According to Terry St. Cyr, all of Louisiana State Highway 1 is open to the public for road-fishing except for one spot.
The closed spot is a man-made peninsula that juts southward from the highway into the marsh. It is marked by a tall cell phone tower.
“Locals call this the ‘dos gris area,’” St. Cyr said. “It’s patrolled by the Lafourche Port Commission. You can only go on it to fish if you have a permit from the landowner.
“You can still fish off the highway’s shoulder, but not the built-up land.”
That leaves a lot of highway open for road fishing, a good 4 miles, including hotspots such as the Snake Hole and the Forbidden Hole that are both located on the south side of the road.
The Forbidden Hole is easy to find. The bayou-like ditch paralleling the road widens considerably, and a tall telephone pole is plunked in its center.
Its name comes not from the fact that it is forbiddingly deep — which it is, being an abandoned sand mine — but from the fact that the property’s owners tried their best to keep people from fishing in it after sand dredging ceased.
Fence after fence was torn down by night-riders. Sometimes the whole fence was carried off.
Finally, the landowners bowed to the inevitable and left it open.
The Snake Hole is set between the first and second bridges (coming from Grand Isle). It is directly across the road from the only living live oak left on the highway’s northern shoulder.
St. Cyr also noted that fishing can be quite good at the highway’s three bridges. From Grand Isle, they are Elmer’s Island, Bayou Thunder and Bayou Ferblanc.
Fishing has always been illegal from the bridges themselves, so fishing must be done from the highway shoulder rights of way.
Finally, St. Cyr suggested trying the culverts under old Highway 1, what used to be the highway before the new elevated Gateway to the Gulf Expressway cut it off. Taking the exit from the expressway halfway between Leeville and Fourchon will put a vehicle on the old roadway.
One culvert is found to the right on the road, and two are to the left (toward Moran’s Marina). The culverts create choke points for tidal flow, intensifying water currents and attracting bait species and predators like speckled trout and redfish.
In addition to the culverts, St. Cyr advised fishermen to pay attention to stretches of riprap that line the shoulders of the road. These also attract fish.
