Fish the Bayou: Prefish

I’ve really been trying to take part in tournaments more often this year. I’ve done them in years past, but lulled out last year when River was born. This year, I’ve made an effort to fish more of them, but unfortunately my non-tournament fishing time has reduced quite a bit. I shouldn’t complain though, because I still get to fish more an most. I have my wife to thank for that. Anyway, I’m leading to another tournament report. This one, for Fish The Bayou, which is put on at the Larose Civic Center but is a fish anywhere tournament. I’d been hearing that things had been starting to “get good” back at my usual location. I hadn’t been in awhile. My friend, Ryan told me he’d planned to prefish the area on that Friday, and convinced me to follow suit. I was contemplating heading to the Boondoggle in Mandeville. Honestly, there were so many great events happening that weekend. Another friend, Stephen, asked about fishing locally on Friday, which seemed to pull me further from “Boondogglin'”, and closer to Fish The Bayou.

So Friday came, and I was definitely fishing the tournament. But I was torn on two locations. I ultimately decided that if I wasn’t satisfied after prefishing, I’d go blind into plan B.

Ryan and I met at the landing, and Stephen soon caught up with us. We all split up after launching. I tried to stick close to a deep canal in search of some trout. I paddled up to a spot that I knew could hold trout and started slinging a topwater plug. A few casts in a something took it, and I’m guessing by the head-shake that it was a trout. But with that head-shake, it freed itself and I continued casting away.

I eventually moved on and headed for slightly unfamiliar territory. I decided to start throwing a jighead with Dockside’s new Vortex Shad color, C-Shad. It wasn’t extremely long before my first red on the day came along. Small-ish. Around eighteen inches. But it was something. At least it was a start.

I let ’em go and moved on. I came upon a flat that I knew had submerged grass, but nothing came to play. I ended up in a small pond and saw a red pushing a nice little wake. I casted the Vortex, but ended up spooking the fish. I decided to take a break and eat lunch.

Eventually, after eating, I ended up blind casting in other familiar areas. In short, I ended up with two more reds and a flounder. I believe I had another trout hook up and then come off. Dang tout.

I ultimately came away unimpressed on Friday and was greatly contemplating switching it up and going with my Plan B. I’ll have that report next…