Grand Isle, La. Summer Surf Fishing!
4 Sharks, a Jack, one Spec. and a Spanish Mac!
We have temporarilly abandoned fishing at Port Fourchon Public Beach, after months of ongoing muddy water, and slack fishing conditions we have determined that the cause of the muddy, silt and debris contaminated water has been and still is the major port expansion and extensive dredging at the Port Fourchon marine facility. It pours out the mouth of Belle Pass at the rock jetty only a short distance away. Friends, Bill & Bess Pope have also been experiencing extremely muddy fishing conditions near the Holly Beach, and Cameron Beach area. The headline in their local paper by John N. Felsher, the outdoor editor says: Way to much mud gives fish lockjaw! The Corp or Engineers have 3 or more "disposal areas" pumping out debris in their waters too, the locals are not to happy about it. I think from Fourchon west, we send trashed water to each other depending on the tides.
Off the beach at Fourchon, we have seen NO shrimp boats working the area, no schools of Mullet, and none of the normal groups of dolphins that cruise the beach, another sign of the lack of normal marine life activity, so we packed up and moved exactly 9.6 miles to the east, to Grand Isle, La. Since it is an island, with Caminada Pass on the east end, and Barataria Pass on the west end, the gulf tides sweep the island with much better water than the shore hugging mud zone that follows the beaches to the west lately. Gazing seaward, upon crossing the back beach levee's at Grand Isle, there were over 3 dozen commercial boats following each other as they navigate in hugh endless circles, dragging nets just offshore. Pods of curious dolphins were close in (knee deep), and just past the first sandbar were many schools of mullet. Random schools of tiny Spanish Macs, and many Terns, along with other shore birds were tearing up schools of glass minnows in the first trough.
GPS Waypoints:
We fished the beach in Grand Isle, La at:
029 degrees - 12 minutes - 14 seconds North Latitude
090 degrees - 02 minutes - 24 seconds West Longitude
We surf fished the beach at Grand Isle, La. Saturday morning, after moving east from our muddy favorite beach area. The water was emerald green, but there was very little tide range, the high tide was near 8 am, with 2 tenths of a foot range so the water was not moving from sunrise on. The months of high winds were down, so we decided to give it a try. Because of the recent outburst of Gulf of Mexico shark attacks, I have never seen so many people fishing from the beach at the waterline. We have our share of coastal sharks here too, we caught 4 in only a couple hours this morning. Summer female crabs are back in the surf too.
We got one 14 inch speckled trout!
One aggressive juvenile Jackfish!
A 16 inch Fast Spanish Mackerel!
I released all 4 sharks, the first was a small one!
Medium size shark number 2
Shark number 3 was about twice the size of the first
Shark number 4 was the biggest, and the best fighter!
I released them all, to the wide eyed startled looks of other tasty visitors.
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