Grand Isle

When I was a young child… between the ages of say 4 and 11 we used to go to Grand Isle. Just getting there was an adventure, but even when we got there, it was still maybe a mile or so to the Lafourche rocks. It was about 110 miles from our house to what I would like to say is the fishing Mecca of the world. Driving past sugar cane fields and shrimp boats, it was a trip I liked and hated at the same time.

It was a rock jetty, and it was unlike anything else in the world there. You could catch red fish, mackerel, white and speckled trout, mullet, and drum, not to mention catfish, or flounder, or shrimp and crabs. It was a fisherman’s paradise. In fact there were some people that fished for shark there too.

We would get there early in the morning, my father would get us up and half the time we’d quickly fall asleep in the car again. And we practically had the place to ourselves, now my grandma used to have a camp in Cocodrie that was also nice… but before my time… anyway I always felt like we were going though a lot of trouble to get to this place; we had better make the best of it. Even my brother would tease me less going out there, than he would other times… we were on a mission.

We had crab lines to put out, and things the setup, and sand castles to build (I guess it wasn’t all work). My dad always stopped at the ice house and the grocery store along the way to get ice, food and drink, and chicken necks for the crab line. We would have two sticks usually two net poles and a string running between them. Every so often we’d have a neck and we would check it every 5-10 minutes. By the end of the day, we’d have at least one, maybe two ice chests full of crab. We would go out there with about 4 or 5.

One time my dad brought his trawl and boat with him, he never did get the boat out there, but did manage to pull the trawl by hand… that day we were giving everybody there some shrimp, because we simply could not take it all. The funny thing is, I thought this was how it was everywhere, so I really didn’t think twice about it. No mercury poisoning, no regulators, no limits. It was just fishing. I didn’t know how good I had it.

We eventually moved away from Louisiana, and Grand Isle, and never even came close to the success we had there. In fact I’ll tell my greatest fishing story, which had me perched up on the rocks, just fishing (we took breaks in-between fishing, to swim and what not… yes in the very same waters that some people were catching sharks in… felt plenty of “things” brush up, or even knock you down… freaks me out now… but not then), so anyway, my attempt was half hearted at best, but I did hit something (because really, one or two casts was all you needed) and boy oh boy was I in for a fight.

All I had was a Zebco 202 “Snoopy” pole and it was quickly becoming a pretzel. In fact the reel really didn't want to pull whatever was on the other end so I had to resort to an old fisherman's trick. Pull up and on the descend to pull up again reel it in. This was something that deep sea fisherman do, not Zebco Snoopy poles. The reel was literally whining as the fish came closer and closer. I almost fell in the water, because the fish really was a fighter. Eventually I won out, and my dad even took my picture with the fish, a sheepshead. The thing was big, I don't really know how big, and we would have simply thrown it back but it was a moment of pride, especially for my dad. It a very bony fish, not good eating, but we brought it home and my mom cooked it anyway. I'll have to dig around and find the picture, it really was big... maybe even record. lol