When I first moved to New Orleans as a (very) young man in the mid-1960s, I just knew that I was a fishing hot dog. I thought I knew all there was to know about catching bass, bream, white perch and catfish — and that’s where the fishing world ended.[…]
The craggy man at the bow controls of the boat turned off the boat’s engine. He lit a cigarette and scanned the points formed by the intersection of the Texaco Canal and Grand Bayou.[…]
Every year during March and April, fishermen hammer Lake D’Arbonne’s shallow cypress trees and banks for spawning white perch (aka crappie or sac-a-lait). It’s a mad rush because you only have a few weeks to take advantage of the relatively easy bite.[…]
Following my GPS, I tentatively nosed my truck through the fortress-like gates of Mariners Cove in Slidell. When the man invited me to hunt alligator gar in the canal behind his house, I had just kind of assumed that the trail would lead me to a rural backwater retreat in the salt marshes between Slidell and Lake Pontchartrain.[…]
Whether it’s blue catfish or channel catfish, Central Louisiana’s coastal bays in the springtime are teeming with both. Toss in the occasional flathead, and what you have is the skinning pliers Ictalurus Trifecta of North America.[…]
“I fish live bait — live croakers,” the 68-year-old says with conviction, as if looking for a challenge. “Using plastic can be a good way to find the fish,” he adds, seeming for a moment to soften a bit, “but when I find them, I throw croakers to catch more.[…]
My transformation to a recreational angler is complete.[…]
If Alaska had a huntable population of turkeys, Franklinton’s Randy Stafford wouldn’t be stuck on having killed a turkey in 49 out of 50 states.[…]
I walked down to the dock and saw Craig “Bubba” Graham shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun, just staring into the water. Something had his attention.[…]
The early morning sky was grey and overcast, and a cold chill greeted us as we stepped out of the truck at the Sweetwater Marina in Delacroix.[…]
Pelayo motioned me over with frantic gestures and wide eyes. Then he managed a frozen smile and turned back to the conversation with Artie’s spanking-new brother-in-law, Steve.[…]
Dr. Scott Tynes’ father, the late Rev. J.W. Tynes, was the type of man who always knew where the right place was at the right time.[…]
Is there a better month than April? Trout are getting active, and bass are still clobbering anything in the water.[…]
Is there a better month than April? Trout are getting active, and bass are still clobbering anything in the water.[…]
It was late evening in the early summer. The five men assembled on the back deck of the Petrus family camp, set on a hill slope overlooking Lake D’Arbonne, were engaged in a masculine redneck ritual. Bobby Petrus, a.k.a. “The Claw,” was grilling meat, and all of them were exchanging humorous insults.
The rough-and-tumble humor, mixed with an equal blend of braggadocio and self-deprecation, was delivered with powerful North Louisiana twangs in what a Cajun or a New Orleanian would consider a foreign language.[…]
Bayou Teche starts in Port Barre and runs 125 miles to the Atchafalaya River in Berwick Bay. But it’s the 8- to 9-mile stretch of bayou between the East Calumet Spillway locks and the Berwick Bay Locks at the Atchafalaya River that competitive anglers know is the place where they can always find five good fish to put on the scale.[…]