Squirrel king overthrows former champ

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Beating the drums
Lagniappe is something few anglers count on these days, but David Olinde and J.B. Esnard got that little something extra Friday.

Olinde’s passion is hunting speckled trout and ducks — Esnard only fishes because it’s not duck season — and both have about one more month to wait for the ducks.

For Olinde, trout was on his schedule, until the trout bite turned off.

“We went through the Ostrica Locks and we found lots of dirty water pouring through the locks,” Esnard said.

Heading through Quarantine Bay into California Bay, they found specks, some hefty ones at oil platforms, but had precious little time to do it.

“The muddy water (from hard-falling Mississippi River) caught up to our spot and the trout turned off,” Esnard said. “So we ran to another spot, a point near California Bay.”

Redfish was the target, and the crew found reds and the bonus of schools of “keeper” black drum 17-to-22 inches long.

Redfish and drum carry the same creel and size limits — a minimum of 16 inches long with only fish allowed measuring more than 27 inches long along the five-fish-per-man daily limit.

A handful of anglers working the east side of the Mississippi River called in with the same “puppy” drum report.

“We could have stayed there all day and caught fish all day. That’s how thick the drum were in that spot,” Esnard said after taking home nearly 40 trout and the redfish-drum limits.

Farther north in the system, Dudley Vandenborre said the Pontchartrain-Lake Borgne area is loaded with trout and reds. Drum are around the rigs, too, and sheepshead showed up in big numbers last week.

What’s more, folks in the Biloxi Marsh area south to Hopedale are finding more and more flounder in their daily catches.

Big-money reds
The Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup Championship brings the top regular-season teams to D’Iberville, Miss., starting Friday to compete for the $50,000 first-place prize. Final weigh-in is set Sunday.