FISHIN W/ TRAPPER JOE

Below are pictures and the January Marsh and Bayou cover story from a day of fishing with Trapper Joe Lafont, star of the hit History Channel show, "Swamp People" in Hopedale, LA. with Capt Britt Ordes and The Big Outdoors Charters. And what an absolutely incredible trip it was. There are pictures both before and after the article. Enjoy!



First casts of the morning and Ray and Trapper Joe Lafont had a double of Speckled Trout!



Showin that FishLove!



Capt Britt had Ray and Trapper Joe on the trout from the get-go!



Trapper Joe and Capt Britt Ordes of The Big Outdoors Charters in Hopedale, LA. with a big fat beautiful winter-time Speckled Trout! Capt Britt wasnt kidding when he said he goes FISH CATCHIN! Man he knows how to fish that beautiful marsh, man!

Below is the full version of the January 2012 Marsh and Bayou Magazine cover story of this trip. Scroll down after reading for more pictures from this incredible trip of a lifetime with Ray, Trapper Joe and Capt Britt!

Winter Fishing Bonanza in the Hopedale Marsh with Capt. Britt Ordes and “Swamp People’s” Trapper Joe! 

By

Ray Huntz

 

Just because it’s winter and it’s windy certainly doesn’t mean the fish aren’t biting in the marshes of SE Louisiana! Just take a trip with Capt. Britt Ordes and The Big Outdoors Charters in Hopedale and you will see the fishing can be as hot in winter as in summer! That’s exactly what Trapper Joe Lafont, star of History Channel’s “Swamp People”, and I did on a recent chilly and windy December day! Capt. Britt did not disappoint!

Trapper Joe is known for hunting gators near Myrtle Grove with his step-son Tommy on History Channel’s “Swamp People”. The wildly popular show (Averaging 5 million viewers a week) follows a group of Louisiana gator hunters during the September gator season. Trapper Joe comes from a long line of Cajuns and gator hunters. He is legendary for his cooking and the “secret sauce” that he pours on his gator baits. His biggest gator? Fourteen feet six inches. Think about that for a minute and imagine just how big that baby was.  

We met at Capt. Britt’s boat slip on Hopedale Hwy deep in South St. Bernard. A thick fog enveloped the area. It was in the upper 40’s and windy, as well. We waited til first light to head out, due to the heavy fog. Our first spot was in a channel not two minutes from the marina. It was a thin bayou connecting two open bodies of water.

Capt. Britt explained why we were there, “this time of year the wind can get up and it is definitely colder but I love it because the Speckled Trout are in the marsh…it doesn’t really matter to me if it’s windy; I just find a spot like this where I can get out of the wind. I call it hiding in the bayou.  The fish are here in the deeper water and as the air temperature warms up, they will move towards the shallower water, which warms up quicker.  While it’s cold, the trout get down on the bottom and in the mud for warmth. They are a lot more susceptible to the water temperature than the Redfish are…they kind of shut down if the water gets too cold while the Redfish will keep eating. We are fishing the edge of some deeper water, on a small oyster reef, with a good tide coming through. So we have a falling tide and it acts like a funnel system for these trout…it flushes them out into the canals and deep holes. We also have very clean water this time of year. And we still have a lot of shrimp moving through here…that’s what the fish are eating so that’s what we are giving them.”

We were fishing live shrimp with seventeen pound test on a Carolina rig with a #8 treble hook (Capt. Britt: “I like to use the treble hooks because you hook more fish with them…you don’t lose as many…they kind of hook themselves”). The weight was light, 3/8 of an ounce, even though we did have a little current moving through.

The fog was so thick, the air was wet. But that didn’t seem to bother the fish one bit. Capt. Britt Had put us right on the fish! Trapper Joe,  Capt. Britt and I all had fat, keeper Trout on our lines after our first casts. For an hour and a half we caught fat Trout after fat Trout. As long as we had current, the fish were biting. As the sun started burning through the fog, the tide slacked and the fish slowed down. It was time to move!

We pulled up to a bank in Lake Amadee. The sun was shining and it was quickly warming up.

The wind laid off and we started throwing a cork with a 3/8 ounce jig head and a chartreuse curly tail jig.

I asked Capt. Britt why we had moved. “The sun is up and the water is warming up. We’re looking for oyster reefs…they warm up quickest and that gets the nice Trout eating. We will just drift these banks looking for schools of Trout. When we find fish, we drop the anchor until it slows down. The fish love these jigs this time of year down here. They will just tear it up. And in the winter, I like to use a more subtle approach by using a clip on cork instead of a poppin cork. I use a 3/8 ounce weight and #8 treble hook suspended about a foot and a half below the cork, for live shrimp, too, in these situations.”

By this point in the day, we had caught half of our limit for Trout, as well as a few Largemouth Bass and even a big fat Bream.  The tide started coming back in so Capt. Britt decided another move was in order. I looked back at Trapper Joe as we started to move and the huge smile on his face told the story of the day!

The next spot was a no name spot that Capt. Britt said people don’t really fish. But he liked to fish it…and for good reason! It was a cut going out of a lake, with the current boogying around the point.

Capt. Britt told us what was unique about this spot, “we have a deep channel coming in…maybe 15 feet deep, and it’s got a big oyster shelf running along the drop off. On the shelf it’s maybe two feet deep. As it’s warming up, the big Trout come in here, get aggressive and feed. They just suck up anything in their way. The Trout run bigger because this time of year they are more mature than in the summer, averaging a year to a year and a half. In the summer you get a lot of the fish that have recently hatched. This is just a special area with the Gulf and the river diversions. Hopedale has kind of been a secret that is just now getting out.”

We switched back to the live shrimp/cork rigs and started to hammer the Trout, yet again. Capt. Britt, Trapper Joe and I all pulled in Trout that were very fat and very pretty…we had numerous fish weighing between two and four pounds! We also started casting to the point and letting our shrimp ride the current around and we started catching the Redfish! One side of the boat were Trout…BIG Trout running up to four pounds. On the other side of the boat were the Redfish. The best of both worlds! This happens often in Hopedale!

By this time, the temperature had warmed up to about 70 degrees and the fish were going crazy! We had only fished 3 or 4 spots, none more than fifteen minutes from the marina, and Trapper Joe and I had our limits of Trout. Now we were just throwing fish back. We started to concentrate on the point and pulled in a few Redfish and a couple of Black Drum.

Capt. Britt wanted to try one or two more spots to try to get a few more Redfish. This was marsh fishing 101…just find the Reds cruising the banks and gobbling up any food they see or smell. We continued using the cork/live shrimp rigs and continued catching fish…Redfish and Trout. It was amazing how well Capt. Britt was getting us on the fish. But not too many people know the Hopedale area better than Britt. He has spent his life fishing and hunting there and knows every nook and cranny.

A little after lunch Capt. Britt called it a day. We had a lot of fish to clean before heading home.

I had been trying to get Trapper Joe over to Hopedale to fish for a few months.

According to Trapper Joe, “Ray kept telling me to come fish Hopedale…and I’d ask him about the fishing and he would say that it’s incredible…lots of big Trout. And he was right! We have put it on the fish today! It’s my first time in Hopedale with Ray and Capt. Britt…but it definitely won’t be my last! Absolutely incredible day!”

To see more of Trapper Joe and the rest of the “Swamp People”, tune in to the History Channel on Thursday nights. Right now the show is a lead-in for “Big Shrimpin”. The new season starts in March 2012. You can also find out more about Trapper Joe by visiting “The Swamp” at www.trapperjoeandtriggertommy.com. There you can see Trapper Joe and Trigger Tommy’s bios and find all kinds of neat stuff like t-shirts, hats, visors, coozies and autographed pictures!

To book a trip with Capt. Britt Ordes and The Big Outdoors Charters go to www.lafishin.com or Call Britt at 985-259-1801. Capt. Britt offers everything…fishing, duck hunting and lodging. Everything he does is first class, from his tackle and bait to his boat to his duck blinds to his lodging. You won’t find a captain who will work harder for you…it’s a guaranteed trip of a lifetime! As Capt. Britt says: “In Hopedale we don’t go fishing, we go fish catching!”

Ray Huntz is the host of “Ray Huntz: Marsh Whisperer” and lives to promote Louisiana tourism, Louisiana seafood, the Louisiana marshes and Gulf and the amazing charter captains that work there. To find out more about Ray, go to www.rayhuntz.com.

SIDEBAR:

Tackle and Bait: Medium spinning tackle with 17 pound test and 30 pound leader. The presentation varied. We used a Carolina rig to start with a #8 treble hook and a 3/8 ounce slip weight, fishing on the bottom with live shrimp. As it warmed up we alternated between a chartreuse curly tail jig on a 3/8 ounce jig head under a clip on cork to a #8 treble with a 3/8 ounce weight suspended about a foot and half below a cork with a live shrimp. To end the day, we fished with the cork/treble hook/live shrimp rig.

 

 

Double the Trouble for the Trout!



The sun burned through the fog, the temperature hit 70 degrees...Mother Nature, the Hopedale marshes, Capt Britt Ordes and the good karma of Marsh and Bayou Magazine made for a trip of a lifetime kind of day! The same kind of day YOU can have if you give Capt Britt a call!!!



Speckled Trout doing his best to not end up in the fish box! He joined his many other brethren in da box!!!



Capt Britt Ordes with yet another gorgeous and fat winter time Speckled Trout...it was one after another ALL DAY LONG...and what a beautiful backdrop of a clear blue sky. The SE Louisiana marshes are one of the most beautiful places on the planet...and most fishingly fertile!!!



SE Louisiana...and Hopedale especially...is one of the best kept secrets in the world! World class Speckled Trout and Redfishing...absolutely mind boggling and reel screaming numbers of fish, man!!! This was the first redfish of the day, caught by Trapper Joe...who is absolutely as good a fisherman as he is a gator hunter!!! That man can catch some fish, let me tell you! One helluva nice guy, too...great new fishing buddy for Ray!!!



Capt Britt and Trapper Joe with Joe's first Red of the day! A beautiful fish that is about the average size Red that you can spend all day catchin in Hopedale...amazing the sheer number of these fish in that marsh...best fishing in the world!!!



Trapper Joe with another fat winter time Speckled Trout! Capt Britt kept taking them to spots where it was, literally, one fish after another...and as the day went on, the Trout got bigger!!!



Capt Britt Ordes with a really big and beautiful Trout and a great example of the quality fish we were catching...Britt had the fellas on so many fish that after they had their limits in the box, they caught and released what would have amounted to another limit of Trout for everyone! Capt Britt is THE MAN when it comes to fishin those marshes!!!



Trapper Joe brought his Salt-N-Pepper good karma, along with a little of Trigger Tommy's Shake-N-Bake and his famous secret sauce...it all made for one heck of a trip of a lifetime kinda day!



Another fat beautiful winter time Trout and the smile on Trapper Joe Lafont's face tell the story of the day!!!



Another fish on and another smile on Trapper Joe's face!



Trapper Joe, Capt Britt and "Ray Huntz: Marsh Whisperer" cameraman, Jesse Quirk, with Trapper Joe's nice Black Drum and Jesse's beautifully colored Redfish!



So many fish they were jumpin into the boat!



Capt Britt with the last fish of the day...a big beautiful Redfish! What a trip...Capt Britt knows how to show his clients a phenomenally good time. Call him! Now! And you, too, can have a day like this!



A full cleaning table and some very, VERY happy fishermen! Thanks again, Capt Britt and Trapper Joe for taking part in such a wonderful trip!



A whole lotta fish cleanin going on!



Fresh Speckled Trout! Hook em and cook em, baby!