I hadn't driven the 3 1/2 hours to a central Louisiana stream in a couple months. The temperatures here along the Gulf Coast were hovering around 95, hotter inland. There had been scarce rain in the parts I wanted to be. But my best friend and I needed to go. A report from a month earlier had indicated the creek was so dry the reporter had to walk hundreds of feet between pools. We decided to go anyway, mostly to explore some places we had been curious about.
Upon arrival at 7:30 a.m. we were shocked, absolutely shocked, to find this:


Can't explain it, and didn't care to at the time. We strung up six-weights with No. 6 poppers. The spotted and largemouth bass here are not big, but they respond best to big, noisy poppers, thus the six-weight. It felt great to step into the cool flows again. This stream, some of you may remember, is an oddity and a rare, precious jewel in a land of bayous and swamps. There are none other like it with sandstone terraces and fast, living water.

In it's lower reaches, the stream slows a bit over sandbars:


We each managed two of these, a lot of pumpkinseed perch.

At 1.8 miles downstream from where we went in, we found this wonderful outcrop. Remember, this is Louisiana!


By 2 p.m. it was just too dang hot to continue, so we made our way back, had a quick lunch, then it was off home, another 3 1/2 hours southward back to the swamps and bayous I grew up in. In my head, the creek lingered like a vision for days. Still does. I can't wait until cooler weather to return.
I know it's not an Appalachian stream, or Catskills or Rockies. But it's my little, precious gem and each visit there is a treasured memory.

Roger Stouff
Chitimacha, Louisiana