It's a little early, but speckled trout have already shown up on Lake Pontchartrain Trestles

Trestles male speckled trout
The females have not yet moved onto the Trestles, but some of the males can get pretty big. Capt. Kris Robert caught this one during a Thursday trip to the bridge. (Photo by Todd Masson, | The Times-Picayune) (Photo by Todd Masson)
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on March 22, 2013 at 9:40 AM, updated March 22, 2013 at 9:59 AM

Like an expectant mother, Capt. Kris Robert has been waiting nine months for this moment, and it's finally here. The speckled trout are back on the bridges of eastern Lake Pontchartrain.

Late last June, after Tropical Storm Debby and other lesser winds ruined the final month of the spring run, Robert looked forward to the autumn return of specks on the bridges.

He had lots to keep him entertained in the interim, including a decent Rigolets bite and a short run of monstrous trout at Treasure Isle, but there's just something about the bridge bite that grips the hearts of all Pontchartrain regulars.

All Robert needed was to get through the oppressively suffocating heat of South Louisiana summer, and he'd again get to toss 3/8-ounce jigs at his beloved bridge pilings.

Which he did. But the specks weren't there.

Blame it on Hurricane Isaac pushing salt water, bait and fish into the western part of the lake or on high runoff from the Pearl River flooding the bridges with fresh water or on too much pressure in the east. Count your culprits. Pick your poison. Whatever the reason, the trout simply didn't show up.

Robert bided his time, finding fish in other areas, hoping all along they'd remember that they're supposed to move to the bridges in the spring.

And they have. In spades.

Robert first found the fish during a quick run to the Trestles on Monday.

"We were at the (Louisiana Sportsman Show) this weekend, and it was sunny," Robert said. "It got hot at one point. We were all in shorts. I told (Dockside Bait & Tackle owner Chas Champagne), 'Don't be surprised if, when we get back, somebody caught a limit of fish on the bridge.'

"We ran into a couple of trollers, and they all had caught their limits on the bridge. So we had a good day Monday. It got flat calm and went to 80 degrees. We went out, and sure enough, it was on."

Robert followed that up with a spectacular trip Thursday afternoon. The wind was howling out of the east-southeast, which scared most anglers off the lake, but it was exactly what Robert was hoping for.

"That southeast wind pushes clean water and bait through here," he said. "I've seen it too many times in the spring: The harder that southeast wind gets, the better the fishing gets."

That's true, Robert explained, almost exclusively along the southern portion of the Trestles. That area of the bridge is protected on a southeast wind by a spit of land that sticks out where Interstate-10 meets the lake on the south shore.

The water in that area is calmer and tends to stay cleaner, Robert said.

When Robert first arrived at the bridge around 2 p.m. Thursday, the tide was as dead as Michael Jackson (too soon?). The wind pushed a slight current through the bridge, but it wasn't what Robert was hoping for.

He made his first pass from the test pile toward the rocks at the foot of the bridge, and picked up only two keeper fish.

"That tide's going to start rolling through here pretty soon, and they're going to turn on," Robert said.

He couldn't have been more correct. An hour of slow fishing later, eddies began showing up on the west side of each bridge piling, particularly those close to the south shore, and the fish decided they just couldn't stand to let anything that looked like a crippled baitfish pass in front of them.

Robert began picking them off with regularity. Most of the fish were of the size you might find in any marsh region right now, but Robert boated two that were each over 3 pounds. After a long, chilly, windy winter of slow fishing, the fish looked like 8-pounders.

"Right now, it's mostly going to be male trout. The male trout will move in first," Robert said. "They'll be 12 inches all the way up to 19 inches on average, but you'll run into some males that are 5 pounds.

"April is when the big females will move in and start spawning."

The Trestles is an extremely popular destination for Southeast Louisiana anglers, particularly when the fishing is as good as it is now, but it's confounded more anglers than it's delivered limits to. The bridge is 5 miles of nuance and enigma. It changes patterns like Taylor Swift changes boyfriends. If you don't read the water and listen to what it's telling you, you'll swear the place is as fishless as a swimming pool and you're the victim of some cruel hoax.

Trestles regulars like Robert are really just saltwater bass fishermen. They pay close attention to where each fish is located when it bites, and they piece together clues to form a pattern.

Most days, when the tide is pushing through the bridge, the fish will be close to the pilings. But Robert could only get a few bites there on Thursday, so he started casting between the pilings, and sure enough, that's where the fish were.

Also, on Monday's trip, Robert caught his fish on ultraviolet-colored Matrix Shads, but on Thursday, the fish laughed at the ultraviolet. The midnight mullet color, however, looked like filet mignon.

Robert didn't try to force the fish to do what they normally do. He went with what they were telling him they wanted.

There are some basics, however, that anglers should keep in mind whenever fishing the Trestles.

"Normally what we'll do is get on the downcurrent side of the bridge, especially when that east wind is blowing," Robert said. "Those fish will usually hold tight to the bridge. Make a cast to the piling and let it fall, always watching your line because a lot of times that bite will happen on the fall.

"Give it a couple pops and let it settle, always watching your line. It's almost like fishing a jig-n-pig, only a bit faster, a little bit harder. I let the line ride my finger so I can feel that initial little tug. Once that happens, set the hook. I always say, 'When in doubt, set the hook.' A hookset is free."

Speckled trout make big move to Lake Pontchartrain Trestles It's a little early in the season, but the speckled trout have shown up en masse on the Lake Pontchartrain Trestles.

Be sure to check out the accompanying video to see exactly how Robert fishes the bridge.

Selecting the right gear is also important, Robert said.

"Right now, we're early in the season, so I'm throwing a 6-foot, 9-inch medium-action rod with a Shimano Curado 7:1 gear-ratio reel," he said. "You need something fast because a lot of times, you'll set the hook in those fish, and they'll run straight at you. You've got to have something that's going to be fast enough to catch up with them.

"Right now I'm using 14-pound mono. The fish when they first come in aren't that big, so you can get away with 14-pound-test. Come mid-April and May, when those big girls move in, you're probably going to want to switch to 17-pound mono or fluorocarbon because you're going to have to have something to horse them out of the pilings."

During Thursday's trip to the Trestles, only three other boats worked the bridge, but once word gets out that the fish are there, it'll get crowded. Anglers who want to assure their success need to get there early or stay late, Robert advised.

"Early in the morning, that first drift is the most-important drift," he said. "It's good to get out here early because there will be a ton of boats. That first or second drift, the fish are going to bite, and then with all that pressure, they're going to move off. They'll move out away from the bridge.

"You might get 15 fish on your first pass, and then seven or eight on your second, then maybe three or four every pass after that. The fish can't handle all that boat pressure."

As such, weekdays are generally better than weekends, and windy days are better than calm days -- provided you have a boat that can handle big seas.

Whitecaps buffeted Robert's boat all the way back to Dockside late Thursday afternoon, but he didn't mind the bumpy ride one bit. He had 22 specks swimming in his livewell, and a smile on his face.

The fish are back on the Trestles.