Kayaks and Redfish along the Gulf Coast

Like peanut butter and jelly, kayaks and fishing go great together. Whether in the Chippewa Flowage up in Wisconsin or down on the Gulf Coast, kayaks are just right for all sorts of places and conditions. People too. Pictured above is Gary Taylor bringing in a nice redfish somewhere in his spot on the far side of Lake Borgne near Slidell, LA.

To the right is Danny Wray our Grand Isle guide and one of the redfish he brought in during the day we spent with him and his wife, Kristen (who I think may have caught a few more than he did...)

Down in the near-tropics of Port Mansfield Texas,
we hooked up with Ruben Garza and two of his co-guides for yet another great day on the water, in kayaks, paddling and poling after speckled trout and redfish.

Louisiana pictures

I came back from our latest project to the Gulf Coast with a ton of content. Some of it, I simply had not considered prior to actually seeing it. This shot, for example, is of some very surfable waves breaking on the beach on the south side of Grand Isle. I was shocked how big the surf was. It just NEVER occurred to me that Louisiana had surfable waves. Even "weirder" (if that is a word) is the sight of the oil rigs only a few miles offshore. It all made for a great day in Grand Isle with Danny and Kristen Wray taking us around their stomping grounds paddling, pedaling, poling, and fishing for redfish.

NY Times article: Lake Superior surfing hits the big time

My hometown and home lake (if there is such a thing) got a nice page one writeup in the Travel section of the NY Times. The front picture accompanying the article could not be better.

Surfing Lake Superior

Mainly about surfing, but as my friend on the scene, John Abrahams, will say - there is much more to be done in Lake Superior waters.

Gulf Coast kayaking road trip

The time arrived for another movie project. The goal? More Native Watercraft boats, in use along the Upper Gulf Coast, chasing redfish and speckled trout. So we spent the first twelve days of 2009 on a road trip. From Madison, WI., it was due south down Hwy.51 for a long ways, then east to Mobile, Alabama, where I met up with Jimbo Meador again. From his place in Mobile we went to Slidell, LA., then on to Grand Isle, LA., and then finally a monster drive to Port Mansfield, TX., all the way south almost to the Mexican border, right on the coast. Lots of driving, happily all through country that I have never seen before. Eye opening and quite interesting. Not all of it was good. The boats, the fish and the people we met were great. To my great surprise there is still an enormous amount of work to be done to recover from Katrina. Something that happened almost four years ago still lays heavy on the land, the water, and especially the people living in the small towns that dot the Gulf Coast.

Next Year's Water

Record breaking December snowfall in Madison,
for the second year in a row.

This marks the last entry in this blog for 2008. Being an optimist, I'm trying to take the lemons (HUGE snowfall) that have come my way and turn them into lemonade (next year's water). December 07 set a snowfall record for southern Wisconsin that I thought would not be broken. Turns out that December 08 was even bigger and snowier! In the immortal words of Greg Brown, "who woulda thunk it?" Every shovelful that I threw up on the pile next to the mailbox, I tried to imagine as water in a lake in a few months. I also tried to block out the buzz of snowblowers that surrounded me as I use a shovel to move the snow, unlike all of my neighbors. The top of the mailbox is about four feet above the curb. Thankfully, I finished the driveway before I ran out of space to throw the snow. The next few months look to be fairly quiet here in Wisconsin as there is no "boatable" water to speak of. Canoecopia looks to be the next big thing. Should be another fun event and a great way to usher in a new spring!

An Amazing Photo

An incredible image by
John Van Den Brandt

This is one of the best photographs I have ever seen. Besides the fact that an egret is fairly rare to begin with, I am left wondering how John managed to be in the right spot at the right time to get the bird striking this pose.

John Van Den Brandt is the owner of Wild Wind Images. He appears in our most recent movie talking about wildlife photography, which is where I got to know him a bit. If you click on the picture, you will see a larger image on John's website. The egret is the June 2009 image from a calendar full of amazing shots that John took.

Season ending musky from Hayward Fly Fishing

The big one that didn't get away

Larry and Wendy, our guide friends from Hayward Fly Fishing Company, sent us this today. It is their season ending musky. 52+ inches, 35+ pounds, on a fly, out of a drift boat, on the same stretch of the Chippewa River that we floated this summer making our movie. 5 degrees when they left their shop, 20 degrees at the put-in. I suspect the adrenaline they ingested catching this fish more than made up for the temperature!