people to stay out a week.
3) Versatility- I can go from duck ponds to flowing rivers to reservoirs.
top of the redfish; a few actually
bumped the underside of the canoe as
they bolted away.
“There’s a lot less fishing pressure
in here, because of water depth,” Kelly
explained as he pointed out the marsh
remediation that had been done.
“Some of the channels have filled in,
so unless you have a mud boat, you’re
not getting back here; but with my
canoe, I could drag an alligator out of
here if I wanted,” he said jokingly. We
had two men, gear, and an ice chest of
drinks and fish with no problems of
getting through any of the marsh.
At one point, we both had put
good casts on an otherwise totally relaxed fish, but it didn’t give us even a
hint of interest in the gold spoon or
shallow-water crank bait. There’s only
one treatment for an obvious case of
“lockjaw” – shrimp imitation; and be-
cause we were so slow and quiet, Kelly
had enough time to tie-on a gig
head/shrimp plastic and toss it to the
finicky fish. Three’s a charm as we
watched the redfish suck the gig off
the bottom of the pond.
Once we decided to call it a day,
we started back to the launch and Kelly
reflected on the fish that were missed
and the fish that were caught, “This is
just where I like to fish. I find it has a
lot less grass than other marsh around
here, but the water still stays clean.”
But it wasn’t just the water quality that
Kelly liked. Although we were always
close to the launch, there weren’t any
other boats within sight. It’s as if Kelly
had his own marsh; just him, his ole
canoe, and a slow float approach.