[VFB] Today's fishing trip

[Mark Delaney]

Today I went fishing at the local state park (Sam Houston JonesState Park in Moss Bluff, LA).   I had not been there in about 13 months.  That's significant since that was about a month before Hurricane Rita  hit this area.  The park is on the West Fork of the Calcasieu River.  the storm pushed saltwater up the river. and caused a lot of damage to the fishery.  Inside the park there are several ponds, which traditionally have been vwery good for panfish.  They've drained the largest system of ponds (in an effort to dec rease the salinity), but the rainfall has been lacking and the levels are about a foot and a half low.  About 10% of the bald cypress that were in the ponds have died due to the salt intrusion and   the rest don't look so well, many having browning leaves.  I got a few hits, but nothing substantial.  The water has always been very clear, and the biggest  bream I saw was maybe 3 inches.  Looks liike a long time before the system will recover. There is a smaller pond near the boat launch at the park, and i saw a lot of fish hitting on the surface there. I didn't fish thaqt pond since the approaches to it are very mqarshy opn one side and very steep on the other.  with a prosthetixc leg and the other foot in a boot transfering the 90% of the weight to the heel, i didn't feel confident in trying that.  I did try the river, but had no luck there.  Usually I can entice some hits by drifting a fly along the sseawall by the river, but nothing today.  That's been the general report from the rier, only the very upper reaches have any fish to any extent in them.  I talked to several other guests at the park who were fishing, and they had only caught a few small bream in the past two days.

The hurricane has been a boon to saltwater fishing, but it may be several years until the local freshwater fishing recovers.       

They have done a good job cleaning up all the downed trees, and the park is still quite beautiful, but is defintiely changed
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The highlight of the trip was when I was exiting the park via the back way, a whitetail doe was standing by the side of the road, patiently waiting for an opportunity to cross the road safely (which I gave her).  For a Louisiana deer she was large...(meaning a little smaller than average compared to your northern deer).

Mark Delaney

--
"So much water, so little time!"

http://chemprof.tripod.com/fishing.html