Refuge no longer brimming with bream

Published 8:30 pm Sunday, October 15, 2017

Today is the final day of fishing in Lacassine Reserve until next year.

In recent weeks there hasn’t been a lot of fishermen in the marsh due to the vegetation growth overing the water.

One who has been there has been Larry Cinquemano, and he could be there today as well.

However the “king” of bream fishing in the impoundment noted that it hasn’t been a year like in the past.

“(The fishing) has really been bad since June,” he said. “I will tell you when I catch it big and when I catch it small. According to my book (he keeps a record of all of his trips and the number of fish he has caught) from April 4 to June 9 we made 13 trips and caught 800 or so bream. From June 16 until now we made 14 trips and have caught right at 150 bream.

“There’s just too much cover. We can’t find the bream.”

Last Thursday he and brother Anthony spent all morning in the marsh and the take did not even number in the teens.

“This is one of the worst summers in a long time. In past years we didn’t have the vegetation that is out there now,” he said.

He’s one of the few who goes to the impoundment just for bream and knows the area as well as anyone. He launches at the old boat slip (northwest side) and will fish north lake, little north lake and the south lake areas.

Cinquemano is also a true bream fisherman, using pole, line, cork, hook, sinker and live red wiggler worms.

“It’s been hard to find a clear bottom, something where you can sink a hook,” he said, adding that his fishing party only found one large bream bed the entire summer.

He noted that the water level in the reserve has been good throughout the season, it was just that mild winters have not killed off the vegetation like in previous years.

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The bass fishermen had a little different take.

Mike Authement, who keeps close touch with those fishermen at his business in Hayes, said, “Overall it has been a little better than an average year for them.

“These fishermen are battling the same issues as grass and weeds are taking over way to early in the year because we are just not having the hard winters.”

He said there were a good number of bass caught and that the largest fish he weighed in was a 12-pound, 4-ounce specimen, while he also saw some 11- and 10-pounders and a fair number of 7 and 8s.

“From the start there were some good stringers brought in but the bream and the white perch bite was a little off,” Authement said.

Most of the bass lately have been caught on slow sinking plastics (without a bullet weight) with fishermen tossing to open areas here and there as well as into the brush. Also most of these fishermen have made late afternoon trips.

Authement said a group of fishermen from the state of Georgia came through last week after fishing Lacassine.

“They didn’t do very good as far as catching fish goes but they said they really enjoyed the trip, especially the scenery and the atmosphere,” he said.