Although the calendar shows that the trout and redfish should have invaded the Mississippi River at Venice, that hasn’t exactly been the case according to Captain Owen Langridge with Big O Charters (225-978-1136). “The fish are biting,” he said, “but it’s almost like mid-summer.”

As for where to go, Langridge says it’s hard to pick a bad spot right now. From the east to the west, trout and redfish are biting from California Point to Sandy Point and Empire. Just last weekend, Langridge says he limited out on the east side out of Baptiste Collette.

“The trout are showing up in the inner bays like Ostrica, Scoffield and Yellow Cotton,” Langridge added. “Yellow Cotton Bay will continue to get better as long as the river stays up because all the freshwater from Red Pass pushes in the trout.

Langridge says live bait has been producing very well on the trout, but he’s also been getting plenty speckled trout bites on his regular green Halo shrimp or pink DOAs.

“As for the reds, I had my annual trip with former directors of the Boy Scouts of America the last few days,’ Langridge continued. “They come down here from all over the country, and all they want to do is catch reds... the bigger the better.”

Different tides had Langridge bouncing around from hole to hole, but he was able to help these guys find and land around 80 bull reds over the course of the three days with limits of “keeper” sized reds every day.

“We found some of the bulls feeding on the trout,” Langridge said. “In fact, if we didn’t catch the bull reds, we landed several nice trout. Sometimes the reds would take the trout away from us. The redfish are so thick downriver, you can throw just about anything you want to right now and hold on.”