South Louisiana fishermen know the feeling. After weeks of removing sheet work, drying out and all the other fretting needed to repair flooded family homes, Steve Fontana said he had to get away.

The plan was to run his bass boat, a craft sitting idle under his carport for the past seven weeks. OK, so he brought a couple of rods along, launched at Doiron’s in Stephensville and headed out into the Intracoastal Waterway.

“Found muddy water there, but went into the canal behind the old car wash and the water was good,” Fontana said. “And we found fish.”

Bass to be exact, but not where he expected to find hungry largemouths.

Fontana said he caught them on a small Scrounger, a lure with a rubber lip on the front of a weighted hook, and a lure that needs a soft-plastic something fixed to the hook to make it appetizing to a bass. He said he used a Zoom Fluke. Knowing Fontana, it was a pearl-colored Fluke, something that would look like a shad.

That’s only half the story: “I was surprised the fish were deep. We fished out in front of the piers and worked the bait real slow to let it stay deep. We caught maybe 25.”

Fontana doesn’t keep bass, but said it was evident bass were eating shad, "trying to put on a little weight before winter comes,” is the way he put it, then added a move to the Intracoastal came later where they caught fish in cuts and small canals emptying into the much larger waterway.

“Fished a shaky head with a Zoom June bug chartreuse tail and caught a few fish doing that, and in deeper water, too,” Fontana said, adding, “but I don’t know how long that’s going to last.

“The water was 81 degrees, but let a few more cold fronts come through and the fish will move to the banks to feed big time, and they’ll be eating shad,” he said.

But not now

There’s no cold front in our immediate future. Fishermen and hunters can expect mild conditions through the weekend and light seas east of the Mississippi River.

That forecast — 5-10 knot east and southeast winds and seas less than one foot — should spur a few more trips into Lake Pontchartrain and into Lake Borgne.

Conditions are predicted to be rougher west of the river where 10-15 knot east winds will kick up 2-4 footers in the Grand Isle area and in offshore waters for the second Friday-through-Sunday of the second recreational red snapper season out to nine miles.

Stevens second

Baton Rouge kayaker Elliot Stevens finished second to Florida’s Matthew Vann in the 2016 IFA Kayak Tour Championship last weekend.

The event, presented by Hobie Fishing, was held in Panama City, Florida. Stevens said he spent two days 20 miles away in the Port St. Joe area for his two-day combined total of 86.75 inches. Anglers are allowed one redfish and one speckled trout per day, and, after measuring their catches, release the fish.

“It feels pretty good to come to Florida and get a second-place finish,” Stevens said in the IFA release. “I have been fishing the IFA for four years and been in fifth and fourth in the championships, so second feels great.”

Stevens won $1,720.

Vann’s total of 106.5 inches blew away the field. He said he fished “home waters around Pensacola and battled gale-force winds,” and said he caught trout by suspending twitch baits early in the morning, then chased schooling redfish.

Lessard leads team

The IFA Kayak release also carried the news that the 2016 Hobie Fishing Worlds Championship and anglers from more than 20 countries will show up Dec. 4-11 in Lafourche Parish, and that Capital City area angler Steve Lessard, a past world champion, along with Benton Parrott and Joe Komyati will make up the U.S. team.