Life at Sea

We are in Leeville, Louisiana, at the fish camp where Gary and Jo have their cabin. Their cabin is built on pilings 14 feet off the water. The first row of pilings are on the land, the next 2 rows are in the water and the cabin sits atop those three rows of pilings. What a view! Their cabin is beautiful. It really turned out nicely. It has a kitchen and great room, master bedroom with private bath and 2 other bedrooms with a bath. They had it completed 3 months before Gustav went through. They had water up to the 8th step going to the cabin and 104 mph winds pounded it for 10 straight hours, but the only damage they had were some lost ceiling strips. Wind came in through the end of the roof cap, but there was no other damage. Wow! Were they lucky. Then came Ike. Water came up even higher, but I don't think they had the wind with Ike. The camp was entirely flooded and mud was everywhere. You can still see remnants of the mud. The owner is bringing in gravel and leveling out the land. We had to move our motorhome from where we had parked yesterday because they were bringing some in where we were parked. Fortunately we are used to moving and got that done in short order. In fact, we decided to stay here since we are boondocking anyway. We now face the water which is quite nice. Several of the seasonal campers have pulled in and they have some of their services, but nothing is done on the back row, so we don't have water or electric. We knew that was a possibility coming in, so we're cool with that. Gary and Jo have graciously allowed us to use the showers in the cabin, so that has been great! There is still a lot of devastation in this area. We do plan to make a run out to Grand Isle before we leave to see what it looks like.


On to the fishing report. We went out this morning and stayed until about 12:30. We caught some redfish, drum, and sheephead. It was a lot of fun and especially catching different kinds of fish. Usually I only know what one looks like. Hah! We traveled through various areas of the marsh. I was surely lost, but not Captain Gary. He knows where he is going and what he is doing.



Gary is Terry's first cousin. He is actually a former teacher/principal and Georgia Pacific employee. He has always enjoyed fishng and hunting and decided to turn a hobby into a profit making venture. So he and another partner formed Lewis and Harp Coastal Fishing Guide Service. They can be found here: http://www.lewisandharp.com/ He has been featured on Redneck Outdoor Adventures before and is considered "King of the Mangrove" for his ability at ferreting out the Mangrove Snapper fish.

We came in for a quick lunch and to let our dogs out and then we went back out. This time we ran into trout. We caught a lot of white trout which Gary says is very good eating. They were small, but there is no size limit nor a count limit and so they went into the box. We have been seeing dolphins every day. They play in the water and are fun to watch. Imagine our surprise when we were fishing and all of a sudden a dolphin breaches the surface and leaped in an arc out of the water! Hah! He did it again, and me without my camera in my hand!

Gary cleaned fish for supper which were absolutely delicious. Plans are to go out in the big boat tomorrow out into the bay, I think. He has a Boston Whaler which is 10 feet wide. We intend to do some serious damage to the numbers of fish in the ocean tomorrow!

I am including some pix from today. We waited until almost dark to come in, which was about 5:15, so I got a picture of the sunset. Brandon, our son, is the youngest member of the party and I have a few pictures of Gary and Terry.

Wish us good fishing tomorrow!

Till next time. . .


Dale