Speckled trout

The Teche Area’s many ardent speckled trout fishermen, the anglers who forsake hunting in favor of wetting a line in November and December, had little to be thankful for Thursday.

The speckled trout “season” as they have known it when it’s blowin’ and goin’ in past glory years has all but petered out in most of the popular hotspots in and around Vermilion Bay. And it started with so much promise in late September and through October.

Typically, you’d have to find a spot that didn’t have a boat if the speckled trout fishing was anything close to normal. But the parking lot has been nearly empty for many days at Cypremort Point Boat Landing.

It is over? Two veteran local speckled trout fishermen talked about the current situation and the prospects this weekend.

Keo Khamphilavong of New Iberia, 53, believes a major cold front forecast to push through the region this week could be the end of even fair-at-best speckled trout fishing. New Iberian Troy Amy said success has fallen off to the point where as of today he has been once in his nine straight days off from work.

“I tell you what, it’s not over this year but it hasn’t been great like we thought it would have been,” Amy said Saturday morning.

“My boat’s just sitting there collecting dust,” the 50-year-old toolman for Superior Energy said.

He blames the frequency of cold fronts that chilled the area and whipped up the water with strong north winds.

“Fronts back-to-back … that’s the problem. They’re coming too quick for it (water) to recover. That’s what we’re thinking,” he said.

The best bet still is to the west around Mud Point and in locations throughout Weeks Bay, he said. His brother-in-law, Chad Quibodeaux of Avery Island, had a good trip out that way a week ago Friday.

“My brother-in-law caught 33, so fish are still around there. It was the best day he had,” Amy said. “You just have to catch the tide where it’s a good tide, a good drop or a good rise. He got them on a rise. If you catch a good tide like that you can catch fish.”

Muddy water in many places have been a deterrent, he said. However, around Mud Point and Weeks Bay, often there is clear water closer to the bottom, he said.

That area also has plenty of baitfish, he said, noting the speckled trout’s diet has shifted to the plentiful shad population there.

Otherwise, speckled trout fishing success in The Cove, especially around the wharves, has been nonexistent recently. The fish were feeding on shrimp, which have become scarce there, he said.

Khamphilavong caught speckled trout Saturday morning at Bayou Michael along the bay side of Marsh Island while fishing with Phil Haney. 

Later Saturday, while trying to get two more keeper redfish to fill out their limit, Khamphilavong said, “No, I don’t think it’s over. But by early December, it could be with multiple fronts.”

The Keo’s Construction owner and Haney put 11 speckled trout in the ice chest early Saturday.

“We fished about an hour over there. If we would have stayed where we were at we would have caught 30, 35, but we would have had to work for them,” Khamphilavong said, adding they caught on soft plastics on a 1/4-ounce leadhead under a popping cork.

About midday, they had their eyes on schools of redfish foraging for food in a duck pond inside Marsh Island. Shrimp under a popping cork was the main meal ticket, he said.

“We’re trying to catch our last two redfish, then go crabbing,” he said.

Like Amy, Khamphilavong said the speckled trout fishing was much better earlier this year.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of fish that came in this year,” he said.