Back in April I got out on a very unassuming local drainage ditch in the kayak and had a really productive panfish trip.  The ditch was in surprisingly good shape, water fairly low and clear, a sign that we had not had rain in a while.  This waterway gets loaded with trash after every storm because frankly folks around here are spoiled with water and really don’t put much thought into how their actions impact their local watersheds or what lives in them.  I had taken my kids to the adjacent park a few times to get them out of the house during the pandemic and noted that the water was in good shape and bream were starting to bed in the ditch.

The bayou has a good variety of sunfish, something we definitely take for granted here in south Louisiana.  I was able to catch bluegill, longear sunfish, red spotted sunfish(stumpknocker), warmouth(goggle-eye), redear sunfish(shellcracker), green sunfish, and largemouth bass.  All caught on a slow sinking spider

I had continually written off fishing here in the past, but thanks to this trip I will probably add this local option to my list of places to hit each Spring, provided the flow looks good.  I didn’t anything of size, but I love the diversity.