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All Eyes on September as Shad Transition Begins
September is a month eagerly anticipated by many in South Louisiana for several reasons. It brings the return of quieter homes as kids head back to school, and it signals the beginning of football season. But perhaps the most exciting part of September is the arrival of the first cold front of the season.
For Chris Basey of Covington, however, September holds a special significance.
“This is the month when the shad start moving back into those small cuts and canals off the main river,” he explains, referring to Bayou Bonfouca. Basey spends the year targeting the rivers and bayous on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain. September gives him the opportunity to transition from the main river to shallower waters.
“Oh man, I love this tim of year!” he says. “When the baitfish start piling into the cuts, I know the bass won’t be far behind.”
On his latest trip to Bayou Bonfouca in Slidell, LA, Basey ventured into a canal near Palm Bayou. The shoreline was lush with vegetation, and the surface teemed with activity.
“I knew it was going to be a great thrip when I entered that canal. Not a second went by that I didn’t see shad skipping or wakes being thrown,” he recalls.
It was early in the morning, and Basey reached for his rod with a frog lure tied on.
“I love to start the day with a frog,” he says. “I usually catch my heaviest fish during the early morning hours using a hollow-body frog.”
After spotting a disturbance between some lilies and the marsh line, he cast the frog onto the shoreline and worked it into the water.
“is was a line of salvinia grass that I threw into. I saw a wake push towards the bait and the fish exploded on it,” he recounts.
Basey waited a moment before setting the hook, then the battle began.
“All I kept thinking was, ‘Please don’t come off, please don’t come off,’” he says. Carefully, he maneuvered the fish through the lilies and eventually boat-flipped it. He kicked off his day with a five-pound bass and went on to catch several more in the two to four-pound range.
While Basey starts his morning with a frog along the shoreline, he soon switches to a spinnerbait. His go-to is a 3/8-ounce white spinnerbait with an Indiana blade, adjusting the blade color based on the water.
“When the water’s stained like a root beer color, I’ll use a gold blade,” he says. “When the water is clean, I switch over to silver.”
Basey ties his spinnerbait onto a 7-foot medium rod with a moderate tip, allowing the bass to fully take the fast-moving bait without it being pulled out prematurely. “There’s a ton of forgiveness in that rod, which helps land more fish when I use a spinnerbait,” he said.
From the northernmost point where Bonfouca begins to the southernmost section where it empties into Lake Pontchartrain, there are 44 canals that provide anglers with an escape from the main bayou. Finding a canal to fish isn’t difficult. When choosing where to cast, Basey offers a few pointers.
“Look for canals with plenty of grass along the shoreline,” he advises. “Also, pay attention to wharfs, bulkheads, and other structures that break up the shoreline.”
Basey typically starts at the mouth of the canal where it meets the main bayou and works his way back. The farther the canal extends, the better, he says. He explores the entire length, establishing a pattern that guides him to fish in other canals.
With shad starting to move into the cuts this month, you can expect them to remain there through winter, until they head out again after the spring spawn.
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