Freshwater Fishing
You gotta have an attitude to clean a turtle
Before Dirk Matherne sits down to clean turtles, he has to dispatch them. For this, he uses a .22 pistol, placing each shot neatly through the top of the head.[…]
Sidebars
Offshore Fishing
All about banks
For most offshore-fishing Louisianans, the existence of hard rock banks off their coast is unknown except for the one commonly called the “Midnight Lump.”[…]
Inshore Fishing
Tippets
The Fly Division of the CCA STAR tournament is off to a great start, with a number of big fish weighed in. And while late summer is perhaps the toughest time to catch big trout on the fly, that doesn’t mean you can’t still be a winner.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
Louisiana’s turtles
Louisiana has 25, maybe 26 species of turtles within its borders or along its coastline. Not all of these are targets for freshwater turtle fishermen.[…]
Offshore Fishing
Offshore bag and size limits
One of the things Tommy Pellegrin likes about fishing for his Cocodrie exotics, besides the variety, are the relatively liberal bag limits for the fish he catches.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
What’s legal as a turtle trap?
According to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division, the definition of a turtle trap is quite liberal, essentially calling it any device used to catch turtles.[…]
Offshore Fishing
Rigging up for offshore bank fishing
Pellegrin’s offshore bottom rig is very simple. His reels are spooled with either 60-pound-test monofilament or 65-pound-test braided line.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
The feast
“This is plain, old pot-frying, not turtle soup like at those French Quarter tourist restaurants,” Dirk Matherne said wryly. “Of course, ours has turtles in it. I don’t know if those restaurants even have any turtle in their soup.[…]
General
Marshall’s early years
Bob Marshall grew up in what is now called “Old Metairie,” a suburb of New Orleans.[…]
Freshwater Fishing
How to make a turtle trap
Dirk Matherne’s turtle trap is simple in construction, requiring nothing more than 2-inch-by-4-inch animal wire fencing material and hog rings to hold it together.[…]
General
The making of a journalist
Bob Marshall almost became an optometrist. At a career day at his high school, a young optometrist spoke to the seniors. […]
Inshore Fishing
Spoons for any fishing situation
Jason Shilling and Gerald Roy couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me when I told them I wasn’t a big fan of fishing spoons for redfish.[…]
General
Outspoken Journalist
Bob Marshall has never been professionally bashful. Some loved him for it; some, well, didn’t love him so much for it.[…]
Inshore Fishing
Harvey Cut holds big summertime redfish
Even though we had a limit of redfish in Jason Shilling’s boat, my son Matthew still wanted something more pulling on his line.[…]
General
Bob Marshall and politics
Probably nothing that Bob Marshall did could make people pull the hair out their heads more than his coverage of political issues. I decided to take the bull by the horns and just asked him, “Bob, what about you and left wing politics?”[…]
Inshore Fishing
Dehydration a lurking summertime danger
Capt. Jason Shilling with New Orleans Style Fishing Charters cautioned that anglers should not dismiss the heat with a hot-headed attitude that they’ll do anything to catch the fish.[…]