New Orleans Fly Fishing Rebounds: The Aftermath Of Gustav

Posted under fly fishing reports by Will Benson

Although he was out of power for nearly five days, caught between the mess of one hurricane and unsure about the next, Capt Greg Arnold is back at it.  “Will,” he said. “The marina ain’t there no more.  Launch ramp is fine, but all those houses and sheds…they’re gone. Not to mention, one of those big rigs from out in the gulf that has sunk in the middle of MRGO.  All you can see are the offices at the top!”
I could picture it in my head as Greg just kept telling me about what he’s seen down on the bayou.  A lot of the same area that was hit hard by Katrina took another blow in Gustav.  With a surge of about 12 feet, the roads were covered with mud and mostly impassable down to where you could put a boat in the water.  After 4 days Greg was able to get out and get a closer look at some of the damage in his skiff before heading out to check on the redfish.  
“It appears that the oyster boats themselves are mostly intact just the dock operations for the commercial fisherman are gone.  I suspect that the damage is significantly worse over in Grand Isle and back towards Cocodrie and Houma.  I haven’t been to look though.”  Greg said.  He also described  how obviously he was lucky this time, as the levees in New Orleans held, and the city should reopen for tourism soon.  The fishing hasn’t been outrageous but Greg said it was getting better and may get really good as soon as the weather settles down.  It looks like New Orleans has dodged another bullet with hurricane Ike, but the boys on the Texas Coast might not be so lucky.  We can only hope that the storm damage is minimal and that these hurricanes don’t continue to come at us every week! Down in the Keys we certainly feel lucky to have dodged the bullet on Ike.  The water in the Keys right now is very murky as a result of the continued tropical storm activity.  I am glad to be heading out to Colorado for the Fly Fishing Retailers Convention this weekend to promote Connected instead of trying to find fish in this pea soup.