Landon ~ Big Fish

Landon works for L.K.L. Associates in the roofing department. One of the shingle manufacturers had a trip planned for for several guys from L.K.L as well as some of their customers. They were off to Louisiana for some fishing! A four day trip, he headed out Monday, October 21 and returned Thursday October 24, two days traveling, two days on the water. Landon checked in with a write-up and some pictures ...

Day one ended up being a long day. We landed in New Orleans and had to wait roughly an hour for a car rental. After that, we were all quite hungry. We went to Texas Roadhouse simply because it was on the way to our destination and had a big group. We finished eating, but I happened to be with the subgroup that stayed out late to visit Bourbon Street. That ended up going much later than I had hoped. We didn’t get to our lodge until 3 am and we needed to be up by 5:30 am for breakfast before heading out on the water.

So after a mere two hour nap, we got up to get ready. The three who had been drinking didn’t get up in time to join us on the water today. I was paired up with one of the customers we invited and started catching speckled trout right away. Before I started catching the trout, I first caught a catfish, which needed to be released. The next fish I hooked after that I believe was the fish of the day for the whole group. It was a red fish bull, “bull” meaning it was too big to keep. It was 40” which is a gnarly fish to reel in. My partner was reeling in the trout super easy, but I had to fight this bull for a solid five minutes. My arms were so tired once I finally brought it in. I was a little nervous I wouldn’t be cut out to keep fishing the whole day, but that was by far the biggest fish I hooked.The spot we were getting the trout was amazing. We hit our limit of 30 within an hour. The rest of the day we looked for more red fish, but they were harder to find and trickier to reel in. Still an awesome time.

Finishing off our time on the water, we returned to the lodge, showered up, and took care of a bit of work. Then for dinner they prepped some of the trout we caught and it was glorious. I wanted more, but was completely stuffed. The rest of the evening was pretty chill. A bit of drinking and playing games, but I was so ready to hit the hay.

Day three was basically the same deal as day two. I was with two of the guys that missed the first day of fishing, so compared to them, I was feeling like a pro. We launched from a different area where there was a lot more open water. The first two spots we went to treated me so well. I’d cast my line and within seconds I’d have a bite. There were lots of small fish that we couldn’t keep, but I didn’t care. Just hooking a fish and reeling it in was a blast for me. Especially when I had a decent streak of five or six casts that I got to reel in. I didn’t hook anything crazy like the 40” red fish from day one, but I did reel in a decent 29” black fish that put up a fight. We made a competition of course for the biggest fish, but also for the fish with most spots. I thought that was lame compared to the biggest fish, until I reeled in one with 17 spots. Our guide hyped it up a lot and got me excited about it. To finish out the fishing for the day, we went to a very open area where we hooked up bigger fish. Oscar, one of the customers we invited on the trip reeled in the biggest fish on our boat. About a 31” red fish. To end the day back at the lodge, some of us tried to catch up on work and others just relaxed. A great day.

Thursday they finished up and made the flight home in the evening.

Back to work!