Travel: Regional Archive

06:19 PM CDT on Friday, August 6, 2004

By MARY ELLEN BOTTER / The Dallas Morning News

VENICE, La. – From Yellow Cotton Bay in the toe of Louisiana, you can almost hear the jazz on Bourbon Street less than two hours away. But I'm listening for the fin slap of a redfish wiggling to get off the hook.

It has been more than 10 years since I last fly-fished. And the lure of a lesser-known species of the sport – fly-fishing in saltwater flats – is irresistible.

I join an eagle-eyed guide and a casting expert for a glide through bountiful, table-smooth salt waters in the state's Mississippi River delta. I'll leave the actual fishing to them. These waters want a practiced hand, and I'm so rusty that the squeal of my casting might scare the fish.

At 5:10 a.m., guide Rich Wald-ner, a cup of coffee in one hand, stretches out the other to greet Alec Griffin, fishing director and a certified casting instructor at Uptown Angler in New Orleans, and me. Sunrise is pinking the sky but hasn't crested the levee behind Rich's house that keeps Old Man River in bounds.

We've boarded Rich's boat and are tooling out of Yellow Cotton Marina before 7 a.m. You wouldn't expect to find fly fishers here. This isn't Hollywood's vision of fly-casting territory: high-mountain stream, silvery trout, tall pines, Brad Pitt in the shallows. This is Louisiana's: flat, hot and brimming with burly fish. Here is the state's industrial outback, the staging area for offshore oil drilling. Refineries and egrets elbow for space on the horizon.

The Gulf of Mexico is barely five miles away, waiting to gulp the Mississippi as it ambles out of America and flows into the ocean. Yellow Cotton Bay knows nothing of those depths. Its glassy salt waters are less than 2 feet deep.

Rich poles his 16-foot, shallow-draft skiff across the surface. Alec climbs onto a 17-inch-tall platform on the bow. Not everyone has the balance to cast from this perch. But there's a payoff for the agile: The higher above the water, the better to see down into it.

Rich is on an even higher aerie at the stern, over the now-silent motor. He plants his 19 ½ -foot-long Kevlar/graphite pole into the mud beneath us and pushes us slowly and quietly over plants soaking up sunshine through Perrier-pristine water.

Redfish, the beefy and beautiful creatures we're seeking, feel the pressure of the skiff against the surface and come to investigate. Reds are chowhounds, almost always up for a meal. Driven by a voracious appetite, they'll snatch crabs, shrimp – or a lure – right out from in front of other marsh fish.

Rich sees the V-wake of a red making directly for us, and calmly directs Alec: "10 o'clock, 20 feet." With Fred Astaire grace, Alec casts to within inches of the oncoming fish. Chomp! We have one, less than 45 minutes after leaving the dock.

The fish is a looker: red-tinged bronze on top, cotton white below. It wears a nickel-size black spot like a tattoo near its turquoise-brushed tail. Called "puppy drum" back east and red drum by scientists, our capture could be a keeper if we were hungry, but most fly-fishing is catch-and-release.

"We exercise them and put them back," says Rich, gently cradling the red in the water until it revives, smacks Rich's palm with its tail and paddles away.

The flies we're using don't look like insects at all. They're Rich's creations, not nature's. The man who directed fire from the back seat of a Phantom jet in Vietnam and retired from the Marines with the rank of colonel is the one who now spends hours at a tidy desk melding fibers, glitter, hair and epoxy. The resulting lures are "redfish candy," says one top fly-caster.

"Flies down here take on the personality of the city," Rich says. "These fish like the Bourbon Street flash."

The big red we'd just freed had fallen for Miss Susan's Cleopatra Mardi Gras Special, a burst of multicolor glitter spangled with hot pink stars.

Rich explains that it was named after Susan Gros, a top fly fisher who lives in Louisiana. "In this field, you don't have to die to get something named after you."

Says Ms. Gros, holder of 15 world records, "I'm honored, as long as the fly works."

Work, it does. We haul in a 7-pound red on a "Miss Susan." Then another, and another. And it's still early.

Alec and Rich coach me to "read" the water, noting its slightly changing depth, looking into it for fish among the grasses. I don't have to see a whole fish to know it's there, they say. And I practice watching for a color shift, a movement or a fin tip slicing the surface.

We float with barely a ripple among islands of roseau cane where white ibis nest. Egrets and herons sail overhead. We never find Rich's resident 'gator, but a stingray flaps lazily past underwater.

The bay is "like an aquarium," Ms. Gros says. "I could lie on the bow of the boat and just look down. There's snails and crabs, like a little underwater buffet of all the things redfish like to eat."

Fly-fishing in saltwater flats, a small but growing segment of the sport, is serene and unhurried – between catches.

"That is my favorite fishing," says Ms. Gros. "When I'm out in the marshes, it's a beautiful place. You can forget all your cares and concentrate on the fish."

Casting in saltwater – what Alec calls one of fly-fishing's "final frontiers" – isn't limited to Louisiana. Texas offers prime saltwater flats, including between Corpus Christi and South Padre Island, says Cathie Coleman, co-owner of Blue Drake Outfitters, a 10-year-old Dallas shop specializing in fly-fishing. And Blue Drake's travel arm sends fly-casters throughout the world, to the South Pacific, the Seychelles, the Caribbean, Mexico and Belize.

But delta Louisiana offers a bonus.

"What makes New Orleans unique is that as growth in the sport occurs, there are fewer and fewer places to fish that don't get a certain amount of pressure," Alec says.

That pressure makes the fish wary and tough to catch. Mornings in Key West, Fla., he says, are a race to stake out a spot in favorite fishing waters. Here in the delta, "We could fish all day and never see another boat."

It's Sunday, normally the busiest day of the fishing week, and we're alone with the wildlife in the marsh.

About 25 feet of line lie at Alec's feet – bare so he can feel if he's stepping on it. He's using Rich's 9-foot Sage, a premium graphite rod.

"I can feel why this costs $600, but a beginner would never need a $600 rod," says Alec. An inexpensive outfit from a discount store won't last, but it will get you started in the sport, he says. A mid-range rod, reel and fly line costing about $300 can come later.

Silvery mullet are porpoising out of the water as Rich directs Alec to another red. Alec crouches slightly as he plays the fish, adding the spring of his body to the flex of the rod to work the fish toward the boat. Before the fish tires, he hands the rod to me, and I reel in my first red. It's stronger than I imagined. I have to prop the butt of the rod on my hip for leverage as I lead the fish slowly to Rich's waiting net.

The redfish is huge – and may grow in the retelling – but not as monstrous as the toothy alligator gar that cruises by. Only Alec sees it, and at an estimated 70 pounds or more, it isn't one he tries to catch on his mid-weight rod and line. Still, we're both elated.

"There's nothing in the world more relaxing than fishing in a mountain stream for trout," says Alec, 28, a native North Carolinian and 10-year angler, "and nothing more exciting than sight-fishing for redfish in a marsh."

Conditions are perfect: sunny, only a slight breeze and calm water. We reel in two sheepshead among the reds. Even old hands Alec and Rich are delighted. The many-spiked, zebra-striped fish are easily spooked and tough to catch on a fly. "We got lucky," Alec says.

I play two more reds, but given the direction the sport is taking, I may have my own fly rod on future trips.

Long dominated by men, fly-fishing in the past five years has seen a strong increase in interest among women, Alec says.

"This is a sport where women can absolutely achieve the same level of expertise as men. It isn't a muscle sport. It's a graceful sport, and that attracts women to it," he says.

For Rich, 59, who has fished since he was 7, having she-anglers aboard is fine. "I love it. I have several women that are just as good as most of our men."

Instruction and practice are key, says Alec. "The more you prepare, the better you are and the more fish you catch." And, he adds, although it's possible to fish here as a novice, booking a guide before you've honed basic skills "turns into a very expensive casting lesson."

Thunderheads are moving in from all sides of the bay. The fish are hiding behind the shadows they cast. We head for shore.

Alec had said, "Ten to 12 fish is a dandy day."

We've netted 10 redfish and two sheepshead in 4 ½ hours – about 60 pounds of finned fight. My heart has raced with the thrill. We've swapped stories, become friends.

Yep, it's been dandy.

E-mail mebotter@dallasnews.com .