Big Lake 4-25-12

[Gerald]

I made my first fishing trip in a long time. My DIL asked a couple weeks ago if we could bring them some more fish....... so Papa Gerald needed to catch some fish.

After reading some reports saying the water was improving in Big Lake I was ready to enjoy a day on the water and hopefully catch some fish.

I got to Heberts landing at 11 AM.... after waiting 25 minutes at the Grand Lake bridge for 4 barges to pass on the ICWW. I was a little disappointed when saw the brown muddy water at the launch. Outside the launch the water had ~ 6" visability and stained brown color. I headed south hoping to find better looking water...... but along the east side, the water only got a little better.

Winds were 5 to 8 mph and a light chop and no tide movement of the water.

I then went through Grand bayou wier to see how the water looked. Water was stained brown and maybe 10" visability. The boats fishing at the wier said they were catching a few reds. Water was slowly coming into the marsh.

I caught some croaker, mullet and only 3 shrimp [~60 count]. Back at Grand bayou wier, the 2 boats were still there. I taked with them and found out they had only caught 1 Red in 2+ hours using market shrimp.

I stayed there for a while.....hoping they would leave which they finally did so I could "move in" to fish the spot.

It only took about 5 minutes and I had my first fish on using a live croaker. As I got ready to net the fish, I saw that it was not a Red, but a nice 20" Trout. In the next couple hours, I caught 8 or 9 Redfish [all 21 to 26"] and 5 Trout [18, 19, 20, 22, 24"].

By mid afternoon the winds has picked up to 12 to 14 mph so I did not head west to look for clearer water. Back at the launch, a guy told me that starting in the middle of the lake, the water starts to clear up more. He said that the water around the Washout and West Cove is good.