August Inshore Fishing Report (Dularge)

[ImpulseFishing]

For the past month we have seen the trout bite decline much earlier than it did in the previous few years. Normally we are catching good numbers of trout into mid August but this year has been unpredictable. The good days of catching limits of trout ended in late July with the salinity being extremely low all over the coast. Some days we had perfect conditions of great weather and pristine water but the fish were simply not around. In early August while bull red fishing I witnessed on multiple occasions small trout feeding on shrimp way inshore. That tells me that the migration has begun early so if all things go correctly we should see an early fall trout appearance. While the trout where ghosts we made up for it by catching bull reds and drum for most of the month of August. The big reds were feeding heavily in the deep holes and the puppy drum were right behind them looking for scraps. Most trips we had our limit of bull reds and 8-12 puppy drum. Customers who were not sold on eating black drum and bull reds have all recently changed their minds after watching me carefully clean their catch back at the dock. On the big reds, I am using the Hoss Filet Knife and removing the skin from the meat. Most folks are sold on cooking big reds on the half shell but if you don’t remove 100% of the red meat you will not enjoy it on the grill. I do the black drum the same way since we are keeping them 25″ or less. After removing the skin I am using a razor sharp 8″ Dexter Russell boning knife to remove all bones and red meat from the filets. It takes much longer on the table but in the end you are left with nothing but tender white meat.

Usually by this time we are experiencing a great slot red bite in our end of the summer holes of 20-30′ of water. Looking back at last years books, we were catching limits of slot reds on cracked crab by this time last year. We have yet to find them stacked up but it should happen any day now. I really believe this has been a strange year for fishing so who knows if they will even show up.

Saturday 8-29-16 I had 6 boats out with two different bachelor party groups. Most boats stayed with the bull reds and drum and a few went off to throw spoons in the marsh. Only one boat returned with a limit of slot reds but everyone caught fish and both parties had great outings.
Capt. Rob Dupont
Impulse Fishing Charters
225-776-9820
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