Sharks, Redfish, Black Drum and The Fish that got Away

After years of hearing my stories of fishing Grand Isle, our friends Dave and Jane decided to dally here before heading north to their summer place in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Dave is a great fisherman and so I was interested in watching how he would approach the beach fishing possibilities. He simply approached them by catching just about everything you could catch here and it’s been fun netting his fish.

We first went out to Elmer’s Island where black tip shark were biting. They bit through our lines and destroyed our gear forcing us to make a frantic call to Renita, Jane, and Connie, asking them to buy us more wire leaders, (they had gone shopping up the bayou to Houma).

Dave did manage to land two black tip shark, (shark season is closed so the fish were released unharmed as we use circle hooks), and I managed to miss the two bites that doubled my pole over. Oh and I  caught a lot of big hard head catfish which have about as much oil in them as a BP spill and so are inedible.

The fishing bridge was next and while we caught lots of fish at the south end, the north bridge was where it was at as it provided some of the best fishing Grand Isle has to offer. Huge numbers of bat rays have moved into the pass and so we spent the morning catching the forty pound plus bat rays, huge redfish, sheephead, and we watched others catch big black drum.

Another day and this time we fished the beach at the state park. The water was muddy and there were lots of weeds, so things were quite and the weeds tangled our lines, although we did have two pick ups on our dead mullet. Dave hooked a big fish that went on a run that he couldn’t stop. It broke off and Dave decided he should put on heavier line.

On our last day fishing we returned to the fishing bridge. It was so amazing to see schools of bull redfish swim buy and phalanx of bat rays traveling in their diamond shaped formation. We never landed any big bull reds as they were so large that they manhandled us and wrapped our lines around the barnacle encrusted posts.

Spotting a large shark I cast a mullet ahead of it and soon had it on but it came off as the circle hook never set properly. My last big fish of the day hit and ran for the Gulf and I was actually able to turn it, chasing it to the end of the pier. Dave followed with the hoop net but the hook pulled out as I saw another huge bull red swim away.

So the shore fishing here has been what we hoped for, and I think it’s the best fishing on the Gulf Coast, (my nephew has fished by Venice, Louisiana and says it’s better there). Big fish are the name of the game here and if you do come down the bayou to the end of the road, be sure to release the big ones as they are the breeding stock. Clear skies