St. Romains have lived and breathed Louisiana fishing
Ivy St. Romain and his brother Al, like a lot of Louisiana kids, grew up fishing and hunting. Around his native town of Cottonport, they would walk the gravel roads and bank fish whenever they had the opportunity.
St. Romain, 71, said, “We didn’t have a boat back then, but we would walk the banks and make parallel casts. My daddy worked out of town and whenever he came in, he might have brought us a couple of baits or whatever and we’d throw them along the bank.”
St. Romain said nothing they caught went to waste. Whatever they caught they kept and cleaned it for supper. He fondly recalls their first rod, a five-foot-long Shakespeare offset steel rod with a Flueger Supreme reel.
“We moved down here when I was 11 or 12 and started fishing,” he said. “Eventually we got away from the paddle, then went to a trolling motor and then a bass boat. My brother Al was one of the pioneers around here that fished the first Bassmaster Classic.”
St. Romain always had an itch to own a tackle store, so in 1992, he opened Ivy’s Tackle Box on Main Street (7209 Hwy. 182E) in Morgan City.
“Everybody loved it, because there was nothing around here like it,” St. Romain said. “We would build custom stuff that you couldn’t buy at your big-name stores. They could actually get a custom bait. Guys would come in here and ask us to make something and we would do it. We did it by hand and painted by hand and the guys really appreciated it.”
Ivy’s Tackle Box is still going strong, carrying a full line of rods, reels, baits, lines, and tackle. And, over the years, like many small businesses, has had to diversify in order to stay in business.
Besides bait, tackle, and information, customers can get their troll motors repaired and book both fresh and saltwater fishing trips. St. Romain’s son, Casey, also builds custom boats as part of the business.
“You just can’t stay in business doing one thing,” he said. “We try to stock the store with stuff that people need for the waters we have around here. We point them in the right direction, give them maps, and the right GPS coordinates and if they get turned around or get stuck on a sand-bar they can call us.”
Doiron’s Landing is another great option. Just a few miles north of Morgan City in Stephensville, Doiron’s receives notoriety for holding numerous fishing tournaments throughout the year. Anglers have easy access to Grassy Lake, Lake Verret, and the Union Oil field Canals. They have a full-service convenience store, sell live bait and tackle and are located at 3185 LA-70.
Anglers can stop and launch at Bayside Tackle and Trolling Motor Repair in Pierre Part at 102 S Bay Road. Chris Black has owned the tackle store for the past eight years and caters to fishermen who fish the Lake Verret system. Most anglers that Black sees come into his store target sac-a-lait, bream and bass. So, Black makes sure he has plenty of live shiners, crickets, worms and river shrimp when available.