Winter Fishing in the Louisiana Marshes: Trout, Reds, and More on the Falling Tide

This is Artificial Lure with your Gulf of Mexico New Orleans fishing report. We’re sitting on a mild south breeze and a partly cloudy sky across the lower Mississippi and Breton Sound. Southwest Pass and the mouth of the river are running low 70s for highs with mid‑60s overnight, according to the National Weather Service marine forecast. Winds are light enough to get outside the rocks, but there’s just enough chop you’ll want a bay boat or better if you’re running out of Venice or Empire. NOAA’s tide station at Southwest Pass and Tides4Fishing’s New Canal Station tables line up on a **small winter tide swing**: a pre‑dawn high, mid‑day low, and an afternoon rise. That means your best window is that **late‑morning falling tide into early afternoon** when water is moving out of the marsh drains. Sunrise over Lake Pontchartrain is right around 7:05, with sunset just after 5:20, giving you a tight winter daylight bite. Solunar tables for southeast Louisiana show the stronger activity pegged around the afternoon tide change and again just before dark. Inshore, reports coming into Louisiana Sportsman and local marinas from Hopedale, Shell Beach, and Delacroix have **speckled trout** still stacked in the deeper winter holes and along the outside edges of the marsh. Trout limits are coming on **matrix‑style soft plastics in shrimp and opening night colors under a popping cork**, 2–3 feet of leader, worked along current lines off points and bayou mouths. When the sun gets up and the tide slows, the bite’s sliding deeper; that’s when a 3/8‑ounce jighead and a smaller paddle tail bounced on bottom has been money. **Redfish** are chewing in the skinny stuff. Guides out of Hopedale and Shell Beach are reporting mixed boxes of slot reds and a few upper‑slot bruisers caught tight to grass and cane on the **falling water**. Gold spoons, weedless paddle tails in dark colors, and live or dead shrimp under a cork are all producing. Slide into those little side ponds and drains; if the water’s got 6–18 inches of clarity and a little push, you’re in the game. At the passes and rigs just off the river, recent trips out of Venice have put together good numbers of **sheepshead, black drum, and slot reds** around rock piles and pilings, mainly on **live shrimp, dead shrimp, and fiddler crabs**. Add a small piece of shrimp to a 1/4‑ounce jighead and you’ll catch just about everything with fins right now. Where you can find cleaner green water outside, there’ve been scattered **bull reds** and a few jacks on big Carolina‑rigged mullet and cracked crab. Best lures and baits today: - Inshore trout: **soft plastics under a popping cork**, and 3–4 inch paddle tails on 1/4–3/8 oz jigheads, natural or glow with chartreuse tails. - Reds: **gold spoons, dark paddle tails, and live shrimp** under a cork near grass lines and drains. - Pass/structure: Carolina‑rigged **dead shrimp, crab, and cut mullet**; add a small piece of shrimp to any jig. Couple local hot spots to ke This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.