One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

This past Saturday Matt’s parents took all of us (Sammy, Diana, Robby, Stephanie, me, Matty, Sara, Blake) down to Lake Charles to do some major fishing.  For anyone who has ever met Matt or Blake you know this somehow turns into some sort of “Extreme” adventure of one kind or another, so of course there were alligators mixed in amongst the fish.  Yes, alligators (or aldergators if you are a fan of Jon and Kate Plus 8, courtesy of Alexis Gosselin.)

So we drove into Lake Charles on Friday night for our hop over to the Grosse Savanne Lodge the next day  for our fishing trip.  Hurricane Ike tore apart their lodge they have on their property, which they open up for fishing, hunting, etc, and they are currently working on getting the lodge back up in working order.  They should be up and running in September, fingers crossed!  We woke up at 4:15 in order to be at Grosse Savanne by 5:45.  It was an early morning!  If only the McDonald’s next to our hotel been open for breakfast at the hour, right Sara!

The biggest bug I have ever seen in the parking lot of our hotel

The family at about 6am but ready to fish!  

So for our fishing trip we were split up into 4 boats each with our own guide.  Matty and I lucked out with Mr. Bert, fishing guide extraordinaire, who took us to the best hot-spots around the marsh for good pickin’s.  We ended up being the only group to catch flounder, thanks to Mr. Bert! Mr. Bert

We fished for about 4.5 hours, mostly for red fish.  The beginning of the morning when the sun was coming up was pretty cool, especially being on the water.  But it got hotter as the morning went on and by 10 or 10:30 I was ready to go in!  We started with Bert taking us to catch our live bait which was as easy as him throwing a net into the water and pulling the net in.  Then we stayed in that spot and cast our first reel’s out to see what we would come up with.  We caught a few mullet but no keeper.  Then we moved down the marsh a bit to start our red fish extravaganza.  It was slow to start but once we hit the hot spot Mr. Bert could barely keep up with the red fish Matty and I were reeling in!  We caught our limit in about 20 minutes but stayed in that spot for another hour or so just for catch-and-release fun. 

After our red fish we decided to go for some flounder.  This proved to be very difficult!  For flounder you have to keep your bait hopping along the bottom of the marsh where the flounders go to eat.  So you are constantly casting, reeling, hopping, and re-casting.  Matty and I got a few nibbles here and there but were never successful in the flounder hunt.  But look what Mr. Bert dragged in:

On our way back in Mr. Bert drove slow so we could get a few pictures of the alligators.  They were RIGHT next to our little boat, very scary!

A big THANK YOU to Mr. Sammy and Mrs. Diana for taking us on this adventure with  you.  And another big THANK YOU to Blake for staying awake to drive us home while we slept in the back.  Anyone up for a fish fry??? :)