Grand Isle or Fourchon

[MathGeek]

Planning a trip for June or July. Pulling a boat 1400 miles from CO, so planning to stay for a couple of weeks. Last year we stayed at Bobby Lynn's. We had a great time and caught plenty of fish, but more out of Fourchon (Jetties and E. Timbalier) than in the marsh. I guess our skill set is better matched to nearshore than the marsh, and the kids love catching the bigger redfish and drum. It seems like Grand Isle offers more options depending on what the wind, tides, and fish are doing and there should be some pretty viable options all within a relatively short run. Opinions and input?

[I make oil]

June or July for a couple of weeks? I would recommend staying in Grand Isle. The fishing is good you can access inshore/offshore and the marsh and when the wife and kids don't want to fish they can play on the beach. Also that time of the year the crabs will be running pretty well. Look into Bridge Side Marina they have places to stay a good boat lauch with bait/gas and are walking distance to the beach. The Grand Isle Beach is not like Florida but is still nice. Also more options for resturants etc in Grand Isle. Good Luck and have fun.

[Dink]

What he said

[skeeter77346]

Grand Isle is getting better everyday. The elevated bridge from Leeville is done. Gotta try the Leeville Restaurant while you are there - excellent.

Easy to hit the Fourchon rigs from GI. Be safe on the road.

Book early, (get a slip reserved too) as there will be a number of fishing tournaments during those months. Just an example:
http://www.grandislerentals.com/Events.html

[meaux fishing]

Grand Isle. If you wanna fish East Tim you can always trailer the boat to fourchon. Here is the website for the property company we always rent from http://www.grandislerentalsolutions.com

[meaux fishing]

Originally Posted by skeeter77346

Grand Isle is getting better everyday. The elevated bridge from Leeville is done. Gotta try the Leeville Restaurant while you are there - excellent.

Easy to hit the Fourchon rigs from GI. Be safe on the road.

Book early, (get a slip reserved too) as there will be a number of fishing tournaments during those months. Just an example:
http://www.grandislerentals.com/Events.html

If you have kids I wouldnt recommend being there the weekend of the Tarpon Rodeo, which is the last weekend of July

[Garfish]

Originally Posted by I make oil

June or July for a couple of weeks? I would recommend staying in Grand Isle. The fishing is good you can access inshore/offshore and the marsh and when the wife and kids don't want to fish they can play on the beach. Also that time of the year the crabs will be running pretty well. Look into Bridge Side Marina they have places to stay a good boat lauch with bait/gas and are walking distance to the beach. The Grand Isle Beach is not like Florida but is still nice. Also more options for resturants etc in Grand Isle. Good Luck and have fun.

X10000000

Way more options for the family besides fishing in Grand Isle.

[Zachary Boy]

Keep in mind that if you ever stay in Leeville again, Grande Isle is easily and quickly accessible via Southwest canal. When I had my camp in Leeville, we would ride out to Lake Raccoucci and if the water was muddy we would backtrack to 'the other side' of Bayou Lafourche and many times find fresh green gulf water. Good luck and welcome to "The Sportsman's Paradise"...

[I make oil]

If your going to be down for at least a week I would also recommend you book a trip with a guide. You can learn more fishing with a guide in one day that you can learn on your own in a year down here. Well worth the investment.

[MathGeek]

I appreciate everyone's input and advice.

Originally Posted by I make oil

If your going to be down for at least a week I would also recommend you book a trip with a guide. You can learn more fishing with a guide in one day that you can learn on your own in a year down here. Well worth the investment.

I agree completely, and I've learned a tremendous amount from guides over the years. However, my experience is that only about half of the guides I've used in the past have been truly customer focused and willing to educate me in ways likely to improve my future fishing success.

When hiring a guide, I wonder whether they are more interested in posting a fishing report with a box full of specks that we had to travel 50 miles to get or rather are they willing to show me 3-6 good spots within 5-10 miles of Bridgeside Marina because that's what I'll need to make the most of my time in Grand Isle. I wonder if they're willing to let each angler fish two poles. I wonder if they are willing to let someone fish with a bit of fresh crab or hook up a small croaker or sand trout or put a dead shrimp on the bottom in addition to a live shrimp under a cork. I wonder if the guide I hire is willing to let the kids put a few sheepshead, drum, and gafftops in the box if that is what a spot is handing us, or if he's in a big hurry to rush to the next spot so he can advertise how many trout his customers caught that day.

Is the guide I hire willing to explain which spots are better or worse for given wind and tide conditions or is he just willing to put us in a good spot for the wind and tide conditions that day? To me, a good education and being allowed to try a variety of techniques in each spot is more valuable than trying to fill the box with specks as fast as possible. Are these unreasonable requests for a customer to make of a guide? I clean my own fish and I tip well!

[meaux fishing]

Originally Posted by MathGeek

I appreciate everyone's input and advice.




I agree completely, and I've learned a tremendous amount from guides over the years. However, my experience is that only about half of the guides I've used in the past have been truly customer focused and willing to educate me in ways likely to improve my future fishing success.

When hiring a guide, I wonder whether they are more interested in posting a fishing report with a box full of specks that we had to travel 50 miles to get or rather are they willing to show me 3-6 good spots within 5-10 miles of Bridgeside Marina because that's what I'll need to make the most of my time in Grand Isle. I wonder if they're willing to let each angler fish two poles. I wonder if they are willing to let someone fish with a bit of fresh crab or hook up a small croaker or sand trout or put a dead shrimp on the bottom in addition to a live shrimp under a cork. I wonder if the guide I hire is willing to let the kids put a few sheepshead, drum, and gafftops in the box if that is what a spot is handing us, or if he's in a big hurry to rush to the next spot so he can advertise how many trout his customers caught that day.

Is the guide I hire willing to explain which spots are better or worse for given wind and tide conditions or is he just willing to put us in a good spot for the wind and tide conditions that day? To me, a good education and being allowed to try a variety of techniques in each spot is more valuable than trying to fill the box with specks as fast as possible. Are these unreasonable requests for a customer to make of a guide? I clean my own fish and I tip well!

When you call a guide to book a trip you should make clear what kind of trip it is you are looking for. That way you don't feel cheated. There is a lot of people that don't want to catch drum and heads do guides will naturally just stray away from that type of fishing.

[Dink]

Talk to him when you call, but you might be asking for alot! His fee may reflect it

[eman]

The best thing you can do to get an educational trip is go in the off season and leave the kids at home. I'm all for taking kids fishing .But if the guide has to help the kids he has less time for you. If you have to help the kids then your attention is not focused on where ,when and why.
The reason i say off season is during the heat of the summer it's easy to go out and catch a 5 man limit of trout and be back at the dock cleaning fish by 9 am.
The guides don't want to be out in the broiling sun any more than you do.
Make sure and tell the guide you want to hire that you want an educational trip and
That you want to learn the where and when and why for different seasons.

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by eman

The best thing you can do to get an educational trip is go in the off season and leave the kids at home. I'm all for taking kids fishing .But if the guide has to help the kids he has less time for you. If you have to help the kids then your attention is not focused on where ,when and why.
The reason i say off season is during the heat of the summer it's easy to go out and catch a 5 man limit of trout and be back at the dock cleaning fish by 9 am.
The guides don't want to be out in the broiling sun any more than you do.
Make sure and tell the guide you want to hire that you want an educational trip and
That you want to learn the where and when and why for different seasons.

Having taken quite a few of my children's friends fishing and talked with a number of charter boat captains about their experiences with children, I can certainly appreciate the expectation that captains have about how undisciplined, inattentive, and challenging children can be in a boat with hooks and fins flying about.

In contrast, my boys have been fishing since they were about four and each landed his first 39" Muskie at age 5 or 6. We put over 500 fish in the boat last year, over 200 on our Louisiana trip. The big redfish in the picture was boated by my daughter and my younger son caught an even bigger one. My kids are better anglers than me, usually limiting out first and usually catching bigger fish to boot. I'm a bit better at precision casting, but that's about it. The girls prefer not to break blue crabs apart, but other than that most of the help they need is someone to net the fish when it gets to the boat. My children are attentive, disciplined, and obedient to instructions, especially when we're on the water.

We've been on at least a half a dozen trips where the charter boat captain was quite capable of managing the fishing while simultaneously providing us with an extremely useful education regarding why he was doing what he was doing. I've only been fishing once without my kids in the last 12 years, and that was a spur of the moment deal when I was visiting my brother. The half dozen or so charter boat trips where I don't think the captain did a very good job educating us were cases where I felt that he was keeping some cards close to the vest and reluctant to share what he knew.

I'm not too interested in travelling 2800 miles (1400 each way) for a one day off season fishing trip to learn less information (wrong season, less poles in the water) than I could learn in a one day charter trip at the beginning of a two week vacation. You're always going to learn more with six baits in the water than with two or four, because your fellow anglers are trying different things and most of the time the other folks in the boat will quickly switch gears once one angler finds a technique that works. And two or three experienced anglers in the charter boat will retain more for later use than one.

Finally, parents take note, I can remember feeling left out when my dad would bring home a cooler full of fish from his charter trip, but never took us on a charter trip or came anywhere close to helping us reach that level of success. My kids and I fish together, empty coolers and full.

[bluewing]

grand isle for sure. when the kids get tired of fishing, they can go get a snowball and go to the beach.

[MathGeek]

Originally Posted by bluewing

grand isle for sure. when the kids get tired of fishing, they can go get a snowball and go to the beach.

You got that right. As much as they loved fishing when they were younger, my girls (now 13 and 15) will probably be happy only getting out 3-4 times in the whole two week trip. On the other hand, my younger son (11) might only take one day off the whole trip.

[fishinpox]

Since you are not a local pm me n I will let you follow me to some good trout spots if you can keep your lips zipped

[meaux fishing]

Originally Posted by fishinpox

Since you are not a local pm me n I will let you follow me to some good trout spots if you can keep your lips zipped

X2 let me know when you plan to come down. I will be there a few weekends and the week up to the 4th of July

[MathGeek]

You gentlemen are very kind. I shared some of this thread with my son Joshua (age 11) who loves fishing and is itching to get back to Louisiana and he was genuinely touched. I'll be in touch when we have some firm dates.

Best Regards, Michael

[I make oil]

PM me when your down. I can show you around some and if you want to see the Atchafalaya Basin I can show ya dat too! Man cannot live by salt water alone. :-) Lots to see and do in the Sportsmans Paradise.