Fishing the Lakefront seawall and Seabrook, and where to eat after
Seven miles from downtown, Lake Pontchartrain's south shore is a concrete seawall the length of Lakeshore Drive, and the guides name it for slot redfish, sheepshead, and the catfish that moved in. Seabrook, at the Industrial Canal, is a speckled trout hole inside the city limits. The $17 licence, the 15-trout and 4-redfish limits, and live shrimp. A guest guide from Smells Like Fish, ending at three Mid-City tables on the way home.
Seven miles north of downtown, the city ends in a concrete seawall. It runs the length of Lakeshore Drive from West End to the Lakefront Airport, and the guides who write up Lake Pontchartrain recommend it “especially if you’re coming from New Orleans” for slot redfish, then add that the wall “now harbors a healthy population of Catfish.” A mile east, where the Industrial Canal meets the lake under the Seabrook bridge, the bottom drops into a channel 30 to 90 feet deep that holds speckled trout inside the city limits. This is the fishing half of a day that never leaves Orleans Parish. The eating half is at the end, in Mid-City, on the way home down Bayou St. John.
I write the guides on Smells Like Fish, a bait and tackle site, and I am a guest here. Top of New Orleans asked for the water. They supplied the tables.
The day, in order
Leave downtown before light and take Elysian Fields to the lake. Be on the seawall at sunrise with a popping cork and a live shrimp for the reds if it is fall, or a cracked crab on a small hook for the sheepshead on the rocks if it is winter, and dead shrimp on a bottom rig on the second rod for the drum, white trout, and catfish that live there all year. Fish the morning, then drive back down Bayou St. John into Mid-City for lunch. If you want an afternoon, Seabrook is the trout hole: a live shrimp under a sliding cork set 7 to 13 feet along the airport wall, or a Carolina rig with an ounce of lead dropped into the channel at 30 to 60 feet, on a tide range under a foot and no north wind. Dinner is back in Mid-City before the drive home.
What is in the water
Redfish, four a day at 18 to 27 inches with none over 27, come in through the passes in September and school in the lake through winter; the seawall is where a shore angler meets them. Speckled trout, fifteen a day at 13 to 20 inches with no more than two over 20 under the state rules that took effect November 20, 2023, return when the water cools and the salinity climbs, and Seabrook holds them March through December while the shrimp are in. Louisiana Sportsman’s guide to Seabrook quotes Alan Sumas: “Live bait is a must if you want to catch fish here.” Sheepshead and black drum stack on the rocks in winter before the late-winter spawn; drum are five a day at 16 to 27 inches. Flounder run October to December with the state closure in the middle, ten a day and no size limit. Catfish, blues and channels in brackish water, have moved into the seawall rocks and are a year-round bottom-rig fish, 100 a day in the aggregate with size minimums.
Where to fish from shore
- Lakeshore Drive seawall, 7 miles: the whole south shore, West End to the airport; reds, sheepshead, drum, white trout, catfish.
- Seabrook, 8 miles: the launch and the seawall at the Industrial Canal; trout in the channel and along the airport wall on live shrimp. The old lighted pier under the bridge has not been rebuilt, by anglers’ accounts.
- Bonnabel Boat Launch, Metairie, 6 miles: a riprap jetty into the lake and a public pier.
- Bayou St. John, 4 miles: bass and catfish the length of Mid-City, reds near the lake end, kayaks welcome.
- City Park, 4 miles: 11 lagoons, Big Lake, and the Marconi Avenue pier; freshwater licence, shoreline only, release encouraged.
- Bayou Sauvage refuge, 17 miles: free bank fishing inside the levee for bass, crappie, bluegill, and catfish.
Licences and the limits
Louisiana requires a licence at 18, sold by the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries: a resident basic licence is $17 and the saltwater licence, required for the lake, is $15 on top of it. A resident fishing a pole or a hook and line with no reel and natural bait can buy the $5 hook-and-line licence instead. Nonresidents pay $68 basic and $60 saltwater for the year or $30 each for five days. Under 18 fishes free, resident or not, and residents born before June 1, 1940 pay nothing. City Park takes a freshwater licence and its own rules: shoreline only, no private boats, no golf courses, and the park “encourages anglers to catch and release fish.” The limits above are the department’s 2026 recreational regulations, and the trout rule is written to sunset January 1, 2028 after a new stock assessment.
The gear side
Which sliding cork for the Seabrook wall, how to build the Carolina rig the locals drop into the channel, what a cracked crab on a small hook does for a seawall sheepshead, and why the catfish at the wall take cut mullet: that is my beat, and it does not belong on a restaurant site. The full New Orleans fishing guide on Smells Like Fish has the map of all 13 spots with drive times from downtown, the live lake temperature at the New Canal station and the salinity at the Rigolets, the licence link, the state park and refuge rules, the Rigolets and the marsh launches, and the tackle list.
Where to eat after
Bayou St. John runs from the lake straight into Mid-City, and the seawall day ends on it. These three are on the Top of New Orleans Mid-City list. The scores are theirs, not mine.
Sources. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries 2026 recreational fishing regulations (licences, saltwater and freshwater creel and size limits) and the speckled trout rule notice; Louisiana Sportsman, “The secrets of Seabrook”; Fishingbooker, “Fishing in Lake Pontchartrain”; WWL-TV fishing reports on the Lakefront; New Orleans City Park fishing rules; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge. Drive distances computed on OpenStreetMap roads from downtown New Orleans.
Ray Dodson writes for Smells Like Fish. Ray is the pen name of that site's research desk: every recommendation is built from documented angler consensus, state fish and wildlife guidance, and published testing, with sources named in every article. This piece was written for Top of New Orleans.