Kris asked me if there was ever an end to stories about Louisiana, and I don’t think so. I haven’t written about the Louisiana Purchase, or the names in the Times-Picayune obituaries. There was the LSU chancellor who bet wrong on the market and secured his loans by printing up University bonds on the basement printing press. There is Ray Nagin’s baffling behavior during Katrina, his Chocolate City speech, and his ultimate corruption conviction. There’s Huey P. Long, Edwin Edwards and his corruption conviction, and Duck Dynasty’s fall from grace. There’s Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, and Jerry Lee Lewis.  I worry with some states that I’ll have nothing to say, with Louisiana I worry if I’ll ever finish talking.

We fish Louisiana somewhere near New Orleans August 4-5 with Captain Bailey Short. Captain Short is an Orvis-endorsed guide, so he should be a pretty safe bet. August 4-5 is less so. It’s hot in Louisiana in August, and while there may or may not be redfish, the fish won’t be the big 30+ pound bulls. Those start in October and stay through the winter.**

People from Houston love New Orleans in August.  The heat and humidity’s no worse than Houston, and there are no tourists. You can get hotel reservations. You can get restaurant reservations.  I guess we’re tourists too, but the ties are so close between the cities, like Houston and Dallas or Houston and San Antonio, that it doesn’t feel that way.

We’d originally tried to schedule Captain Short in November of last year: November is prime for the big reds. In Texas we also have bull reds, but not in the marsh. Our marsh is on the mainland side of the barrier islands. Because in Louisiana barrier islands don’t stand between the Gulf and the mainland, the bulls come in. Our bull reds stay on the surf side where I don’t trust our skiff. Maybe I should, but I don’t. Old age.

In November it stormed or at least threatened so we delayed. We fished in Galveston in clear water on a cold day and I caught a nice red on a nice sight cast with a fly I’d made up. Sometimes things work, even in salt water. We re-booked for April, the advantage to which is that it’s not March. March is the worst month on the Gulf Coast. There’s hard wind, dirty water, and no fish. April is a smidgen better, or maybe by April I’m just used to hard wind, dirty water, and no fish. We didn’t get to go with Captain Bailey in April either. Storms.

I’ve gone fly fishing but not caught fish, a lot of different kinds of fish, a lot of times. I’ve now not caught tarpon in Belize and Florida. I’ve hooked but not landed trout all winter on the Guadalupe, and I’ve hooked and not landed two permit. More than any other fish I’ve fished for and not caught I’ve not caught redfish. I’ve caught some, but I’ve fished a lot more. In Galveston I’ve fished and failed to see redfish for days on end, so I’ve not caught a whole lot of redfish. The only other fish that might be close is sheepshead.

Notwithstanding conventional wisdom I think redfish are hard. Maybe I’m wrong, but bonefish are a payload easier for me than redfish. Get on a good Belizean flat and sooner or later you will catch bonefish: you just have to remember not to pull the fly out of the fish’s mouth. Get on a grassy flat in Galveston Bay and sooner or later you’ll see some mullet jump 100 feet away. The sun’s not shining. The water’s off-color. The wind’s too high.  There are no fish.  Most days you won’t see redfish.

Galveston visibility is bad, and my experience in Louisiana is the same. Often you see reds just as they see you and are heading the other direction. When everything is working for me I can cast pretty well, but you know the hardest cast in fly fishing? It’s a nine-foot cast to the redfish that you just spotted as your skiff’s about to run it over.

Most weekends when we’re home we’ll take the skiff out on Saturday because we can’t resist, and we keep thinking this will be it. This will be the weekend when it all comes together. It never is. Most weekends when were home I’m likely to go bass fishing on Sunday so I’ll remember what it’s like to catch fish.

I’ve caught one more tilapia this year than I’ve caught redfish.

**Postscript. This is one of those times I was just flat wrong, even if I was certain. There are plenty of really big reds in August, and big black drum as well. I had no clue what I was talking about.