How To Catch Trout Anywhere, Anytime!
By O. J. “Bud” Pettingill

Since I moved to South Florida 18 years ago, this website and Mel's talk show have been my bible. A seasoned, veteran angler can plan his entire fishing year simply by monitoring Mel's terrific website. That said, I noticed very few “feature articles” for the novice fisherman, so I thought I might help rectify that disparity.

For starters, I grew up in New Orleans, and have been fishing specs and reds my entire life. However, I didn't become a knowledgeable, accomplished fisherman until my early-20's. I was going to college by day, and tending bar at night to help pay my tuition. My mentor in the bar business was a wily, old 40-year bartending veteran named Frank Cabibi, or "Papa" Frank as he was known throughout the French Quarter. Papa Frank had only two passions in life: tending bar and catching speckle trout, and he pursued both with maniacal verve. Everything you need to know about the kind of world-class trout fisherman was the legendary Papa Frank Cabibi can be summed-up in the following pee-your-pants-funny, absolutely true story.

Hopedale, LA is a sleepy little fishing village about a 45-minute drive from downtown New Orleans. It is snuggled conspicuously between the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet waterway to the north and the Mississippi River to the south, and houses one of the largest estuaries in the world. To newcomers who make the trek east down La. State Hwy 39 through St. Bernard Parish, to La. Hwy 46 at Reggio, and onto La. Hwy 300, it seems like they've traveled to the end of the world! It’s a drive Frank Cabibi made every Saturday morning of his life for more than 40 years. By the time I hooked-up with him in the early 70’s, his legend as a trout master had grown to the point where unless we left the launch in pitch blackness, we could be assured of a small flotilla of boats trailing in our wake, following Papa Frank to the fish.

Not so on this particular morning, what with the wind howling at 25 knots and the temperatures hovering in the mid-40’s. According to Blackie Campo, the local proprietor at Hopedale Marina, only 20 boats had gone out this day. 19 got skunked. We came back with a box of trout! (Sadly, in those days, there was no such thing as “catch and release.”)

The routine with Papa Frank always was the same: clean-up the boat and show-off the catch before settling-up inside with Mr. Blackie, and this day would be no different. Just as we were starting our routine, along came an amiable young man to meet and greet the legendary “Papa” Frank. He introduced himself as Father Tom something-or-other, and told Papa Frank he was a Catholic priest from nearby St. Bernard Parish. Following the customary pleasantries, Father Tom asked Papa Frank flat-out “where we had caught all those beautiful trout?”

Without batting an eye, Papa Frank replied, “Bayou Cabibi!”

“Where?” asked the stunned young priest, his voice rife with a never heard of it tone.

“Bayou Cabibi,” repeated Papa Frank, just as matter-of-factly as before, and then just for good measure added, “whadda new around here, Padrě?”

As I watched the young priest stroll away shaking his head, I gently reminded Papa Frank that given his advancing years, perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to be lying to a Catholic priest.

“Catholic priest, my ass. Listen, son,” he bristled, “and remember what I tell you: ALL FISHERMAN ARE LIARS. That guy's probably a bookmaker!”

Forty-five minutes later, we entered the rustic fish camp to settle-up with Mr. Blackie. On the far wall of Campo’s Fish Camp is an enormous map of the Hopedale/Shell Beach waterway. The map is so large it takes up Mr. Blackie’s entire back wall, and features literally thousands of slews, cuts, and troughs with names in tiny, barely readable print like Lena Lake, Bayou Aloutrē, the Black Tanks, Bayou Terre aux Boeufs, Sabine Pass, and Battledorf Reef. Thousands! Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a lone figure standing before this mind-numbing expanse of miniscule print, transfixed as if he was staring at some ancient treasure map. It was Father Tom, desperately trying to locate the elusive, and of course non-existent, Bayou Cabibi!

For my part, I went to confession the next day, and never again have lied to anyone since about anything related to fishing. Quite the opposite: sharing knowledge, techniques, and even “hot” fishing spots, I have discovered, is really quite rewarding, and makes for exceptional fishing “karma.” Anecdotes aside, here then are two fool-proof tips for catching trout anywhere, anytime.

TIP #1: FIND THE BAIT! I know, it’s simpler said than done, so let’s start with the basics: find the birds! You’ve tried this technique, you say, without much success? The likelihood is you fell victim to a long-held myth among veteran anglers that birds use the schooling trout to find the bait, made a handful of casts, had no luck, and quickly gave up. In fact, just the opposite is true: trout use the birds to locate the bait! And after all, doesn’t this just make a great deal more common sense when you consider that birds have exceptional vision, and a massive expanse of visual range, while trout rely almost exclusively on hearing to hone-in on prey? A trout can hear a bird crashing the water for bait from several hundred yards away, and often must travel that distance to find the school. Don’t panic when next you see the feeding birds. You have plenty of time to position your boat quietly and properly so as not to spook the bait. So long as the bait remains undisturbed, the birds by-and-large will ignore you, and the trout will be along shortly.

TIP #2: look for the “oil slick” on the water. “Papa” Frank was a master at finding this little known tip-off to foraging schools of trout. Trout, like geese, gorge themselves when they feed. And like geese, they quickly digest what they’ve eaten, and dispense their waste in the water. Since trout typically feed on baitfish like finger mullet and grunts, these waste products produce an oily substance on the water not unlike spilled motor oil. Find these oily deposits on the water, and for sure you will have found a school of foraging trout.

That’s it. Good luck, and good fishing!

O. J. “Bud” Pettingill
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida