We would fill our bucket with minnows for White Perch.  A cardboard cylinder of chirping crickets guaranteed a stringer full of Bream.  Night Crawlers packed with soil in an old ice cream container meant Large Mouth Bass was on the menu.  Lastly, a tub of the nastiest puree to ever come out of a blender; a combination of pig blood, old cheese, and rotted meat fished off the bottom of the pond on a big treble hook would have Catfish as big as me flopping around inside the boat in no time.

Every cast was filled with anticipation because there were only two outcomes, either you caught the fish or the fish took your bait.

Somewhere along the line artificial bait entered the picture and things were never the same.  I haven’t had to recapture an escaping cricket or wrestle a Shad out of a minnow bucket since before I learned to drive.  This changed on my last fishing trip to the coast.

As I planned my trip to Grand Isle, Louisiana during a time when the moon, tides, and wind were squarely against me; I had to turn to live bait to save the trip.  When the fish are biting they seem to bite anything.  A blade of sea grass or a plummeting piece of Gull poop might elicit an explosive, surface breeching strike.  When the fish are apathetic and sluggish you have to bring the good stuff.

At the marinas and roadside stalls along Louisiana’s highway 1 the good stuff is going to cost you .25 cents a piece for live shrimp, and a dollar a piece for Cocahoe or Croaker minnows.  This is where the casting net comes in.

There has been a casting net in the back of the truck for as long as I can remember.  It has sat in the corner in its original packaging just waiting for times to get hard enough for me to actually read the directions.  That casting net finally found the glory it was meant for.

Things didn’t start well.  I read half of the instructions, as I’m prone to do, and decided I would figure it out in a few throws.  The first cast looked more like a trapezoid than the perfect sphere I created in my mind.  As every weight on the net rattled off my head or wrist I was encouraged to revisit the instructions.  It seems I was holding the net upside down, inside out, and in the wrong hand.

The next cast took on kind of a half moon shape and only a third of the weights slapped my wrist.  I actually caught something though, two minnows and a nice sized shrimp.  I was in business.  My second throw with a casting net in my life and I had already netted 2 dollars and 25 cents.

Over the next 30 minutes I caught more than enough bait for the afternoon.  I had eliminated the middle man and taken a big step toward becoming a self-sufficient fisherman.  My spastic display also entertained a sizeable crowd at the dock, I love giving a little something back to the people.  I can’t wait to try the casting net for fresh water minnows as well.  Here’s to learning something new.

I’ve heard old fishermen talking about how good the fishing gets when the tides and moon are just right, but I always wrote that off as superstition and mumbo jumbo…I’ve learned it’s not.

The excitement and high expectations for the trip faded as it took 2 days of constant casting before I got my first keeper trout.  You don’t notice the true weight of your surf fishing setup until you’ve thrown and reeled your lure all morning and all afternoon with no bites.

I started talking to the fishing gurus back at the marina and they told me how just one week before people were lined up on the beach catching trout two at a time on double sparkle beetle jigs.  They said people were wading into the surf with a length of cotton twine and a chicken neck and catching laundry baskets full of fat blue crabs in a matter of hours.

At first I thought the fishing gurus were just delusional.  They were double fisting beers at 2 in the afternoon on a Tuesday after all.  These old captains were probably so drunk they didn’t know which island they were on.  As I listened to their slurred explanations about how the moon’s phase and position in the sky along with the difference in water level at high and low tides determined when the fish were moving and more importantly when they were eating, it all started making sense.

Here’s the situation as I understand it.  The best days for fishing are when there is a full or new moon.  The moon is having its greatest effect on the tides during these phases.  You want a big difference in high and low tide too.  The bigger the difference in the tides, the more water you have rolling in or going out.  Those large tides carry more bait fish, shrimp, and other introductory members of the food chain.  When the moon and tides are right the fish are feasting and that’s when you want to put your pole in the water.

Just like clockwork, as the moon started to grow in the sky and the tides got bigger the fishing just switched on, my excitement and expectations rose, and I committed to consulting the lunar and tidal calendars before any salt water fishing trip.

If you want a great resource for lunar and tidal information along the gulf coast check out Rodnreel.com.

I’m staying at a rental cabin on the bay side of Grand Isle.  There’s a nice pier off the back of the cabin so I’ll have easy access to the bay with my kayak.  I plan on carpet bombing the entire island with every bait and lure known to man before I’m done though.

This morning I started fishing the marshes skirting Caminada Bay.  The tide was coming in and I could see dolphins catching their morning meal as the sun started to rise.

I was fishing a Berkley Gulp artificial shrimp off the bottom.

These little fake shrimp were getting me some bites, but I didn’t catch any Speckled Trout of legal size.  I caught three 10 inchers and they all went back to grow some more.

The current was pushing me further into the marshes by mid morning; and the heat and lack of big trout forced me to come in for a water break.  My water break turned into brunch as I sliced up some Boudin sausage with saltines and Tabasco to restore my energy.

I’m going to watch my neighbors catch Blue Crabs off the pier for awhile before I get back to it.  I still have high hopes for a huge fish dinner tonight.

I’m preparing my fishing gear and assessing the state of my tackle because I’m leaving in a few days.

I never seem to get my gear cleaned properly after salt water fishing.  I rinse my reels and even give them a coating of oil after each trip, but I always lose one or two to the salt water.

I just tried spinning the handle on my lucky reel from last year and it feels like I’m cranking the handle on an old manual ice cream maker.  I opened it up to see if it could be saved, but all I see is rust and corrosion fusing the gears together.  There’s another reel for the memorial box with all of my other old salt water reels.  The only salvageable parts are the bale and the handle.  They go in the box with the other bales and handles I think I’m going to have use for one day.

I’m changing all my fishing line too.  Salt water makes fishing line as brittle as glass.  I forgot to do this last year and the first trout took my line and lure out to sea with a slight tug.  Nothing crushes the excitement of the first cast more than having to immediately re-spool your reel.

The last thing I do is survey the huge assortment of lures I’ve amassed.  I have a shiny collection of brass and chrome spoons.  I’ve also collected every type of glittery, beaded, and spinner equipped lure those Cajuns can come up with.  The old standby is the sparkle beetle though.  Tie a couple of these jigs onto a strong leader and you’ll be catching two trout at a time.

Sometimes I enjoy playing with my fishing gear as much as using it.