Chris Ginn Creative Outdoors

After an earlier attempt of getting this trip in two weeks ago – we had to cancel on the water because my son started throwing up – I was finally able to get in a Calcasieu Lake trip with Captain Nick Poe with Big Lake Guide Service today. The trout bite was painfully slow. Nick said he wasn’t sure what the problem is, but very few anglers are catching trout at Calcasieu right now. Another contact told me he burned 100 gallons of gas to catch four trout on his last couple of trips.

Fortunately, Nick knew we could fall back on the redfish bite, and that’s exactly what we did. While throwing a Corky and hoping to catch a bit trout, Nick and I got our hopes up for the first few seconds after a violent strike. Dang thing wound up being a redfish, but at least it was a fish.

All you had to do today to see where the fish were biting was run by both weirs on the eastern side of the lake. Five to 10 boats were stacked up in each one, so we passed and came back later in the afternoon. The current was pulling through them pretty hard, and Nick says he doesn’t care where he catches fish… some people think it’s sissified to fish the weirs… so we stuck around a while. Nick picked up some more reds, and that was about the extent of our day.

We did make it around to Nick’s favorite 10 spots for February, though, and these spots will make up the foundation for the second installment in my Saltwater Series in the February issue of Louisiana Sportsman magazine. You can also check out Nick’s technique for catching redfish at the weirs next week at the Louisiana Sportsman web site.

Tags: Big Lake Guide Service, Calcasieu Lake, Chris Ginn, fishing, Nick Poe, redfish, saltwater, weirs