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The more things change — Fishing for trout, bass, redfish at The Pen

January 1, 2013 Chris Ginn

Change is inevitable in coastal marsh.

The tide gives when it rises and takes away when it falls.

Land piles up in some places while washing away in others.

Fish that you couldn’t stop from biting one day cease to exist the next.

Nowhere is this change more evident than in The Pen. One of the most-famous fishing holes in all of Southeast Louisiana, this Lafitte hotspot once wasn’t even a lake.[…]

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Bark up the right tree – How to make the most of squirrel hunting with dogs

January 1, 2013 John Flores

Somewhere inside the small patch of woods surrounded by sugarcane fields, Hoke hunted. Maybe no more than 20 acres in size, if you flew over it the woodland would resemble a postage stamp stuck in the middle of an envelope.

A mix of hackberry, swamp maple, water and pin oaks, the isolated habitat wasn’t large enough to support a deer population, but it’s perfect for big red fox squirrels.

Hoke was used to the terrain, having hunted it before. There’d be no surprises on the afternoon. The goal was simply to spend a couple of hours hunting on a day already short because of winter, and if all went well the day would culminate with shooting a couple of the tree dwellers for the pot.[…]

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Jump Around

December 1, 2012 Chris Ginn

I always wondered while fishing during the winter if all those ducks I kept jumping in the river lakes just off the Ouachita River between Monroe and West Monroe would eventually return to that same spot.[…]

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Sock Knocker

December 1, 2012 Chris Ginn

This past teal season didn’t exactly knock Capt. Chris Pike’s socks off. The Delacroix charter captain and duck-hunting guide hunted every day, and although he had some decent hunts, most days ended with a few empty spots on his duck strap.[…]

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Footsteps of a ghost

December 1, 2012 Jerald Horst

It was a hypnotizingly peaceful afternoon. I shuffled along the banks of Little River, head down, searching intently for a pottery shard, an arrowhead — anything that the area’s first inhabitants might have left behind.

The sun’s rays felt good on my back, but the air still had a cold nip to it from a front that had passed the day before.

The sound of dogs barking in the distance echoed through the bare trees. The occasional cawing of crows seemed especially sharp in the dry air.

Otherwise, there was silence.

I felt rather than heard something behind me on the riverbank. I turned but saw nothing. It happened again. The third time, I barely turned my head and peeked out of one corner of my eye. […]