Grand Isle, October 2018

We arrived at Grand Isle State Park on October the 19^th. On the way in we beeped our horn as we passed my sister’s house, even though she and Gary weren’t there. You do have to respect tradition after all. Setting up we were chased into the fifth wheel by a veritable cloud of mosquitos, some of the largest ones we have ever seen.

I checked with some of the other campers and Renita and I went and purchased my fishing license. Our friend Terry and Evelyn were arriving later and after spraying myself with repellant, was able to talk to some of the other campers about fishing.

Redfish and sand trout were being caught and when our friends arrived I gave the fishing report. Terry and I decided to fish the bridge for big reds. I had no luck catching any bait and so the next morning we bought some shrimp and frozen mullet and went to the Camadrie side of the free fishing bridge.

It didn’t take long before we had a nice fish one, but it was gaff top sail catfish.  They are good eating, so I kept one and then another as they were biting on every cast. Unfortunately, the bull reds were not biting, no reds were, and shrimp only produced small bait stealers.

We finally called it a day and decided that we would fish the back waters of Elmer’s Island. The results were the same, dismal and so we headed toward Port Fuchon, fishing the bridges as we went. Reaching a spot, I had never fished before Terry caught several sand and speckled trout, but they were all small.

Heading back towards Grand Isle we stopped and made a cast along some flooded black mangroves. Terry had a pickup and he fought and landed a nice twenty-three-inch red. I tried several spots before I caught a keeper red, but that was it.

We fished more bridges before returning to Elmer’s Island and fished one last hole. I caught another keeper red and Terry caught a nicer one just as we were about to leave. Deciding we had enough for the day we cleaned our fish and went back to the campers.

The next day we decided to try something different, surf fishing. Now things have changed a lot at Elmer’s Island and you can no longer drive along the beach, limiting you to the places you can fish, (you need to walk in). There were quit e a few shrimp boats working further out and right in front of us a porgy boat was trawling for porgy’s, (they are a small oily fish and are harvested and processed to make fish oil and fish meal).

Clouds of birds were feeding by the boats, and probably all the big reds. We never had a bite, unless you count hard head catfish. They are reported to be one of the worst tasting fish the ocean produces, (we have a book that rates the table quality of all common ocean fish), and so we fished for a while before heading to the State Park. After lunch we walked to the beach at the park and the fishing was even worse, more hard heads.

Heavy rains were heading in and we had one last day of fishing. Returning to the back waters we fished the spots where we had caught reds, but they weren’t there. Terry did manage to catch a small black drum.

That night our dog got sick and so we found a vet where we could take her.  The next morning it was raining hard and we headed up the bayou to the vet. Terry and Evelyne left for Rockport and after returning from the vet we left the next day.

Its always nice to visit Grand Isle but the fishing was some of the worst I have ever seen, and we will not plan another trip in October. Clear skies

Molly report, (Our dog) She had a bad seizure and while she has recovered we are taking her to our usual vet in Rockport.