Went down last week to vacation and fish out of Hi-Ridge. Here is the report for May 11-16:

SUNDAY: Arrived at launch and Dave and Mike jokingly said that we were crazy to go out in the high winds. We went out anyway. We attempted to fish in the ponds right next to the launch, but only caught one red. Moved around to several ponds in the area, but was only able to catch one more red all day. I was surprised because I did find some clean water areas that should have held more reds.

MONDAY: Fished Sulfur Mine area..no fish. Fished No Mans Land, dirty water. Ended up catching reds in ponds to the north of the village. Ended up catching around 5 reds, a couple of specks and a black drum in the area north of the village.

TUESDAY: Fished area north of village. Got our limit of reds. The highlight of the day was that shrimp season opened this day and I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the shrimpers go to work.

WEDNESDAY: Caught 12 reds including a 14 lber. Kept a handful of fish, but released all the 5+ lbers since we already had enough redfish in the freezer. Did catch a 14 ½ lber in a pond. This was my biggest red ever.

THURSDAY: Tried for specks. Wade-fished Chaland pass. Did not catch a single fish. Fished under birds and could only catch 3 12 incher specks and a bunch of tiny throw-backs. Found Gin-Clear water in 4 corners. Only caught one red there.

FRIDAY: Ferried across and fished out of East Point a la Hache. Caught limit of school trout and several white trout under birds in bays towards Bay Black. Birds seemed to be in all bays. Wind was a problem. I could not get the anchor to hold in the wind and my aluminum boat flies like sailboat in the wind. It was fun to put some specks in the boat through. Golden Rule measuring board was put to use this day.

OTHER NOTES:

In the excitement of fishing under the birds, bunches of shrimp were surfacing right by the boat. In my excitement I threw my tandem rig towards the shrimp and “boloed” a Gull. I felt awful. I got the bird to the boat and did my best to unravel him the best I could without being bitten. The bird got away before I could finish cutting all the line. He flew off, but I feel like his chances are not good given the numbers of dead water birds I’ve seen tangled in monofilament line. I feel awful. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have netted the bird with the landing net and put him all the way in the boat so that I could take my time and make sure that all the line was removed from the bird. If this happens to you, maybe you can learn from my dumb mistake.

On another note, my fishing partner’s rod and reel turned up missing after we took out at the East Point a La Hache launch (can’t remember actual name of marina). We got back to the launch right at 5:00 and there was allot of commotion, as it was quitting time and everyone was getting ready to leave. There were several non-employees hanging around and I suspect that one of them helped themselves to my buddies rod and reel while we were inside using the bathroom. It was the only rod not strapped down and was easy to grab. You may want to keep a sharp eye on your gear at that particular launch.

Finally, I've fished the Port Sulphur area for years and have consistently

caught more reds in a single day than I did this entire week. I feel bow

fishing has damaged the redfish populations in the areas I usually fish.

I have been on many trips in these areas when I couldn't coax the fish to

bite, but could still actually see the reds swimming all over. I checked

dozens of ponds and simply did not see the numbers of fish that I usually

see. I am sensitive to the fact that board sponsors make their living off

of the industry, but my opinion is that bowfishing is damaging the

long-term health of the resource.