with Capt. JP Morel
It seems as if winter has given us a pass
and by the way it looks we may be into summer
in a few weeks, although I hope not. Many deer
hunters I have talked with are lamenting the
warm winter and blaming such for the somewhat poor deer hunting. I guess it depends on
where you hunt but even a few of my Alabama
friends have not seen the usual numbers of
deer.
Hunting and fishing varies from year to year
and of course from where one pursues their
chosen outdoor activity. I was in Canada last
November celebrating a 90th birthday for my
father-in-law. The weather was quite nice and I
had made plans for a fly-fishing trip for steelhead. It was my first and perhaps last steelhead
trip unless I am stranded for months on end and
the only thing to fish for is steelhead. Even then
I’ll have to give it serious thought.
I left relatively good weather and drove 2
hours north to my destination and should have
gotten the hint as 45 minutes out I began to see
snow. The next clue was the drizzling rain as I
pulled in to Tim Horton’s for a hot chocolate. In
Canada Tim Horton’s is like our Starbucks, one
on every other corner and they have fabulous
donuts.
The next obvious clue was having to find a
covered shelter in order to put on waders so the
rain would not wet the inside of the waders. I’m
starting to believe
that fly fishermen
are perhaps nuts.
It was around 42
degrees and raining and then after
the drift boat
floats into the river
I’m told that with steelhead you are fishing for 1
to 3 bites a day, yes, a full day.
Well, I made the best of it and casted in
every pool doing the dead drift and I caught a
brown trout all of maybe 13 inches. One brown
trout after casting all day in miserable weather
was all I had. I have no proof of catching said
trout, as it was difficult to take a photo in the
cold rain. The hot shore lunch was a welcome
respite from the fishing. All I could think of after
5 hours of being rained on was thank God I live
in coastal Louisiana where we don’t fish for 1 to
3 bites a day and we can fish year round. After
7 hours I was looking for the take out point with
all the anticipation of a five year old on Christmas Eve. When my guide said this is the last
pool and the truck is around the next bend I almost yelled out hallelujah put this sucker on the
bank.
So the point is if you really like to fish give
steelhead a try but if you really like to catch fish
stay in southeastern Louisiana. The Canadian
Final Thought
Steelhead, the fish
not the person
fishing regulations book is literally a book. Bass season starts in June and I
don’t mean that June is simply when they start
biting. One cannot legally fish for bass until
June. This river opens on this date and the
eastern side of the lake has a different limit from
the west side and you can’t trout fish below that
bridge until Mars and Saturn line up and you
get the gist of it.
I will go back to Canada and fish but it’s
going to be for trout or smallmouth bass or anything but steelhead. It’s a beautiful country and
does have some great fishing. The real point
here is that we have a tremendous fishery unlike
anything I have ever seen in my limited travel.
So take it from those that have traveled all over
the world but still come here every year, fishing
Louisiana is off the charts. We hear it all the
time.
Appreciate what we have and take care of
our fishery because it truly is amazing and it’s
the only one we have.
February 2016 www.marshandbayou.com
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