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Maurepas Swamp WMA Exploring

October 13, 2023
Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Outdoors, Scouting, Warmwater
3 Comments

For someone living in south Louisiana I spend quite a bit of time fishing away from the blackwater swamps that occur in our lowlands. Targeting different species, especially our native sunfish, has made fishing these types of locales an absolute necessity and I’m grateful for it! Swamps are awesome! My issue with them is I don’t have a lot of experience with them so I don’t always know the best places to go to target the fish I want to catch and my only means of exploiting these places is on foot or via a kayak, which is limiting. Back in late April I decided to take an exploratory trip, on foot, to an area of the Maurepas Swamp WMA where I had heard a good bit of dollar sunfish were located at. Obviously the dollars were a target species, but I was honestly down for whatever I came across – in fact I brought three fly rods with me from a 1wt to a 7wt just in case.

The Maurepas Swamp WMA is nearly 62,000 acres of public land an hour southeast of Baton Rouge that is as far down in the Amite River basin as you can get. It’s got all the swamp critters and whether you fish or hunt, it’s a good place to spend some time. The water I wanted to target required a short hike in – all the better.

It didn’t take long to start catching fish with the ever-aggressive goggle-eye (warmouth) showing up first. I was surprised by the next species that showed up though and it was a pleasant surprise at the, flier! I had only previously caught these in the Bayou Lacombe watershed so this was a pretty cool find!

It actually turned out that the flier were the dominate species for me on the day. Dollar sunfish never made an appearance. I wasn’t in the same exact place where I had heard they were prevalent, but I figured I was close enough. I also caught a couple smaller largemouth bass that I didn’t bother to take a picture of and saw choupique, but didn’t come away with any. It turned out to be quite the scouting trip and I walked away pretty excited by my local public land find – always great to have those types of places in the rolodex in my mind!

Northern Idaho – Day 5 – One Last Hurrah

October 12, 2023
Adventure, Beer, Camping, Coldwater, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Food and Drink, Freshwater, Outdoors, Travel, Wade Fishing
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Packing up to leave is always bittersweet for me. On the one hand I’m usually ready to be home and see my family by the end of every trip. On the other hand getting back home means getting back to the daily grind and the stresses that go with it. Plus I hate the activity of packing up, I’d rather be fishing.

We did do a little more fishing before we headed out. I had to make one more try at a bull trout before putting the fly rod up to travel home. I chose a juicy looking roadside run to pick apart with a streamer and did manage to fool a cutthroat, but no bulls were raised.

Up above the juicy run was this cliff face that produced several fish for Marcus and I, much more productive than the run below. We headed out shortly after fishing those two spots. It was time to head back to civilization and talk to the families we had not spoken with since arriving at our campsite.

Milk shakes were secured at the nearest gas station and breweries were visited once we were back in Spokane – milk shakes and beer – staples for any western native trout trip! Stay tuned for a report from this year’s trip to Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado!

Northern Idaho – Day 4 – More Big River Action

October 11, 2023
Adventure, Bucket List, Camping, Coldwater, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Outdoors, Travel, Wade Fishing
2 Comments

What a hiatus, I know. Haven’t made much of an effort to sit down and write in quite a while and it honestly hasn’t bothered me one bit. I can promise to do better, but I know better than that, anyway, here’s some more from our trip to Idaho back in 2022.

The next day was spent fishing with Marcus back on the big river. I don’t remember much from the day, but I do remember the fishing being so-so (compared to other days) for me, Marcus doing a good bit of Euro nymphing, and we actually ran into another fisherman later that morning (we were fishing behind someone). Apparently the day was completely overcast too according to the pics. My memory fails me at times and this is certainly one of those times. I should probably do a better job of documenting these trips shortly after they’re completed.

I also remember the arduous hike from the river to get back to the road when we were ready to make a move; which is from where the above perspective was shot. We fished a section of river in the morning that curved away from the road, parking at one end where it was relatively easy to enter the river at and hiking back when the road and the river met back up a good bit upstream – the only issue with that was the elevation was quite a bit different, as you can see. Probably not an issue for folks who are in shape and are use to elevation change, but I don’t resemble that remark.

We made another move up river and if I remember right the fishing improved a bit, to the point where I quit taking pictures of every fish. It’s hard for me to get to that point when I travel far to fish, but it does happen.

Here’s your sign! It was another great day spent on a river in Northern Idaho. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to experience catching a bull trout in bull trout country on this day. We had one more morning to go before it was time for us make our way back to Spokane.