Sometimes those spur of the moment hunting or fishing trips end up as the most rewarding.

Such was the case this past weekend for myself and two local fishin’ buddies, Keo Khamphilavong and Mike Sinitiere. The call going out around 7 p.m. Saturday was from Keo, who has a 22-foot long yellow Blazer Bay, for a daylight start from Quintana Canal Landing to go chase speckled trout the next day in near-offshore waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

The trio did more than chase them but it took a patient while to reach their 15-fish per person daily creel limit to make it a highly successful day on the waters approximately 11 miles south of Southwest Pass.

We met at Keo’s house at 5:30 a.m., got ice in town and breakfast biscuits at Hebert’s Mini-Mart in Lydia. The landscape was turning from black to light shades of gray on the way to Cypremort Point.

Keo, an accomplished saltwater tournament and saltwater fishing rodeo angler, drove knowing two bass fishing fanatics were riding with him, although both he and Mike target sac-a-lait as often as possible in the Atchafalaya Basin. Both of his guests fished for speckled trout and redfish on their own and together until several years ago but admittedly neither targeted saltwater fish for at least two years.

Keo, a local contractor who owns Keo’s Construction, was heading to Tiger Shoals, one of the most popular speckled trout destinations this summer and a spot he fished three days earlier and came back with 33 speckled trout.

While Keo and Mike cleaned 45 speckled trout and one Spanish mackerel (snared by the outdoor writer) a few hours after leaving Tiger Shoals at approximately 1:30 p.m. Sunday, they talked about the day. There were about a dozen 2- to 2 ½-pounders in the ice chest with the rest 1- to 1 ½ pounds, all caught on tight-lined soft plastics on 3/8-ounce leadheads at the “Four Posts (pilings).”

“It was a nice trip. We didn’t run around a lot. I just enjoyed fishing. Where I just fish. We could have done it (run around). (But) we just hung out,” he said.

The fish-catchin’ action wasn’t fast and furious, Keo admitted. Still, there were enough bites to keep them there with up to seven other boats visiting the old oilfield structure.

Keo said the site’s shell pad attracted the finfish, including jack crevalle, ladyfish, banana fish, Spanish mackerel, bluefish and other species. The speckled trout, though, were the coveted prize.

“For whatever reason, the fish are there. The Four Posts. It’s a satellite rig with huge, huge pads. (But) 99 might be bigger than that one (Four Posts). The key is the structure there (Four Posts),” he said.

He fished the area three days earlier with Craig Landry and Lonnie Menard. They went on an afternoon trip and caught 33, he said after swinging a 2 ½-pounder in the boat.

“Most of the fish were bigger … a lot of them were like that (2 ½-pound class speckled trout he pointed at). That was good fish, really good fish,” he said, adding the hot color that afternoon was lemonhead.

Speckled trout favored a different color Sunday. They switched to ultraviolet.

“That’s a shrimp color. They’d rather feed on that. After shrimp, they have to eat fish. That’s just how it is,” Keo said. “The natural feed is shrimp. That’s what they prefer. If they have to eat fish, they eat fish.”

He used a single-rigged Matrix Shad and a tandem-rigged Matrix Shad. He tight-lined both in the 11- to 12-foot depths.

“That’s what I like to do. I can feel the bite. You can watch the cork. But I like to feel the bite,” he said.

He also prefers to cast upcurrent.

“I believe the bait is more natural” on the retrieve, he said.

The bountiful trip was one of two fishing highlights this year for Mike, a 64-year-old business development manager for Coca-Cola United. In late May, the avid bass angler flew to Maine with Kevin Suit, another accomplished local bass angler, and fished with Mark Stroud, a former New Iberian who lives in a lakefront residence near Stetson. Over the course of five days the trio boated 500 smallmouth bass and largemouth bass, mostly on topwaters and Neko rigs, and 40 slab sac-a-lait.

Mike cleared his day Sunday to fish with Keo.

“I think it was awesome. The weather was nice. It was pretty cool. And we had a pretty good “guide,” he said with a soft laugh, then noted the outing sure beat the malaise that bass fishing is going through in the Atchafalaya Basin.

The multi-time AOY in several bass clubs started catching more and more speckled trout as the day wore on. The bass angler who is hell on wheels with a Zoom Ultra-Vibe Speed Craw or a Senko tapped the population, catching more than he missed.

A wolf pack of Spanish mackerel that moved across the huge shell pad was the only thing that interrupted his hot streak. He’d hook one and another would cut the line trying to get the same Matrix Shad.

“Slow down. Slow down. I was just going (retrieving and working the soft plastic) too fast,” Mike said about catching more speckled trout around and after midday.

There was good-natured ribbing the entire time, agonizing misses and lively conversations with others in boats out there, including Matt Migues, who was fishing with his buddies, Kyle LeBlanc, Tucker Hebert and Joshua Hebert aboard the latter’s 22-foot long Blazer Bay powered by a 250-h.p. Yamaha SHO. The skipper owns Salty Traditions.

The impromptu trip paid off, all agreed on Keo’s boat.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.