On May 1st, Mark and I set our sights on fishing the train trestle on the east side on Lake Pontchartrain. We were looking to catch a couple limits of speckles trout. We had read numerous reports of the anglers slaughtering the trout. We hit the road a little earlier than normal because we expected a lot of boats on the trestle. 30 minutes from the boat launch, we received a call from Steve. He and his buddy Ricky decided to join us on the water. We gave them the locations we planned to fish so we could have a meeting place once they made it to the lake. As we pulled up to the boat launch, our suspicion was correct. There was a line of fisherman waiting to launch their boat. We got in line and started readying the boat so not to slow down the launching process. As I released the rear straps on the boat, I noticed the motor support bracket attached to the bottom of the trailer used to support the motor during transit had broken. The support rod was dragging the ground. I was relieved it didn’t cause any damage to my motor. One disaster adverted. So, we proceeded to launch the boat and start fishing. There were more fishing boats in one location than I ever seen. Then, I noticed the 5-10mph wind forecast was more like 15mph. The water was rough, but not rough enough to turn us around. Besides, there were more than 75 boats braving the waves. There was also a strong moving tide. We had to weave our way though the cluster of boats. We settled on a spot and eased the boat between two others. We deployed the trolling motor and tried fighting the wave and tide.
We started casting toward the trestle. After a few casts to locate the fish, we started catching specks, intermittently. After about 10 fish in the boat, the bite slowed. Then, I hooked a massive fish. Immediately, we knew I had a drum on the line. I fought the fish for almost 10 minutes before I got a glimpse of it. Sure enough, it was a black drum. After landing the fish, I weighed it, took a picture of it, and released it. It weighed ~22lbs. See the picture below. While it wasn’t a fish we usually kept, it was fun fighting it, especially after my long fishing hiatus.
Black Drum
About ten minutes later, I hooked another one. The fight was on, again. This time the fish weighed 29 lbs. Also, I actually hooked the fish in the right eye. I guess the fish took too close of a look at the bait it was intending on eating.
Eye Hook
Fish on the scale
After a couple of hours, we decided the give up on trying to use my trolling motor to overcome the wind and tide in the rough water. So, we had to tie the boat to the train trestle. While this kept the boat in one stop, it prevented the boat from rolling with the waves, resulting in waves coming over the bow of the boat. There were gallons of water entering the boat. The bilge pump was working overtime. We continued to fish. We were still catching fish.
Around 1:00, we decided to call it a day. We packed up our gear. Then, we went looking for Steve and Ricky. As we were pulling up to Rick’s boat. They noticed steam coming from my motor. This wasn’t a good sign. My water pump was going bad. So we decided to head straight back to the landing as quick as possible. We took off. Short after that, my motor’s overheating alarm went off. I shut my motor down, immediately. We contemplated on the best way to get my boat back to the launch. Towing my boat back was the safest option, however we were a long way from the launch and the lake was still rough. Ricky decided to do a little mechanical diagnosis. Not only was the water pump going bad, the thermostats were bad as well. He removed the thermostats not to restrict the water flow into the engine and allow my fading water pump to cool the engine. As long as the engine was above idle, my water pump was doing its job. So, we started back to the landing. We made the trip without incident, until we entered the no wake zone. Soon after I slowed the boat to idle, my motor’s overheating alarm went off, again. I had to shut off the engine. This time, we were only about 100 yards from the landing. Ricky towed me the rest of the way. After letting the motor cool for sometime, I started it for a short period of time just long enough to get the boat back on the trailer.
The entire time during this ordeal, I was thinking about what “BOAT” stands for, Bring On Another Thousand. I figured I was going to have to put my boat in the shop to get the water pump repaired and the thermostats replaced. Ricky convinced me that changing the water pump was a routine task and a definitely a do it yourself job. He told me there were very good tutorials on You Tube. You Tube is your friend.
On the down side, I now have to fix my motor support, replace my motor’s thermostats, and change the water pump. On the upside, we ended the day with a nice haul. We caught 37 nice Specks and 2 large flounders.
The fish box shot
