Lake Pontchartrain Train Bridge Continues to Produce Trophy Trout
Keith Lusher 04.20.23
Lake Pontchartrain has always been known for producing trophy trout. In fact, three of the top ten largest speckled trout on record have been pulled from Pontchartrain. Of those, all of them were over ten pounds.
Mike Gallo has been fishing the 5-mile train bridge, that connects the South Shore to the North Shore, for over two decades and said the size of the fish has dwindled in the last few years. However, on his latest trip, Gallo was able to reel in a fish reminiscent of the good ole days when he was able to catch at least one trophy trout every year.
Gallo recently was fishing the train bridge and decided to do some drift fishing “We had fairly moderate winds and we were drifting the train bridge with the wind to our back,” he said. Gallo was fishing the bridge at the halfway mark between mid-lake and the South Shore of New Orleans. “Earlier in the week we caught some nice speckled trout at the bridge,” Gallo said. “When I cleaned them I noticed several of the bigger trout had pogies (Menhaden) in their stomachs.” Gallo decided to tie on the closet thing to a pogie that he had in his tackle box – A Matrix Shad Minnow in the “Glow” color.
The charter captain said it was like any other day fishing the bridge. “It was just your standard bouncing plastics off the bottom – nothing special at all,” he said. Gallo set the hook on the fish and it came straight to the surface. He admits that he didn’t think the fish was anything special until it made a hard dive. “When it got close to the boat, it made a run and pulled some drag. Then, as it came close I got a better look at it and thought, ‘Maybe it might be a good idea to get the net out,” he said. After getting it into the net, he weighed the fish and the scale displayed a weight of 6.6 pounds. “It was a thick fish with really broad shoulders and it was fat,” he said. “It’s been several years since I’ve caught one that big,” He said.
Gallo recommends fishing the bridge around the full moon if you want to try for some big specks. “Some of my biggest trout have always come around the full moon in April,” he said.
As far as the future of trophy trout in the lake, the water is steadily improving and the salinity levels are on the rise. The Bonnet Carre’ Spillway that drains water from the Mississippi River when river levels top 17 feet, hasn’t been opened in over five years. Gallo said he hopes things will continue to improve as far as catching trophy trout in Lake Pontchartrain and this fish is a great sign that they are!
