I reached out a week ago Friday to a friend who helped me and my brother, Bill, who was visiting for the first time in four years. 

We were fishing on our fourth straight day in this blessed part of the Sportsman’s Paradise. It was a good time, the whole week on the water.

Unselfishly, Troy Amy of New Iberia delivered. It was an amazing sequence of which we are so grateful, thankful there are so many outdoorsmen like him in the Teche Area.

Bill, 61 and retired from the U.S. Postal Service in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, fishes whenever he gets a chance. He’s a real good stick, as they say these days, a veteran with many bassin’ trips and a few saltwater trips behind him.

We had fished Grevemberg in the Atchafalaya Basin for half the morning after getting out just after sunrise and launching my 18 1/2-foot Triton, powered by a 115-horsepower Merc, at Myette Point Boat Landing. As the sun rose higher and higher over the cypress trees in that breathtaking fishin’ hole, Bill said, “This is a nice day to be saltwater fishing.”

 I thought about it for a minute or two and told him he was right. Then I asked him if he wanted to pull out of the nation’s last great overflow swamp and head to Cypremort Point, which meant stopping at my house on Victory Drive and swapping the tons of bass fishing tackle for saltwater fishing tackle, and re-rigging two or three fishing rods for each of us.

We had a saltwater fishing trip fall through for that day. It made perfect sense. We went for the gusto.

On the way out of Grevemberg, we met Braxton Resweber of St. Martinville, who was in his skiff with his black Labrador retriever, Bandit, after a brief bass fishing trip and brushing a duck blind for the teal season opener the following day, then ran into James Fredieu of rural St. Martin Parish, who was in his airboat talking to another friend just before the G.A. Cut.

My brother and me put the boat on the trailer, then hustled back home. He ate some leftover crawfish etouffee while I exchanged fishing tackle and put speckled trout artificial lures on six fishing rods.

Then we hauled it to Vermilion Bay, where he has fished before with many area folks, including Huey Olivier of New Iberia, Todd Semar of Lydia and the late Al Broussard, who was mayor of Loreauville when he died in an automobile crash in April 2015. Bill has enjoyed each and every trip with the locals.

However, this time he had a relative novice in the boat for a saltwater fishing trip. Plus, my limited success the past decade has come in November and December in and around Vermilion Bay.

As soon as we got to The Cove, I called Amy, arguably one of the top speckled trout fishermen in Acadiana. He fielded the call, graciously, then proceeded to describe where and how to fish three specific camp wharves along The Point.

We enjoyed every minute of the next few hours, thanks to Amy.  We finished up at Dry Reef, where we caught a few speckled trout and redfish.

 

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.