BayouSlide

6-1 1/2, Scot Irish from Ulster on my dad's side and French plus a smidge of Native American (most likely Iroquois) on my mom's.

If he's looking skinny, I don't want to meet him once he's fattened up 😁 The way he was moving made me think he had a rodent or two on board! I've got used to close encounters of the pit viper kind bird hunting every September in Montana, but this timber rattler's size put those prairie rattlers to shame! Biggest I've ever seen alive or dead. And that camo is perfect for all the pine duff in Louisiana's central piney woods.

Carefully apply enough heat (a hair dryer would be safer than a heat gun) to soften the epoxy and then scrape it off with your fingernail or a plastic tool.

I was getting gear out of the boat near the ramp after an unsuccessful fishing outing when I saw this guy heading under my trailer. So I got skunked but glad I didn't get bit 😄👍

I recently finished a build with that blank and like it a lot. I'm using it for tossing a Texas rigged Cut-R with pegged 1/8 oz. weight. I haven't used it for big crank baits but I don't see why you couldn't. It ain't your typical flipping broomstick 😉 Have you looked at the APFG786-1 or APFG787-1?

Some creative individual evoked the soul of a cypress tree in a remote section of Lake Verret in the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana.

The process of growing old gracefully. I have the growing old part down pat but am still working on the gracefully.

Chicot has some beautiful cypress but the largest bald cypress is in the Cat Island National Wildlife Preserve in St. Francisville, and is not always accessible except by boat due to high water. Seen pictures and it is truly astounding. And, yes, sometimes the water around here is so muddy that even the gars have to come up for air 😉. For bass you need to look for cleaner water, with "cleaner" always being relative. Based on your response, you'll have a good time wherever you go. Pick a bayou, paddle and enjoy. Cypress, Spanish moss, eagles, osprey, herons, anhinga, kingfishers and egrets abound, along with dinosaurs like gators, gar, bowfin and paddlefish. It sure ain't nothing like Wisconsin 😄. If you have any questions that I can answer, feel free to PM for my phone number. Between River Rat, Cat and I we can provide intel on a pretty broad swath of South Louisiana.

If you go to Chicot, launch at the North Landing (on the way into the park near the dam). Will save you some paddlin' 😉👍

My credit card and being retired, in that order 😉

X2 There are some promising areas and bayous accessible when launching from the Bayou Benoit landing the other side of the levee but they require burning some fuel and avoiding the shallowest and muddiest water. The best numbers day of my life was on Beau Bayou off Bayou Darby one year when the water was high enough for access. Visibility was amazing (a couple feet of clarity) and all sorts of fish were cruising and bait fish were jumping. Just magic conditions.

Fished Fausse Point a couple of days ago. Dauterive/Fausse Point are large lakes and the water is extremely muddy at this point. Only one fish and it was a large freshwater drum. Wouldn't be my first choice to fish (I usually try it once a year and have had luck in the past on some occasions jugging for catfish) but the park itself should offer nice camping. Not familiar with the bayou you mention but that side of the levee is a good choice rather than the lake. Here's a view from the far end of Fausse Point (near Cotton Canal) from the other day. On the occasions I fish Fausse Point I usually run to various points, always on plane to deal with water levels in places that can be less than two feet deep. My personal opinion is that over time the lake is silting in. My first choice by a long shot for fishing and camping is Caney Lake, much further north and a real bass factory. Second choice, less further north, would be Lake Chicot, which can be stingy but I have pulled a couple six pounders from there. Lake Verret and Grassy Lake are good as well, I'm heading that way later this week. Since you're limited in the area you can cover in a canoe, your plan on exploring a bayou is wise. I would respect River Rat's advice on the Basin: Basin fishing calls for some real experience and the right water levels to be successful. Best of luck and enjoy your time in the bayou state.

Probably 80 percent of the baits in my tackle room fall into this category, unfortunately. But I have since learned not to be so susceptible to hype.

The one MH spinning rod I have is a Daiwa Tatula dedicated to larger shaky heads in deeper water and it works well: like to keep my left hand on the line to feel what's going on and a spinning rod makes this easy in my opinion.

A longnose gar is more like a Cajun pickerel or pike. 😉 The real Cajun muskie is the alligator gar...tried to land one once that was all of four+ feet on 10# line and a spinning rod. Had the bright idea of trapping it between my boat and the shore of the bayou so I could save my crankbait. As soon as it was in shallow water it began flopping furiously and broke the line. 😳

No bass yesterday but caught this toothy dinosaur (longnose gar) pitching a Baby D Bomb to some shallow wood.

Wow. 😳 That rod definitely needed at least one (probably more) extra guides. If the line merely touches the blank it will reduce casting distance: never seen it that bad. Poor cost-cutting build by the manufacturer.

Starts 11/22

Tiny zip ties work well for me. Cut them off with side cutters once I have wrapped enough thread to hold the guide in place. If needed, I also will put a wrap of thin masking tape behind the guide ring on small single footers so they don't move backwards while wrapping.

What weight Ned head did you use? I'm looking to give them a try myself.

I think you're correct...so I now resubmit it as the smallest creek chub ever caught on a full sized crankbait 😁

Do I win?

So did I originally...but ran out of old spark plugs, hence version 2.0 of my lure knocker 😉👍

Owner shaky head (3/16 oz.) w/sapphire blue Trick Zoom. (Second color, though I'd probably not use it, would be watermelon red.)

When my homemade plug knockers don't get the job done, I turn to my Frabill as well.