The Mississippi River hit peak levels last month resulting in a rise of freshwater in the Delacroix marshes lately. Whenever we see a high river, it certainly shakes things up and makes us have to chase the fish as they react to the river water. Trout and redfish certainly react differently. Trout are not afraid of freshwater by any means but the river water tends to be dirty which trout do not like. So trout tend to avoid areas with higher river water this time of year. Redfish on the other hand are opportunists. What we have seen lately is that the redfish are staging up in places where river water is dumping into the marsh. This is because of the high concentration of shad and mullet in the river water.

The weather has been very mild as of late and our customers are loving it. While many other places in the country as still cold and many lakes are still frozen, Louisiana is well on its way to summer time. Most days lately have been a high of 75 degrees. While there has been a lot of windy days, the fish don’t seem to mind. We have caught fish in 15-20 mph winds without any problem. It’s clear to say that the New Orleans red fishing experience is in full force right now.

The rest of this month should see a lot of changes taking place. Fish will begin concentrating on the outer edges of the marsh. Trout are heading out to spawn and redfish will begin schooling up. Our guides have experienced this seasonal pattern many years in a row and they know exactly what to do this time of year. If charter fishing New Orleans is something you are considering then April is the month to book.

Don’t let another day pass without booking your Louisiana charter fishing trip with us. We have clean boats ready to go with top quality equipment and experienced guides.

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

www.la-charters.com

504-669-1263

This is the time of year that separates the professional guides from the average angler. Sure, you can luck into a good fish pattern every few days in February and March but for the most part, the fish are very scattered. What’s happening is the redfish and trout’s annual transition of their winter patterns into their summer patterns. These period of the year has fish that are hard to predict and can change their location on a daily basis. Couple that with the occasional cold front and add in a high Mississippi River and you have a boat load of adversity facing you before your clients even step on your boat. Luckily, our professional guides here at LFC have played this game before. We are not out just to catch fish like the average angler- we have to find fish for our clients on a daily basis because our fishing trips New Orleans style happen everyday.

Truth be told, there is no silver bullet when conditions get tough and fish are scattered. The best thing we can do is dip into years of experience and rely on each other. As guides we ofter work together. We spread out and relay information on what gets the fish biting. It’s just what we have to do to provide our clients with the New Orleans fishing experience they came looking for.

One of our guides, Capt. Corey Gradwohl has been getting out of the stiff winds lately but ducking off in canals and fishing grass lines along the canal banks. This pattern produces a few redfish each stop but he doesn’t stick around very long. He also looks for clean water which is a bit hard to find right now due to the very high Mississippi River levels. When the river gets this high, it dirties up the water in the marsh and makes fish spread out even more.

Don’t let any of that stop you from booking a trip this month. We are professionals and we will put you on fish. It might take a little longer, but we do this every day and redfish charters Louisiana fishing is our specialty. Besides, the weather is beautiful in Louisiana during the spring and what’s wrong with a little extra time out on the water?

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

504-669-1263

www.la-charters.com

The winter is over here at Louisiana Fishing Charters and Spring has arrived. The trees are turning green again and the fish have heated up their transition into the Spring patterns at this Louisiana charter fishing service. Our clients are having a blast catching fish in super nice weather. In the morning, temps are in the 60’s and then they heat up to the 70’s by mid-day.

We are fishing the outer edges of the marsh for redfish. We are also experiencing an awesome run of black drum. We are fishing current lines away from the shore line in 4-5 feet of water. This is the same pattern you would normally fish for speckeld trout. We are using corks with 2.5 ft leaders and market shrimp.

The black drum is a cool species and tastes just as good as his cousin the redfish. Some folks will say that black drum are harder to clean but when you fish with LFC we do all the cleaning for you! The black drum also fights just as hard if not harder than the redfish and you can cook them any way that you would normally cook a redfish.

February and March can be some of the toughest times to fish in Delacroix because the fish are constantly on the move as they transition to new areas and patterns. We’d definitely recommend fishing with a Louisiana fishing guide to see how we handle the adversity this time of year.

We are also having a blast with our bowfishing charters. This is a cool new redfish guide Louisiana service that we are offering. It’s a big challenge and a great opportunity to experience the nightlife here in Delacroix.

Also, crawfish are back in season and if you stay with us we can arrange a crawfish boil if you like. We have a full service lodge or smaller cabins available for our charter guests.

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

www.la-charter.com

504-669-1263

Louisiana Fishing Charters recently hosted our friends from Mossy Oak on a 2 day blast and cast adventure. I have fished charters with Mossy Oak’s VP of Media Productions, Kevin Tate in the past. This time though, Kevin came down to Delacroix to get some work done for Mossy Oak. Mossy Oak is releasing their new camo pattern “Elements” and Kevin wanted LFC to help them get some photos and videos of Elements.

This awesome new release is a family of patterns utilizing the three core elements of the natural world - earth, water and wind - at their most basic levels. Kevin brought down their Elements pattern “AGUA” as it is designed for spending time on the water. The goal was to collect photos and video that they could use on their website, social media, and also to film an episode for their new show Mossy Oak’s Country Roots that will air later this year. We had a blast and although the ducks were reluctant to cooperate, the fish showed up big.

“I didn’t know a better place on earth than with Randall Shaw to get the content we needed. He’s a guy who will put you on fish for every conceivable minute he can. We fished two days and caught a bunch of fish. Our rods were bent the whole time” Kevin Tate said of his trip with LFC.

They key to out success on this trip was paying attention to the water levels. It’s been a pretty cold winter so far with a good amount of cold fronts blowing through. That has dropped the water levels and we took the Mossy Oak crew to catch fish in the bigger lakes. The awesome thing was the fish kept getting bigger and bigger!

We are looking forward to helping Mossy Oak promote the new Elements pattern. It will be available printed on Huk breathable fishing shirts coming soon.

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

www.la-charters.com

504-669-1263

What a winter it has been in Delacroix! We recently saw water temps drop down to 33 degrees and air temps got to 16 degrees. That’s been unheard of in our part of the country for a long time. There were a few days we had to cancel due to this weather but whenever possible we took our clients out. We don’t cancel unless we really have to and if our clients are brave enough to fight the cold, we are going to work our butts off to put them on fish. We know they came down to Delacroix for New Orleans red fishing and we will go as long as conditions are safe.

Luckily we have a few tricks up our sleeve when the temps drop this low. We know that redfish like to gather in deep holes to find warmer temps near the bottom. They hunker down in the mud on the bottom. We know this because we catch redfish with leaches on their bellies from sitting on the bottom. That’s not something you see everyday in NOLA fishing!

Another thing that helped the fishing during these cold spells was the drop in water levels. At normal and high water levels, redfish can spread out all over the marsh. But when the water empties out of the marsh the fish have to go where there is water. With water levels close to three feet below normal level, the only places that held water were the bays and bayous. This made targeting redfish easier than normal, and we stuck it to them!

As a charter fishing New Orleans operation, we are very lucky to have mild winters. Even when we do have these cold snaps they don’t last long. As of right now the temps have gotten back into the 50’s and 60’s and the fishing is absolutely on fire. The water still has not returned to a normal level so there are big schools of redfish in all the majors bays and lakes in Delacroix.

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

Delacroix, LA

www.la-charters.com

504-669-1263

Louisiana fishing is at its finest during the fall. Ok maybe the Spring. Or the summer. Well our winters are pretty good too. But certainly the fall is one of our favorites. We finally start getting a few cool fronts in late October. With comfortable temperatures and hungry fish feeding up for the winter, it’s easy to fall in love with fall fishing in Louisiana.

Louisiana charter fishing guides love the months of October, November, and December because schools of fish move into the interior marshes to feed on shrimp that have travelled in from the Gulf of Mexico. Redfish will form big schools that can often result in catching a fish on every cast. Trout form even bigger schools and move into the interior marshes chasing shrimp. Duck hunters are in their glory as they can shoot their game in the morning and catch their fish in the afternoon.

At LFC this month we will be focusing on finding bayous with 5 foot of water or more with a shallow shelf that comes up to about 2 feet. A few days after a cold front you can find trout move up on these shallow flats off the bayous. The shallow water lets them get closer to the sunlight. We also like to look for flocks of seagulls feeding on shrimp. Our clients who come down on a New Orleans fishing charter love the non-stop action when we get on a flock of birds.

The name of the game right now is popping corks and live shrimp. Plastics work well too but we love to give our clients the absolute BEST chance at success so we always bring live shrimp. There will certainly be days where the plastic will outmatch the shrimp though. Don’t be afraid to try both.

If you are looking for fishing trips New Orleans style please give us a call. This November will be off the charts and we don’t want to you to miss it. Captai

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

Delacroix, LA

www.la-charters.com

504-669-1263

Most of the time when we operate redfish charters here at Louisiana Fishing Charters, we are able to locate an area where the fished are staged up and we pick them off as they pass through that area. We use our years of knowledge to give our clients the right bait, equipment, and boat position to catch the fish. The fight with a redfish can be violent as he tugs on your line, never willing to give up. However, we usually don’t get to see the fish unless they are actively feeding or when they finally take the bait.

Recently we had a chance to visually observe a school of redfish while out on a scouting trip. If I do not have a charter for a few days, I like to go ride around and visually look for schools of fish that I can take my clients to later on. It’s one of the things I do as a redfish guide Louisiana style.

On this particular day we covered a lot of ground and found one school of fish in a shallow pond where the water was somewhat dirty. We took a few pictures of those fish, but the water clarity left a lot to be desired.

We ran around a good bit after that and didn’t see much. I decided to run to an area that I knew had clean water but wasn’t so sure about the fish. When I shut down the motor, the water was crystal clear and it wasn’t long before we started seeing reds.

Before long, we came up on a pack of at least 40 redfish. There is really no good way I can think to describe the heart pounding feeling you get when you see something like this in action.  If you have any experience with redfish you know how much fun they are to catch and when you see a big group of them, it’s like staring at a buffet when you haven’t eaten in days.

We didn’t catch but a few of them, just to test their temperament. As it turns out they were not super aggressive, but we were able to study how they move as a group and what their patterns were for that time of day and in those conditions. I took some clients back to that school of fish the next day and they had a blast catching them all morning long.

I’d be happy to take sight fishing charters for your next New Orleans fishing trip if you want to try your hand at catching redfish that you can see. Keep in mind, that would not be a trip for beginners as it requires some skill to cast a lure in the right place for the fish to eat it.

Captain Randall Shaw

Louisiana Fishing Charters

Delacroix, LA

www.la-charters.com

504-669-1263