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Bob Marshall

A fisherman's true colors are cast in his skill

Last updated Tuesday, May 8, 2012 - 3:01pm

NEW ORLEANS -- Fishing, like most sports, has some standard bits of information one participant suffering through a sub-par outing always seeks from a more successful colleague. And for local speckled trout anglers, there's a top three.

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Fishing top spot: Sunken islands

Bob Marshall The Times-Picayune, Times-

Last updated Friday, October 21, 2011 - 2:48pm

NEW ORLEANS -- It was the kind of morning that puts a lie to one of angling's most famous slogans: "I don't have to catch fish to enjoy a trip." We were anchored off the eastern shoreline of Barataria Bay and floating fat, active live shrimp past cuts in the marsh that filled with clear, green water being pushed by a good falling tide -- and not catching fish. Beautiful day, beautiful weather. I could have enjoyed just being there except for this: About 150 yards west of us another angler was anchored in the open, featureless expanse of Barataria Bay, catching trout almost as fast as he could cast.

He wasn't surrounded by diving birds. There were no pilings signifying an old camp location, no PVC pipes marking oyster reefs -- in short, no reason to fish there. In fact, when I saw the guy cut his engine near that spot 20 minutes ago, I worried he was simply spying on us. Now I couldn't take my eyes off him.

Fifteen minutes later, we pulled the hook and motored off so we wouldn't have to watch any more. Turns out I should have eased past the other boat and marked his location on the GPS.

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Fishing in a graveyard?

Bob Marshall, The Times-Picayune

Last updated Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - 1:51pm

NEW ORLEANS -- I couldn't get that thought out of my mind as those famous pro anglers in town for the Bassmaster Classic showed off the bass they pulled from our local estuaries, which they proclaimed to be among the most amazing on the planet.

Based on that non-stop praise -- and the fact the Classic record was broken three times in one day -- you would think southeast Louisiana was a verdant ecosystem in the flush of good health.

Of course, we know better.

Those pros were fishing in a graveyard, pulling treasure from the decomposing body of a once-mighty wetlands system. They were picking fame and fortune from the most rapidly eroding and sinking landmass in North America, a place turning to open water at the rate of 25 square miles per year -- excluding extra losses from hurricanes.

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