Southern Louisiana, late July 2024

Fishing Fishing Reports
1

Went down with a buddy to flyfish and catch whatever species we could. I had 2 main goals. Catch an Alligator Gar on fly (ANY size), and catch a Rio Grande Cichlid on fly. The Alligator Gar would be the last of the 5 U.S. gar species I’d need in order to catch them all on fly.We fished mainly salt/brackish water, but did hit a couple freshwater spots. The 2 main areas we fished were in New Orleans and about an hour south; and also in the general area of Calcasieu Lake (ditches and canals).Here’s a sampling of what I caught.Spotted Seatrout:Sand Seatrout:Redfish:Gafftopsail Catfish:Hardhead Catfish:

2

Ladyfish:Black Drum:Atlantic Croaker:Gulf Killifish:Spotted Gar:

3

Warmouth:Rio Grande Cichlids:Alligator Gar:Alligator:

4

Nice variety of fish there.
Rick

5

Good job Dave you got your Alligator Gar. Great photos – that one of the Alligator looked like he was eying you up for a snack. Never saw a Gafftopsail Catfish before – thanks for that photo. Nice size Black Drum. Dennis

6

Nice selection of fish, even if you didn’t get what you were going after. At lease you wet some flies and had some fun.Larry —sagefisher—

7

Thanks fellas!Very happy with this trip. I DID get what I was going after… Alligator Gar and Rio Grande Cichlids were my primary targets for this trip. Very happy with the big Black Drum AND the smaller ones. Also glad to have caught Redfish and Spotted Seatrout again ( I had caught both before on fly, but only one of each). Same with Hardhead Catfish. I’d caught Gafftopsail before, but not on fly, so that was cool. And the Ladyfish were so fast and aggressive! Surprisingly tough to hook, I don’t know if they were missing, or just spitting it out very fast.I know nobody cares about this besides me… but…This trip gave me 8 Flyfers (fly-lifers… fish I had not caught on fly before), and 11 more species for my yearly list. I’ve now caught 73 Species so far this year. My Flyfishing Life-List is now up to 114 U.S. Freshwater species, plus 20 saltwater species… 134 total on fly. My buddy actually passed me up on this trip, his Flyfelist is now at 135. And another friend of ours has over 300! So… I’m certainly not setting any records here. Catching new species is fun and interesting for me.