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Subscriber Michael Myhre has checked in with a report on a fishing trip to a part of Louisiana we have not written about previously: Lake Calcasieu over near the Texas border south of Lake Charles. Most of our reporting on Louisiana fishing to date has been focused on various marsh areas on both sides of the Mississippi River south of New Orleans, and it has been devoted exclusively to redfishing. Myhre says he fished Lake Calcasieu two days this past March with Big Lake Guide Service (www.biglakeguideservice.com ), targeting both redfish and sea trout (or speckled trout, as they are known locally). He says Big Lake Guide Service has lodging right at the marina but the facilities are appropriate only for larger groups, so he was compelled to stay in a Casino Hotel in Lake Charles. “I don’t really like casinos, and this one was pretty expensive at $275 a night,” he writes. “It was also a 45- to 50-minute drive from the launch area.”
Myhre says the fish in Lake Calcasieu are abundant and big, and he enjoyed his experience there, but this is not a destination for fly fishermen. “The water is murky so the fishing is mostly blind casting around structure or to trout slicks,” he writes. “My guide, using conventional gear, caught four times the fish I did. The guides here, it seems, prospect locations to see if the fish are there by casting open-face reels and jigs some 80 feet out or more. I plan to come back with my family and conventional gear, as the lake has some of the biggest specks in Louisiana, maybe the whole Gulf Coast. The only thing I would do different is I’d leave my fly fishing gear behind.”
Postscript: Myhre gives the cost of his trip as $600 a day for the guided fishing, plus a tip, hotel costs, and meals.