Back to the Bayou
I’ve been very fortunate to fish a lot of places. When people ask what my favorite trip is I always tell them it’s Louisiana. This trip has the whole package. Big aggressive fish that are not easy to catch but not super challenging like some fish I’ve pursued. The food, oh the food, its the best seafood I’ve ever had. Oysters, huge gulf shrimp, hot beignets, and Cajun comfort food. The buzz of New Orleans with its night life, live music, and friendly people. The guide service we use is Captain Miles LaRose with Shallow South. He is fun to be with, very knowledgeable, encouraging, and hard working. The perfect fishing guide in my opinion.
Both times I’ve been I’ve been able to fish with my good friend Brandon from Utah and i’m sure that’s part of the reason I enjoy this trip so much. Just a real good dude/fisherman. When we fished Louisiana last we went in the winter and caught lots of big red fish. You can read about that trip here.
Miles told us to try coming in late summer and said there was a good chance we could catch some GIANT Jack Crevalle on surface flies. He sent us a few video clips and we were all in.
Day one we met Miles early and in no time we were off to the spots he had scouted for us. The flies were big and there were packs of Jacks just destroying baitfish all around us. Knees were shaking as those first casts were made on the beefy 11wt rods!
Brandon was first up on the front of the boat. He made a solid cast and caught our first fish of the trip.
Next was my turn and after some coaching on the right retrieve of the fly I connected to the first Jack Crevalle of my life. A solid 20lb fish.
Once things slowed down in the morning spot we ran to another area and I got lucky again and had another Jack just smash the fly right in front of me. I stripped line as fast as I could but these fish are so fast that it swam right under the boat with the fly hanging out its mouth before I could get tight to it again. This fish was a bit bigger, just over 25lbs. So much fun.
A storm came in after this and we had to call it a bit early. We always book three days in Louisiana and hope to fish at least two due to the crazy weather near the Gulf.
Day two was much less eventful for both of us. We spent a big portion of it trying to add a new species to the list. Sheepshead are another cool fish in the marsh and we found plenty of them but with the wind blowing the boat pretty quickly the shots were brief and I was only able to hook one. Their crazy teeth make it tough to land them and my hook actually torqued in its mouth and broke off. I was bummed but its another reason to get back there and try again. We did end up finding a pile of bass at the end of the day and we each caught several. Out friends on the other boat were a bit more lucky and found a big giant redfish and several smaller ones. Even slow fishing is interesting there though.
The last day of fishing there was a big storm forecast. We started early but still only ended up being able to fish for two hours before the storm moved in and pushed us off the water. I was able to contect to one more big Jack to cap off the trip. So, another unreal trip and i’m already looking forward to the next one.
