Regardless of the species, being born to a good mother is like winning the lottery of life. During my childhood, mine was a stellar one. Still, despite what she told me, I am obviously a slow learner.
During a recent October fishing trip, I did what I always do this time of year: located an area on an internet satellite map where a major bayou drained into an inland coastal bay, most of which are called lakes in south Louisiana.
I also scheduled my trip to begin during a falling tide because, as a general rule, I prefer trips that culminate with torn-up hands and filthy boat decks to those whose high points are the beautiful sunrise and passable weather.
And in the marshes I fish, there’s simply no scenario more of a slam dunk than fishing a falling tide in the fall. That’s when bayous become nature’s conveyor belts, delivering a seemingly endless supply of protein packages to speckled trout, redfish and flounder that await with gaping maws.
Helping the Shrimp Out
Though autumn is when the fruit is born, the seeds for this bountiful harvest are planted in spring. That’s when mature white shrimp meet up in offshore waters to get freaky. Males anchor their sperm to females, who then release up to a million eggs each. Strong spring currents carry these eggs and eventual larvae into Louisiana’s extensive marshes, where they feast on anything they can shove in their mouths, including each other.
They grow in no time, and by fall are looking to upgrade from their starter homes inside the marsh to the sprawling estates of the big bays and sounds. But first they have to survive the gauntlet of gamefish that awaits them as they fall off the conveyor belt like chocolates in the iconic I Love Lucy episode.
Local anglers like me do what we can to make it easier for the shrimp by removing a few of those gamefish, and that’s what I was doing on this trip. Almost invariably, the best spots to target at the terminus of major bayous are the flats on each side of the mouth, and that’s where I set up, using the wind and tide to drift my boat along a 200-yard stretch of uniform 3- to 4-foot water.
The most efficient technique in this scenario is dangling a shrimp imitation a couple of feet beneath a rattling cork, and it’s one I employed to fairly good effect, boating five or six fish per drift.
On maybe my eighth or so pass, however, I noticed the bulk of my bites came near the mouth of a minor bayou—a ditch, really—that drained onto the flat. I was at least two or three casts away from the little marsh drain, but still, that’s where a thicker school of fish seemed to be holding.
So, rather than continue drifting, I used my trolling motor to hold me in place and inched my way toward the little bayou. As I got closer, bites became more consistent, and finally, when I got to the mouth, I could see why.
In his entire life, Forrest Gump’s Army buddy, Bubba, never saw as many shrimp as were dumping out of that marsh drain. Though it was hardly wider than my boat, it was 7 feet deep—a veritable canyon in south Louisiana—and it was draining half a dozen marsh ponds that obviously had provided perfect habitat for white shrimp larvae and juveniles in previous months.
Everywhere I looked, shrimp ranging from 15- to 60-count breached the surface, using their powerful tails to swat at speckled trout looking to turn them into fuel for the winter. I put away the cork and grabbed a rod rigged with a 1/4-ounce jig head and soft-plastic paddle tail.
For the next couple of hours, I caught a speckled trout every cast, the glorious monotony interrupted occasionally by a greedy redfish or flounder.
Read Next: How To Rig Live Shrimp
Shrimp Jumping in the Boat
That’s not anything unusual this time of year, as Kevin Ford, 57, can attest. The Baton Rouge resident has spent his career as an outdoor television and radio host, and for the past decade, he’s supplemented his income by making weekly runs down to the southernmost point in the Bayou State to pick up a thousand pounds of shrimp. He totes those fresh-from-the-boat crustaceans back to grateful customers in New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Covington.
While out shooting fishing episodes, Ford has seen some crazy stuff during the annual autumn migration, including shrimp acting like seals in great-white-infested waters.
“I can remember a trip in the Shell Beach area when the tide was falling with a north wind, and the trout were all over the top of the water chasing the shrimp,” Ford says. “We actually had three shrimp jump into the boat.
“Without a doubt, that white shrimp migration makes fishing easier than anything else we have in the state.”
During the weeks before Halloween, the boats Ford partners with in his shrimp-selling venture have no trouble filling nets, and it’s not necessarily due to declining water temperatures.
“When you have those fronts in October, sometimes they may not be that cold, but they’re strong enough that the wind is blowing 20, 25 miles per hour for a day or two after out of the north, and those north winds dump the water out of the marsh,” he says. “The shrimp just move with that tide.
“A lot of times, it’s just a wind situation. How strong is that wind, and how far does that tide fall?”
Ford says the autumn white shrimp are hardier and more predictable than their brown cousins that make up the bulk of the spring haul.
“There are several differences between a white shrimp and a brown shrimp, but the real interesting thing about a white shrimp is he’s way faster than a brown shrimp,” he says. “Even when commercial fishermen are fishing for white shrimp with a traditional trawler, they’ve got to go faster.
“That white shrimp is a speedster. He’ll jump over the nets.”
Be Ready to Adapt the Plan
Longtime fishing guide Justin Bowles, of Slidell, Louisiana, says the autumn migration is crucial to supporting his reputation as a speckled trout producer.
“It’s extremely important,” he says. “I mean, it significantly ups your odds of catching numbers of fish.”
Bowles says the run begins in September and peaks in October, but it stretches until Louisiana gets hard wintertime fronts. In fact, one of his best trips last autumn occurred in early December.
It was a windy day, so Bowles took his clients into the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a deep channel that provides protection and attracts specks during the cold winter months.
The trip started quite slowly, Bowles recounts.
“We caught a random fish here and there, but didn’t see any bait or anything,” he says. “Then the wind died around midmorning, and we ran back through Chef Pass into Lake Pontchartrain.
“The tide had switched to incoming, and there were just rafts of shrimp, birds and fish all where Chef Pass dumped into the lake.
“We pulled up on one small flock of birds, away from the huge flocks that most of the boats were chasing. We were able to spot-lock right there and catch a limit of trout, having only had six or eight fish in the boat before that. Every fish was throwing up shrimp or had whiskers sticking out of its throat.
“You’d see shrimp popping and then a swirl right after it. You couldn’t see the trout, but it was obvious that’s what it was.”
It’s important for anglers to stay observant to put themselves in the best position for success, Bowles says. Although the traditional autumn pattern is to target the mouths of major bayous that drain water from the marsh, he found the fish on a rising tide because that put the lake down-current of the pass.
“You usually have really deep water in the major bayous and passes, and then it hits that shelf where it spreads out into a lake or bay, and the lake may be 5 to 10 feet deep, and that takes those shrimp that were in that channel and forces them up,” he says. “That’s where the fish wait to ambush them.”
And, consequently, that’s where anglers wait to ambush the fish.
No Need for Bait
Productive lures include soft-plastic paddle tails (Matrix Shad, Saltwater Assassin, H&H Cocahoe) threaded on 1/8- or 1/4-ounce jig heads; jerkbaits (Scope Stik, MirrOlip, Rerange); and topwater plugs (Pop-R, Matrix Mullet, She Dog). Probably the most consistent producer is a shrimp imitation (Power Prawn, DOA, Marker 54) suspended a couple of feet down in the water column by a cork.
When the school is thick and super frenzied, every cast will result in a takedown. But most times, when the fish are a bit more scattered, wise anglers wait with bails flipped and make accurate casts whenever they see a shrimp jump. Usually, the cork won’t float for more than a couple of seconds.
This autumn migration of white shrimp in the coastal wetlands of south Louisiana is the surest thing in fishing. After a long, hot, miserable summer, it’s God’s gift to anglers who like action more than a challenge.
Top Lures for Fishing the Gulf’s White Shrimp Fall Migration
- Matrix Shad
- Saltwater Assassin
- H&H Cocahoe
- Pop-R
- Matrix Mullet
- She Dog
- Power Prawn
- DOA
- Marker 54
