BL fishing....7-18-11

[Gerald]

Jchief...Jude, had an opening on is boat so I joined him and Kenner18 for a trip to Big Lake.

There were rain storms to the east and west to start off the morning. The winds [mostly out of the west] were light....~ 5+ mph most of the time. By late moning, winds picked up to 10+ mph. We started off in West Cove. The water had about a foot visability, but nothing was hitting our Top water in the very early morning. We moved around to a couple of reefs.....but only managed a couple of blowups and 1 trout.

We got away from TW and tried some soft plastic. White Gulp with a cork brought in a few more trout.

One of the highlighs of the day was the spotting of one of the pink dolphins....... I last saw one ~2 years ago. It surfaced 4 or 5 times and I saw it twice yesterday.

We went up to Long Point, where the water was about the same a West Cove. Made a couple of drifts without catching. There were schools of bait to compete with.....so we got out the cast net to put a few in the livewell. By noon....we only had about a dozen trout in the ice chest, with about the same amount small speckes and Sandies caught. Only a few trout [and many hardheads] were caught on the live shad.

We hit a reef in the south end and the water was much better [18+" visability]. Shortly after starting a drift we picked up several more trout. A second drift and we caught a couple more trout.

While using a 1/4 oz round jig and black/char sand eel jr....... I felt a tap..tap...tap....tap....and another tap...tap...tap. I reeled up the slack and lifted up the rod tip. The big sow took off to the right and I told the guys, I got a big one on. I lightend up the drag somes, not wanting to loose this fish. After 20 to 30 seconds.....I was think a personal best or possibility a lake record????????? As the fight went on, the fish kept making drag tripping runs and my thoughts of a record fish dropped.

Finally after a 10+ minute fight this brute was landed. Not a trophy, not nearly my biggest....but maybe the hardest fighting Black drum I have caught.

By 1-2 PM the skies were getting darker up towards Lake Charles, so we headed back north towards the landing. But Jude spotted 1 or 2 gulls off in the distance......yes, the gull dove to the water and the boat turned that direction. There were 4 seagulls sitting on the water. We approached slowly and cut off the engine 200 yards away and drifted from there. This area had the best looking water that we saw that day....and there was a good bite using the Gulp shrimp. We caught another 12 to 15 keepr trout in the next hour.

As the bite slowed.....the storm to the north got bigger, so we called it a day. As we headed back to Spicer, we did not know if we could beat the rain. While cleaning the 27 trout and one red....it sprinkled a little.

While leaving the lake......we passed up several flocks of seagulls feeding.

The tide never did start moving much while we were on the water.