Updated: Thursday, August 27, 2026 · Next update: Thursday, September 3, 2026
This Louisiana fishing report covers late August, when the marsh is hot, humid and green and still gives up redfish to anyone on the water at daybreak. River levels run low for the season, so interior ponds are clean and the fish are easy to see. Heat is the condition to plan around: by ten in the morning the shallow ponds are cooking and the bite backs off hard.
What’s Hitting
Redfish are the constant. Slot fish work the interior marsh ponds and grass edges shallow on the falling tide, and bull reds show at the passes and along the beaches as the month closes.
Speckled trout hold on the outside islands, the rock jetties and the deeper cuts. Tripletail sit on crab trap floats and channel markers, one of the most fun sight targets of the season. On the nearshore rigs and platforms, mangrove snapper are stacked, with cobia, kings and Spanish around them. Flounder stage along the passes and drains.
Where to Find Them
The interior marsh from Delacroix, Hopedale and Reggio through the Biloxi Marsh is core redfish water. Work the grass edges, drains and shallow ponds on a falling tide when bait gets pulled out.
Find trout on the outside: the Biloxi Marsh islands, the Lake Borgne rocks and the Chandeleur area when weather allows the run. Locate tripletail by idling crab trap lines and looking for a dark, leaf-shaped shadow under a float. Nearshore rigs and the Grand Isle and Venice platforms hold snapper, kings and cobia.
Tides & Conditions
Expect marsh water in the upper 80s, with the shallow interior ponds hotter still through the afternoon. With the river low, salinity is up in the interior, which pushes trout farther into the marsh than usual.
Tides are small and heavily wind-driven. A sustained south wind fills the marsh and a north wind drains it, and the draining tide is when redfish feed hardest at the drains. Daily afternoon thunderstorms can catch you a long way from the ramp.
Tackle & Tactics
- Marsh reds: a 7-foot medium spinning outfit, 20-pound braid and a 30-pound fluorocarbon leader. A gold spoon, a weedless soft plastic or a market shrimp under a popping cork all work; in clear ponds the quiet weedless plastic gets more eats than the cork.
- Trout: a soft plastic on a quarter-ounce jighead on the rocks and islands, or live shrimp under a cork.
- Tripletail: a live shrimp on a 1/0 circle pitched past the float and drifted back. Never cast directly onto the fish.
- Rig snapper: light fluorocarbon and a live or fresh dead bait dropped tight to the legs.
Local Intel This Week
Launch at the Delacroix Island and Hopedale ramps in St. Bernard, the Sweetwater Marina ramp in Delacroix, the Grand Isle and Bridge Side Marina ramps, or the Venice Marina ramps for the river mouth. Shore anglers can fish the Grand Isle State Park pier and the Lake Pontchartrain seawall.
Redfish, speckled trout and snapper all carry state rules, and Louisiana changed its speckled trout limits in recent years. Check current state and federal regulations and seasons before keeping fish.
This Week’s Tip
In the interior ponds, watch for the mud boil, not the fish. A redfish rooting in soft bottom leaves a plume of stained water that hangs for a minute or two after the fish moves on. Cast ahead of the plume in the direction it trails, not into the middle of it, and your bait lands where the fish is.
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