L is for Louisiana

I was in Louisiana for a project in early 2009. January. Hurricane Katrina had roared through there in 2005 if memory serves. Four years +/-. Scenes like this boat tossed up on the road shoulder were still common place even with four years of time to clean up and recover. Even around New Orleans and Slidell, if you went more than a quarter mile off the freeway cloverleaf, you were right back in the devastation. It was sad. Amazing. Staggering. Easy to feel like you were in a third world country. Four years after the event. I wonder what it was like in the rural areas far from the public eye that the main freeway thoroughfares offered? It's ten years after the fact as I write this. I hope recovery has finally completed. It's not a third world country. I hope things are back to where they need to be......

D is for Black Drum

A few years back Quietwater went on a deep south adventure involving shallow salt water, fly rods, and kayaks. One day we met up with Gary Taylor at a marina near Slidell, Louisiana. With some kayaks added to his mother ship we went out the Rigolets Trestle in the midst of some fog bound for points unseen. We emerged into a big, shallow, open chunk of empty. I still call it the Lousiana Marsh. It was incredible.

This marsh is a place unlike anything I've ever seen. If you get a chance to get to Louisiana look up Gary Taylor and have him take you out for a day of fishing. He's a great guide, with a memory full of cool places to go in the marsh. The goal was redfish. We found a few, but the fish of the day was this enormous black drum that Gary caught and Jimbo landed. This fish story is brought to you by the always truthful, non-exaggerating letter "D".

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.