(Published as a feature in the Spring 2025 issue of The Drake magazine)
On a Sunday in mid October of 2024 I was poling my skiff in very shallow water, working toward a small pocket in the bank of a salt creek that wound its way through a shoreline that lay behind a shallow oyster reef. In the skiff with me were James, a real estate investor from Dallas, and his 12 year old son Mason. We had run across roughly seven miles of open water from shore to a barrier island situated on the Louisiana coast at the northern edge of the Gulf of Mexico. The water was falling, giving it a little turbidity as it stirred the soft bottom coming out of the marsh. James had briefly spotted a tail in the pocket and we were stalking in that direction to find the fish it belonged to.
As I grew closer to the pocket I saw a large shadow move off of the grass on the left side of the pocket. “Fish, at 10 o’clock” I told 12 year old Mason who was standing ready on the casting platform. As the fish slid toward the center of the pocket, sunlight hit it and it was no longer a shadow, but rather a large bright bronze figure of a very large redfish. “It’s Huge” James said excitedly. “It’s just another fish” I said quietly, not wanting to add any additional pressure to the moment. “You’ve caught a few already, do the same thing now, just put a cast in front of him”.
A few minutes later, something was again cemented in my mind and seared into my heart. The real reward of being a fly fishing guide. Something I had not anticipated when I undertook getting back into guiding.
In the spring of 2003 I was living in Lake Charles in the far Southwestern reaches of Louisiana when I began to contemplate hanging a shingle as a fishing guide. I had been fly fishing for around seven or eight years and fancied myself a fairly accomplished angler. I was certainly eaten up with fly fishing, flush with excitement over the pastime, and while seven years or so isn’t particularly a “lifetime” of experience, I was in a position with a schedule that afforded me the opportunity to spend a lot of time on the water within that span, generally fishing three to five times a week.
At the time there weren’t really any dedicated “Fly Fishing” guides in the Lake Charles area, and only a few in the Southeast part of the state closer to New Orleans. Louisiana was still barely a blip on the fly fishing map and had not yet seen the explosion of popularity as a fly fishing destination that happened after Conway Bowman caught his nearly 42 pound world record redfish in January of 2004, fishing with Captain Greg Arnold out of Hopedale.
While the fishery around Lake Charles is a great fishery, differences in the estuary doesn’t regularly afford the opportunity to sight fish to the real giant bull redfish that the marshes in the Southeast portion of the state do, and it is also considerably more seasonal, not holding numbers of redfish on shallow flats through the winter. These elements, combined with the fact that Lake Charles lacks the proximity to a major tourist attraction like New Orleans creates a situation where it’s not really feasible to make a living as a full time fly fishing guide in the area. Working there as a Fly FIshing guide is generally relegated to being a part time pursuit augmented by either a “day job” or a bay boat from which you guide kill and eat conventional tackle trips for speckled trout.
Perhaps not as aware of these conditions and limitations as I should have been, I enrolled with a local franchise of “Captain Roy’s Marine Training” and did the required coursework and testing to secure my U.S. Coast Guard “Operator of Uninspected Passenger Vessel” license, more commonly known as a “Six Pack” license, as it allowed you to take up to 6 paying passengers out on a boat. Having acquired my Coast Guard license, I got the needed Louisiana Charter Boat license, and began trying to drum up business.
Having been pretty active in the fly fishing community, I knew people who were involved with fly fishing clubs in a number of different cities and was able to secure the opportunity to speak at various club meetings and functions, giving presentations on fly fishing in the Louisiana Marsh, and started securing a few paying charters. In hindsight I’m not so certain that I was delivering great value for my guide fee, much a victim at the time of not knowing what I didn’t know. It’s not that I wasn’t able to find fish and knew where to look on given tides and in given conditions, but more that my playbook still wasn’t deep enough. I had a pretty good Plan “A” and Plan “B”, but when it came time to have to pivot to Plan “C”, things got a bit shakier.
I guided a small number of trips each year, primarily spring through fall, for a few years then had to give it up when life changes made it no longer feasible. Changes in my job and schedule as well as finding myself in the position of being a single dad with Domiciliary custody of a five year old left me without the time needed to guide fishing trips.
As all things have a season, and the one constant in life is change, at the beginning of 2023 I found myself in a position of again having more time on my hands. My kid now an adult not needing constant parenting, with their own transportation and pretty independent, and a job at which I now accrued a very large amount paid time off (actually, just time off, working in a 100% commission position, I don’t get paid days, they just let me take the time). My thoughts again began to turn toward guiding , this time much more prepared, as an additional 20 years of time on the water will do.
Again I enrolled in courses to get my Coast Guard license, which I had allowed to lapse, this time the coursework being completely online, with proctored online exams using a webcam to ensure that there were no shenanigans. Unlike the first time I took the captain’s course, there was no mention or study of “Loran Lines”, and instead there was discussion of GPS. Some things though don’t change, the need to be able to plot courses on charts with an understanding of variance and deviation, set and drift as well as knowing rules of the road and memorizing “lights and day shapes” that identify what type of vessel you may be approaching.. Again I ably passed the course, submitted applications with piles of associated paperwork and by the beginning of October 2023 was once more a licensed Louisiana fishing guide.
Initially envisioning guiding a moderate amount of trips, perhaps picking up overflow from friends who were guides, I was surprised when bookings started coming in and business grew much more and much faster than I anticipated. I had a reasonably busy fall and winter of 2023-2024, and was soon getting re-bookings from people I had fished. It wasn’t long before bookings for guide trips were coming in at a pace that it was apparent I couldn’t accommodate all of the booking request I was getting and the full time job, so I did the only sensible thing and quit the job to guide full time.
Things are a lot different this go around from my attempt at guiding in the early 2000’s, I am a lot different now. Older and hopefully wiser, but definitely more knowledgeable. Living now in a more central location to our state’s coast, I have the ability to fish anywhere along it. In the fall and winter my guiding is concentrated in the Southeast part of the state where the big bulls swim, and in closer proximity to New Orleans. Louisiana is now much more of a “bucket list” fishing destination than it was in 2003. Arguably, among the destinations that usually come up in fly fishing “bucket list” discussions, Louisiana is the most accessible, most affordable, and offers the greatest likelihood of being successful in ones quest.
As I’ve guided anglers into our marsh in pursuit of that fish of a lifetime, I’ve learned a few things about what I’ve learned over the last couple of decades. I am much more able to pivot and go “off plan” to find the fish where they are and give my anglers an opportunity to catch them. I’ve also become much more adept at finding fish, and putting anglers on them when conditions are bad. This last bit of growth I think being the most critical in earning my keep as a guide in terms of things fish related. Of course guided trips are about more than the fish, they are about the entire experience and being personable, knowledgeable about not just the fish, but rather the entire environment they live in as well as the local flora and fauna, and being interesting and to some extent entertaining. Patience and the ability to teach and relay information go a long way to client experience as well.
“A little more to the right” I instructed Mason. The boy made the adjustment I asked him to and dropped the fly ahead of and past the fish. I wanted the fly to pass close to the face of the fish when stripped, Louisiana redfish have to be “fed”. The fly needs to pass through an area within about a foot of the fish’s face. “Wait” I instructed, and as the fish slowly moved forward I added “Ok, now strip, long slow strip”, Mason stripped the fly, the fish made a small surge forward and I saw the white flash of it’s lips opening and gills flaring as it ate the fly “Strip strip” I said excitedly, Mason drove the hook home in the fish’s jaw and it bolted, at first running toward us because we were in the way of the only route it had for escape. I spun the boat to the right to keep Mason’s fly line clear of the boat, and once we were situated with the boat and Mason pointed toward the fish, which was now moving into the open water of the flat it really began to run, peeling drag, and showing Mason his backing. “Hey dad, now you can tell him what a big fish it is” I said to James, laughing.
I staked out the boat and moved to the front to coach Mason on fighting the fish, but not much was required. Mason had paid attention to my instructions for the previous day and a half and was now instinctively applying pressure with the butt of the rod, changing the direction of pull whenever the fish changed direction, and as the fish drew close to the boat backing it up, turning it around and keeping it off balance. Once I got a hand on the leader and began to slide it toward the boat, it’s size really became apparent. Its head was large and it was wide across the back. I slid the head of the fish into a small net, and lifting the net with one hand and the tail of the fish with the other, carefully brought it into the boat. It was a bull by anyone’s measure, forty inches long and twenty five pounds. We got a few quick pictures, including one of James and Mason holding the fish together, then very carefully released it after giving it adequate time in the water at the side of the boat to recover.
As soon as the fish swam off and I stood up, the skiff erupted with excited whoops and screams, “this one calls for a group hug” James said, as he, Mason and I hugged in a huddle. This was the largest fish that Mason had ever caught, a milestone that he had already set and surpassed a couple of times on this trip. I showed James the picture I took of him and Mason with the fish, he took my phone and showed it to Mason. “You know that picture I have of me and my dad with that big bass when I was a kid”? James asked Mason, “yes” Mason replied, “This is going to be that picture to us” James said. Moments like this, and many others I’ve experienced in just the last year really gave clarity to what the greatest part of being a fishing guide is for me.
When I made the decision to start guiding again, I imagined that what I would enjoy most would be being on the water, in the beautiful environs of our marsh, and the fish. These crazy, big, bright red fish that often eat with abandon and act like piscatorial strippers, tantalizingly waving their tail or showing their back above the water line. I thought my satisfaction would come from the wading roseate spoonbills, gliding pelicans, and sea turtles feeding at the base of the mangroves. I do enjoy and love all of these things, but shortly after I started guiding again, it crystalized for me that there was much more to it.
What at first started to ring in the back of my head, or perhaps more accurately in my heart, soon became clearly apparent to me as I began to spend time on the water with people passionate about fly fishing. The best part of this deal is that I am in a position to bring people joy, and I am spending time with people when they are at their best. No one is ever pissed off that they are going fishing. No client ever wants to dodge me at the boat ramp, the way that sales clients in my corporate life sometimes did. I am gifted with the opportunity to imbue a little happiness into someone’s life all from within the confines of a small skiff. I am also privileged to be a part of people accomplishing personal milestones, whether it’s “first saltwater fish on fly”, “first redfish”, “first black drum”, “biggest fish ever”. More often than not, anglers I guide are accomplishing some milestone that is important to them and I get to be a part of it.
The marsh, the water, the fish and the environment as a whole are beautiful and almost magical, deserving every bit of the romanticized poetic words about it that have been committed to paper, film and the internet. But the true reward of guiding has been the people, people who are not only paying me good money, but who are entrusting me with their most valuable asset, their time. My clients are giving over to me their weekends, vacation days and retirement time, all of which can never be recovered, so I take very seriously the responsibility and privilege of using that time to bring them joy, accomplish their milestones and create memories. James and Mason will have numerous great memories from a very eventful weekend, and a picture they can look back on of time shared together. .