Shell Beach - Fort Proctor

[Domo]

Anyone ever fished Fort Proctor? My idea is to launch at the end of hwy 46 and paddle out to the fort. A south wind shouldn't be a big deal in that spot. I figure the fish may move around there as weather warms since their is rocks and beach close together. What you'll think?

[ReelThrill]

When you planning on heading out there. Wanted to try that are myself.

[LuvDaTigers]

not a bad paddle. combat launch isn't too bad either.
you can find reds between the rocks and the marsh on the other side of the MRGO. Trout can be found along Lake Borgne shoreline. Not sure if the trout are showing up there yet this year. Haven't been since last year. Last time I was out there they were armoring the shoreline of lake borgne and had the water all messed up. Bayou leading out to Lake Borgne has a couple of sharp turns, i tend to stay close to the shore and keep an eye out for boat traffic, they don't seem to be looking for you.

[ReelThrill]

Boater look out for kayakers? If only we lived in a world so nice.

[Domo]

Hey ReelThrill, I wasn't planning on going out there real soon or anything. I just had been looking at the map of the areaand thought it looked like a promising area. I did get a word of caution from Capt. Frank Moore and that is to becareful with the tides. He said that the tides will really roll hard through the cut out to the fort making the paddle difficult.

[snake doctor]

Been watching this spot too. No reports yet on RodnReel.com or in the newspaper on many fish being caught there. Capt. Frank Moore is mainly getting lots of reds with a few specks thrown in. Usually his style is to get limits of specks first and then he goes on to play with redfish. The specks are not being caught there in abundance just yet. This could change any day though.

[Where Y'ak?]

Frank's been fishing out in Breton Sound-waaaaay too for to yak. I haven't seen any good reports from that area lately. This area had large rock projects and dredging done on the shoreline and hasn't been the same for the last few years. We fished Sunday out of a boat and caught one red on the east shore of Lake Borgne by the reef. This is definitely one of the areas that has been affected by the MRGO dam(s). I went in a pond off of Bayou Malo that I've fished for the last 10 years. It's always a sure shot for reds. I was just there at the end of February. We didn't catch anything then, but things were slow after all the freezes. However, the pond looked like normal.

Sunday we went to the same pond. At first it looked like it had algae on the water as from a distance the whole pond was green as a lawn. When we got in the pond, it is completely filled with some type of grass that I have never seen in the area. The grass kept the water clean, but you could barely get through it with the troll motor. Never spotted a single red from the platform. However, we came upon several schools of HUGE gars. I'm talking 5-6 foot and as big around as a basketball. We let the wind blow us through the grass and we could get right next to them. We're going to try and make a bow trip there as soon as we can. It should be a blast.

That being said, I 'm concerned that the grass and gars may be a sign of too fresh of water and/or too low oxygen to hold reds, etc. I've been seeing many changes in tidal flow, etc. in this area since the dam was completed. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for this area.

[who-yak]

Is it the meat just under the skin, or is it the meat closer to the bone that is better on a gar. Seriously, I remember as a kid an old neighbor showing me how to clean and make gar balls for frying and he said there was a difference. Hell, all my family was doing back then was eating those nasty old copper colored fish with the black spots on their tails which we kept only when we couldn't catch enough specks for a fish fry. So maybe B-B-Q gar on the halfshell isn't far off.