Happy Mother’s Day. Much of what we enjoy in the outdoors is directly related to our mothers, maybe more than any of us know. Statistics abound tracking the dramatic decline in our country’s number of hunters to the rapid increase of single-parent families. Yes, there are other … Continue reading →

Making a move, even proposing a move, like the one Thursday during the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission’s meeting likely will spark national attention for weeks and months. Yes, the commission approved a Notice of Intent to institute a 2013 recreational red snapper season in state waters. OK, so the … Continue reading →

Maybe it’s because most folks around me are older that the term “bucket list” has become part of more and more conversations. Maybe it’s because more guys my age took time to take in Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson starring in the movie “The Bucket List,” that they decided to make their personal … Continue reading →

Lots of us older folks grew up with our parents’ adage an almost constant in our ears: Politely stated, it’s “The road to ruin is paved with good intentions.” It’s a saying we should repeat weekly beginning just about the time every spring when our State Legislature convenes. And it can be applied … Continue reading →

How much more can you stand to read about the tussle between recreational red snapper fishermen and federal fisheries managers will be sorely tested in the coming weeks and months. Fact is that recreational anglers, especially the folks who venture from Louisiana ports and marinas, finally are angry enough to launch a push … Continue reading →

Too bad during the week before Easter so much pent-up frustration throughout our state’s offshore fishing community was vented in such a way as to cast a pall over this glorious day. Sure, the ever-building anger over increasingly lower red snapper seasons and daily limits was bound to boil over. It was coming: … Continue reading →

After all the bad weather that blew through here in the past 36 hours, the weekend’s big question is where do we go from here. You can rule out rain-affected river systems, the still-connected oxbows off the still-rising Mississippi River and the high and still rising Atchafalaya Basin. The good news is that the sunny conditions … Continue reading →

Maybe it’s too early to state without reservation that a dire prediction made 25 years ago is coming true. Remember when redfish became a hot-button issue in the late 1980s? There was that incident when a purse-seine vessel’s nets broke and thousands of redfish littered state waters east of the Mississippi River. Continue reading →

Next week’s spring equinox always brings changes, and it looks like our part of the world is celebrating the event ahead of most of the rest of the country. True, the freshwater action for most bass and sac-a-lait fishermen took a tumble this weekend on a miserable combination of strong east winds, rain-swollen rivers and hard rises … Continue reading →

Yep, bad news comes in threes. This time last week, the news spread across Baton Rouge that John Barton Sr. and Ronnie Hoover had passed away. News like that is never good, especially when its followed by news that Percy Daigle had joined them in the great hunting and fishing paradise in the sky. Mr. … Continue reading →

No matter how many times you hear Lena Horne sing Stormy Weather, you’ll never hear six verses. But after five straight storm-ruled weekends, south Louisiana fishermen have that many. And because rain is predicted to start Thursday, and possibly linger into Monday, this weekend could be the worst of this young year. A “weak cold front” … Continue reading →

After watching Chris Lane blister the Bassmaster Classic field for three days last week on the Red River just south of Shreveport, there’s a need to beg forgiveness from several old-time bass fishermen for a 30-year-old mistake. It’s about the introduction of Florida-strain bass into Louisiana waters. When first proposed … Continue reading →

Thank goodness there are only three more weekends left in the season of winter, which, during the past four weekends, appears to come to south Louisiana only for weekend visits. Yep, for the fourth consecutive weekend, a “strong” cold front will hit the southern parishes and bring dramatically different conditions for Saturday and Sunday. Saturday’s south winds … Continue reading →

SHREVEPORT — Looking around this fabled northwest Louisiana city and the always-running-red Red River and it leads to wonder just how extra good fishing could be in our Sportsman’s Paradise if we dedicated more resources to this sport. While the fishing world knows about the piscatorial pleasures awaiting anyone … Continue reading →

Another Valentine’s Day has come and gone. Hearts and flowers, candy and dinner and even had a friend’s wife (his name will never be divulged here) Facebook-ed that he fixed dinner and watched a Katherine Hepburn movie (believe it was “Springtime”) with her and how much she adored her hubbie for taking … Continue reading →

By Joe Macaluso

It’s rare when so many folks who weren’t born here nor raised on the unbounded pleasures of bountiful hunting and fishing in Louisiana will commit themselves to saving our state. That rare instance comes this week in Washington, D.C. Their focus is “Vanishing Paradise,” an initiative by the National and … Continue reading →

Happy New Year! Even in the terrible years — consider 2005, 2008 and 2010’s BP-Deepwater Horizon oil-spill disaster — our fishing and hunting, our water sports and birdwatching, our camping and crabbing were so far above what other folks believe to be great that we could continue to proudly proclaim Louisiana “The Sportsman’s Paradise.” How happy … Continue reading →

There’s no question our state’s coastal marshes, bays, lakes and bayous are loaded with hungry speckled trout, redfish, black drum and sheepshead. Places like the canals in the Biloxi Marsh continue to produce flounder. A cold front scheduled to arrive sometime in the next 24 hours and continued 10-20 knot northerly winds should be enough to keep … Continue reading →

Hard to believe 2011 has come and gone, a year without major storms or an oil spill, a year when, for the most part, fishing has been terrific, ducks are flying and hundreds of youngsters were able to catch their first fish and take their first deer, squirrel, rabbit or dove from the waters, fields, swamps … Continue reading →

Woe to be a fisherman and an LSU Tiger football fan. If you can’t miss Friday’s LSU-Arkansas showdown, then you’d best get your fishing in early in the morning or you’ll miss the best fishing day during this holiday weekend. Rain is back in the picture Saturday. Rough conditions will show up on the cold front that’s … Continue reading →

For the most part, our statewide elections are over. Except for a brief reference to support for the National Rifle Association, our hunters and fishermen weren’t mentioned in this once-every-four-years bloodletting process. It’s up for debate whether that was good or bad. Four years ago, several candidates, … Continue reading →

Wind and more wind and another cold front coming in by Friday morning will dictate more of what we can and can’t do in the coming days. The current cold-front cycle for past four weekends leaves the best fishing days — at least the calmest days — for Mondays-Wednesdays. Despite 15-25 knot winds and rising … Continue reading →

Almost as sure as the sun rises in the east and LSU will beat Alabama is that we outdoorsmen face constant challenges to what we like to do best — fish and hunt. Don’t know how it happened, except that for a fleeting moment when common sense ruled in our nation’s capital, efforts to remove lead from … Continue reading →

We go to the polls Saturday and casting a ballot for me should be old hat by now. Then why do I feel like I’ll be whistling in the dark while walking through a cemetery when I’ll step behind that voting-booth veil? Maybe it’s because I remember “Bubbas for Bobby,” the slogan then candidate Bobby Jindal … Continue reading →

The strong north winds will force us to change tactics much more than colder temperatures in the next days. Remember, we’ve had consecutive weekends of strong east winds that swelled water in every nook and cranny of our coastal marches. The east winds even sent Lake Pontchartrain water levels up nearly two feet. With gale warnings … Continue reading →

That the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission had to extend the commercial fishing closures in three areas along our state’s coast indicates we continue to have problems with the oil from last year’s BP-Deepwater Horizon disaster. When the item appeared on the commission’s agenda earlier last week, alarms went off, especially after … Continue reading →

There’s always a price to pay for this first taste of comfortable, fall weather and we’re going to pay for it this weekend. The front that’s brought us cool mornings, warm afternoons and clear skies through Saturday will strengthen its high-pressure grip over south Louisiana and bring extra-strong easterly winds and rough nearshore and offshore conditions through … Continue reading →

Chilly north winds scheduled Friday will remind us why we welcome such a pleasant break from what was a much-too-hot summer. But there will be a price to pay for more comfortable afternoons - heavy north winds and the heaviest sea conditions along the coast since Tropical Storm Lee. For coastal anglers, it means staying “inside” … Continue reading →

What’s a fisherman to do? Tropical Storm Lee left so much water that folks along major bayous and rivers from Pierre Part east to Madisonville continue to be able to catch fish in their backyards — on their backyard lawns. We should see lower water levels by the weekend: The Atchafalaya Spillway, up to more than … Continue reading →

The dateline could read somewhere on the water in southern Terrebonne Parish. To be more specific we were fishing in water that once was Raccoon Island, the last spit of land in what was a many-miles-long Last Island. Bull redfish covered the reef and were hungry, and George Landry had enough blue crabs to keep four … Continue reading →

The threat of thunderstorms is about the only downer for the coming weekend. Otherwise, the action has been lightning fast for the early risers. Dawn-busters own the action in freshwater and along the coast. That’s because the mid-morning sun is so hot that bass, sac-a-lait, trout and redfish are leaving the shallows for cooler, deeper water … Continue reading →

Best tip of the week - go fishing. Action abounds in freshwater and saltwater. Weather Mexico’s tropical storm is pushing groundswells into nearshore and offshore waters. Other than that, expect variable 5-10 knot winds and 1-3 foot seas along and off the coast through the Fourth of July weekend. The still-high Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers … Continue reading →

The coast is hot, and even in areas east of the Mississippi River hit by the effects of the still-high river and the still-flowing Bonnet Carre Spillway, catches are averaging in the 20-fish-per-angler range and redfish are attacking every that moves. The Central Coast is hotter: A “poor” day is 20 trout and a near limit of … Continue reading →