Marshes in the good ol' days...

[Jeff]

I thought I would share some thoughts about a trip I was very lucky to make over the weekend. I got to hunt a fairly exclusive marsh in Southwest Louisiana over the weekend. It's the kind of invite you hope to get one day, and the kind that when extended you NEVER pass up.

While I will keep the name of the marsh quiet on here, it was an eye opening experience for a 30 year duck hunter that has hunted almost exclusively in the marsh. This marsh was composed of approx. 30,000 acres of pure freshwater marsh. It was an impoundment with flood control structure, pumps and everything needed to make an extraordinarily healthy marsh. I suspect this is how marshes that I now hunt in SE louisiana looked in their heyday. No signs of erosion, grass so thick and solid that you could easily walk it. All varieties of trees that were healthy with no signs of being burned back by saltwater. Gobs and gobs of submerged aquatics, and of course to go along with all of this more teal than you could shake a stick at.

I have never seen a marsh so healthy, I have become so accustomed to marshes that have had the life sucked out of them by saltwater intrusion that to find a place in existence like this was a true delight. Now if we could just put the oil companies on the hook for the damage they have done to Louisiana's coast for the past 100 or so years we may one day see it again. However I suspect our marsh has already passed the tipping point and my son will be lucky to experience marsh hunting at it's finest, much less his children.

Hope some of you appreciate what I am talking about here, it's a true gem of Louisiana.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

Jeff, did you get any pictures?

[tica-tica]

I don't know a thing about LA but I have seen unbelievable habitat here too and I don't need to even carry a gun when/if I get the invite. I know the feeling and can appreciate the experience. It is just great to see a place thriving and hunters that keep it that way with a passion.

Would love to experience a huge marsh like Jeff just spoke about (w/ or w/o a gun in my hand)

[kris Schaumburg]

meant to pm

[Roach]

I'm 48 and I've fished LA all my life. I now own a camp that is west of Cocodrie and south of Houma.
Last month I fished the IFA Redfish Tour stop out of Grand Isle. Now I've had access to a camp in GI for 20 years and WOW have I seen a change. The marsh around GI, Leeville, Golden Meadow looked like it was about to die. It was so bad, that I made an 85 mile run both ways to fish around Houma.
Earlier in the week, I ran east from GI almost to Empire and the marsh grass looked terrible.
I'm affraid that we have seen the best already.

[Double R 2]

The marsh is one of the most pressing environmental and waterfowl conservation issues of our lifetime, and like I've said while hunting with you Jeff, and like told Pat a few years ago while there, am certain my boys won't experience it when they're my aga. Ducks Unlimited is the only NGO I'm aware of that is doing anything at all, and using the technologies of serpentine dikes and water control structures to great affect in asmuch as funding will allow. It was enough to get me not only involved, but committed again, to DU.

[BAY KINGFISHER]

Like Jeff, I fish the LA marshes a lot. The LA marsh over here south of us is in real bad shape too. The GPS really sheds a light on the dire straights of this important ecco system. Many trips you will captain your boat right through a new pass, or over an island tip where six years ago would have been marshland. Now I understand that divergent projects have prooven succesful, but I just dont think they will be able to reverse the process of salt water intrusion fast enough to do any good. Besides money, what is stopping us from just dredging up mud onto the eroded areas and letting nature do her thing? I can tell you here in Hancock County the marsh that used to be a nice speed bump for tropical storms doesnt have the ability to stop the water anymore.

[Jeff]

BK,

Don't get me started on dredging dirt to fix things. I have been screaming about this for years. Then when someone finally does something about it last year (Billy Nungesser in response to BP) the COE tells him it will never work, and the media and politicians also say the same thing. I have said for years that the best fix would be for the state to buy a dredge boat, and start at the state line and dredge beaches to protect the coast. Dredge to the opposite end of the state and then turn around and do it again. If they continued to do this, we would have some protection for the marsh and then what we rebuilt would have a better chance of lasting. However what do I know.

As far as fishing, I know I have taken some of you on here fishing there before, but there used to be a HUGE beach at a place called Sandy Point. Some of my memories of this beach are fishing with my dad and him dumping me off on the beach and me running and running on that beach. I could run for at least a mile as a kid on this beach. I have never fished a spot that yielded so many fish over the years. We had one trip where we caught 3 trout over 9 lbs, one of which was over 10 lbs. All of which were thrown back as they were too big to eat and my dad doesn't believe in taxidermy. After Katrina all that was left of that beach was a 100' X 100' island. Now it's open water. I have so many memories of that island, that I can't even bear to go out there anymore. It just makes me too sick. I am getting to the point where I will always hunt the marsh, but if I could find a good club that had history in it, something like the old clubs in the SW part of Louisiana or even something like Languille, I think I would join. At least that can't erode away.

Now excuse me while I go fix a brown water drink.

[kris Schaumburg]

I will be out somewhere past sandy point this weekend, looking for toothless sharks

[BAY KINGFISHER]

I know how you feel about losing those "spots" that made so many memories!!! My favorite place to duck hunt used to be right here in Hancock County, Lakeshore MS. Both of my Grand fathers and there friends used to hunt there, killed all the ducks they wanted, and never even thought about hunting anywhere else. Back in the early 90,s the wigeon grass was so thick in this spot you couldnt hardly paddle a pirouge through it!!! Now, with the salt water intrusion, finding one growth of grass would be a miracle. I still hunt this place a couple times a year just to show my son the old blinds and tell him the stories!!!

[legends of the lower mars]

I know how you feel about losing those "spots" that made so many memories!!! My favorite place to duck hunt used to be right here in Hancock County, Lakeshore MS. Both of my Grand fathers and there friends used to hunt there, killed all the ducks they wanted, and never even thought about hunting anywhere else. Back in the early 90,s the wigeon grass was so thick in this spot you couldnt hardly paddle a pirouge through it!!! Now, with the salt water intrusion, finding one growth of grass would be a miracle. I still hunt this place a couple times a year just to show my son the old blinds and tell him the stories!!!

I think I know the old spot you're talking about!

[Greno]

I know this is a little off subject, but in general about habitat restoration....Some of our shallow brackish water bays have silted to the point here in Alabama that the lilly pads have taken over and will eventually block the light and kill the little grass left. I have honestly thought about trying to do a study on this to determine the source of the sediment. These bays have limited in flow so the deposition should strictly be organic unless stormwater has moved in sediment, but you would see it in the marsh. The thing that is killing me over here so much is they are pulling all of the idle rigs in the Gulf and we are losing all of the rigs I have fished for my entire life. They are gone, habitat lost. Hopefully when the feds decide who gets the BP money we can do some active restoration of all of the habitats that Louisana, Mississippi, and Alabama from fresh to salt and not just get some PHD to study things.

[BAY KINGFISHER]

yep, thats it...you probably got to hunt it during the last of the good years. It's still a pretty decent early teal hole, but since some pieces have been bought and sold Joe public has taken over during Sept. and I dont have the energy or care to fight them. A lot of good memories, for sure. My grandfather told me that the marsh was so vibrant and alive when he first started hunting it that it was not uncommon to see 15-20 thousand poule d'eau using the marsh with thousand of ducks in the sky at a time!!