Biloxi Marsh reports

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gnats?...

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Major assholes in dulac on Friday.

Very foggy morning, loaded up with live shrimp from Hopedale Marina about 7am.

Gnats were about the worst I’ve ever experienced and ran us off first spot with zero breeze. Water was falling hard and pretty low. Weird rain cell appeared out of nowhere and luckily I had rain gear for me and wife. Seemed to knock down the gnats as well.

Finally got a little bite going near Petes Lagoon and found some more in Mack’s Pass. Missed 2 red sight casting in some thick grass beds and ended the day with 15 specks, 5 Sheephead, 1 red and 1 giant drum.

Enjoyed being on the water. Not my best nor worst day. Didn’t see many people with more fish than us at the cleaning station either.

Overall a fine day in the water.

Went out three times last week taking friends out.

First trip was two days before Thanksgiving. Went down the spoil canal and came across birds. Started picking off trout but they were small so we went to the end of it to fish the MRGO rocks for bulls and came up empty. Jumped to the closest rig there and started SLAMMING hammer trout there. Caught 30 in about 15 minutes, and then switched to sheepshead and caught 6 in about the same time and called it a day. We were throwing a 3/8 jighead with matrix on it and a 1/2 Carolina rig with matrix hooked through the head on a circle hook. For the sheepshead we just took the matrix off and put salt strips on it.

Second trip the plan was to target reds. We went the Sunday after Thanksgiving and we misjudged the weather. Weather was really cold and wet early in the am and it made us cancel the sight fishing we wanted to do. In the end, we made it to a bayou emptying into a bay that had a clear shelf drop off into some heavy current. We rigged up some Carolina rigs with matrix holy joly hooked with circle hooks and threw right into the current swirl. Hammered the trout again, it was every cast for about an hour.

The last trip we went out this past Friday. The fog was insane and made going anywhere impossible. We just waited the fog out for a couple of hours not really catching anything and then when the fog lifted we went out to Eloi Bay to pick off rigs. The first rig we found a school of bulls that our tackle couldn't handle (4 break offs) so we left that and went to another where we duplicated the first trip. Only thing of note here was the water was so clear we were sight fishing the sheepshead and trout. It was amazing, something I had never done before.

Gnats on all trips were terrible. The water this past Friday was so low we saw tons of boats stuck in normal passes. I had to help a few people out with my shallow water skiff.

Landed 0 reds, but also didn't fish any bayous inside the marsh and mostly focused on the outside edges of the marsh.

Carolina rig has been crazy effective. I use bright green braid backer with a 3' leader holding the rig. The braid backer acts like a cork. I can see it start to move and with the circle hook all you have to do is create tension and the hook is set. It's as easy as worm fishing for bream.

So, were the rigs in Bay Eloi?

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Any reason you chose to rig like this instead of drop-shot?

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Yep. First reason is I got the idea from Masson's son. After I used it for a while I noticed that in those points where bayous intersect (specifically the three way intersections), a really heavy Carolina rig will anchor the bait down but the heavy current will keep that paddle tail going AND the paddle tail will go slightly up and down in the column. This creates a good movement and I don't get that movement on dropshot.

The final reason is it's just easier for me to rig up a Carolina rig on the fly. So I'm just being lazy.

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So, were the rigs in Bay Eloi?

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Yep. Every rig I hit was there. The wind direction every time I went out made Eloi the lee side of the marsh.

I'll caveat all of this with saying I highly doubt this report will matter on December 10th. This rain coming in is definitely going to get rid of all that pretty clear water, and if the temp drops will move all the fish into the deeper channels in the marsh.

Thanks, Dandy.