I participated in the Red Stick Fly Fishers' first-ever Summer Catch-and-Eat.  The RSFF club hopes it's also their last-ever, as it was held in lieu of the longtime Grand Isle Surf Fly Fishing Weekend, which had to be cancelled.  (Incidently, they've already set the date for the 2011 Grand Isle Weekend next June 24-26.)

With the LDWFC having opened up the lower coast, I left the wee hours of Friday morning so I could check out the fishing bridges at Caminada.  The first bridge turned out to be closed from dusk to dawn due to some vandals using the bridge to access beach cleanup equipment on the adjacent sand berm.  Still, the security guard allowed me to check out the lights and they were loaded with specks and reds.

Went to the south bridge, the upper half of which is still closed to the fire last summer that burnt the support structure.  The lower half was new and is intact.  Not as many trout under the lights, but that's because the south pier has little tidal movement on a rising tide.  Just as I was getting a rhythym with the trout, lightning hit on Elmers and sent me and the only other person on the bridge running back to our vehicles for dear life!

The next few hours were long periods of rain and lightning with brief 10-minute intervals where I could make a few casts.  The specks hung around even after the lights went off, and I managed several decent trout in the box, biggest just over 18 inches.  I never got around to entering it into the STAR F/F Division, now I wish I had!

The rest of the morning, the weather kept me close to shore. I actually caught more fish f/f off the side of the road.  The TPH has sand trout to 12" and the ditches west of there have rat reds and puppy drum that hit the Coma Spoon.  Everything east of the TPH was closed to fishing at that point.

Saturday morning I was joined at the Golden Meadow launch at sunrise by Master Jake and his friend Taylor.  We put the trolling motor on the canoe and headed first to the south and east, and then west to Catfish Lake.  On his third cast with a popper, Jake missed a red right at the canoe. A little later, he noticed grass twitching and suspected sheepshead.  Those goats are suckers for a Coma Spoon, so he tied on one and cast pinpoint to the grass, then made tiny strips back in.  I saw the line go tight, and then the fish bolted to the open water. About 10 minutes later, a 5lb red came to the net.  Over the next 3 casts, he hooked and landed, a 9.25 lb red, an 8-lb red, and a 18-inch red that broke my Ross Flystik (the only flyrod on board).  Jake proceeded to catch a few more reds and one small drum on commie spoon, while Taylor caught several specks and two reds on jig under a popping cork.

When we got to Catfish Lake, there were whitecaps.  But the water clarity was superb, and we proceeded... I should say Jake and Taylor did, since I was running the boat, not fishing...they proceeded to get strikes almost every cast.  These were 11.5" specks, 12" rat reds (ton of those),  and some nice sand trout.  We ended the day around 2:30pm with 5 keeper specks and 6 white trout, and 10 reds.  I joined the RSFF crew for the traditional Saturday evening fish / veggie fry (normally fish / shrimp / veggie fry, but there was NO shrimp to be found anywhere!) 

Sunday morning I slept in late, then did some bank fishing south of The Meadow in Bayou Lafourche.  The bayou water is as clear as I've ever seen it for July.  By Cormier's 2nd Law, it should be good flyfishing, and it was!  Nothing big, but lots of action on small specks and ladyfish on clousers.