Caddo Fly Fishing Expo coming July 19th

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Catch Cormier

Caddo Fly Fishing Expo
Saturday, July 19th, 2025
9:00am – 5:00pm
Jefferson Tourism & Visitors Center
Jefferson, TX
hosted by North Louisiana Fly Fishers

On Saturday, July 19th, the NLFF club will host its inaugural edition of the Caddo Fly Fishing Expo. This event will be held in historic downtown Jefferson, TX. The event will feature fly tying demonstrations, seminars, fly casting, exhibitors, raffles, and more. Held on the banks of Cypress Bayou which feeds Caddo Lake, there is fishing available as well as kayak rentals available locally.

Attached is an event flyer and a show invite with applications for tyers and vendors. Please distribute this to any who may be interested in attending. Spots are limited for vendors and tiers, so if you’re interested in tying or exhibiting apply early. Also, NLFF would appreciate a shout out about our Caddo Expo at your monthly meeting.

Click on these links for Caddo Expo documents:

Caddo Event Flyer (pdf)

Caddo Expo Tiers Invite (pdf)

Caddo Expo Vendor Tyer Flyer (pdf)

Caddo Expo Vendor Invite (pdf)

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Not too late for next weekend’s Classic!

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Catch Cormier

A reminder that our 3rd annual Gulf Coast Classic fly fishing festival is next weekend, May 2nd and 3rd, at Gulf State Park in Gulf Shores. If you’ve procrastinated about going, or your weekend (or Saturday) is suddenly free, it’s not too late to register. Or sign up for workshops, the Fly Fishing Film Tour on Saturday evening, or register for the Mixed Bag Contest.

About the only thing unavailable at this point is on-campus lodging. However, there are some decent hotel rates in the Foley area, just 15 minutes from the Learning Campus.

The Classic website has a complete list of activities, schedules for Friday and Saturday, fly tier and presenter/instructor bios, Mixed Bag Contest rules, and much more. Seminar topics cover a wide range of fishing opportunities, from bluegill and bass to tarpon and speckled trout to Louisiana redfish and more. In addition, there are speakers on conservation topics, including our Friday Keynote Speaker, William Strickland of Mobile Baykeeper. There’s also an incredible array of raffle and silent auction items courtesy of our amazing sponsors.

Again, to learn more about the Classic, and links to registration and workshops, go to: www.ffigulfcoastclassic.com. Or click on the Classic logo in the right sidebar.

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Louisiana House Bill 604 now deferred

Posted on April 18, 2025 by Catch Cormier

This past Wednesday, the Louisiana House Natural Resources Committee met to consider several legislative bills, including HB604.  This bill would’ve established a program for purchasing tags to kill red drum over the 27 inch maximum size limit. A limited number of tags would be sold for a fee of $25 each.

We’re relieved to say that, after receiving numerous emails and phone calls in opposition, and further testimony at the hearing from opponents, that the author has retracted the bill, essentially killing it for the 2025 session.

During the comment period, Capt. Ty Hibbs (representing a consortium of fly fishing guides) and Glen ‘Catch’ Cormier, representing the FFI Gulf Coast Council, testified that this proposal comes just a year after the LWF Commission passed new regulations which have Louisiana managing redfish at the margins – essentially 26 years of recovery to meet the Spawning Potential Ratio (SPR) conservation standard of 30 percent.

Hibbs also mentioned that no complete assessment of the record freeze back in January has been released, in which thousands of redfish were killed. And that now was a horrible time to consider increasing harvest. Cormier pointed out that these same legislators voted unanimously just 16 months ago for a resolution asking LDWF to ban the take of all mature red drum.

After this testimony, the bill’s author, Rep. Joseph Orgeron, then asked the committee to pull HB604 from consideration.

Many kudos to our friends in the American Saltwater Guides Association, in particular Tony Friedrich and Capt. Bailey Short, the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, and the Louisiana fly fishing and kayak fishing community who responded with emails and phone calls to help squash this terrible and untimely legislation.

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Spring 2025 Gulf Streamer now online

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Catch Cormier

The Spring 2025 edition of The Gulf Streamer, the newsletter of the Gulf Coast Council of Fly Fishers International, is now available to the public online.

CLICK HERE to download (3.0mb, PDF format).

This issue was sent out to all GCC members via email over a week ago. If you are an FFI member in good standing and did not receive that email, please check with the FFI Office to insure your email address is correct.

In this issue:

  • A.J. Rosenbohm shares insights on council activities
  • Particulars on the Gulf Coast Classic, May 2nd and 3rd
  • Details on the great workshops being offered at the Classic
  • Glen Davis describes his Bream Plinking tactics
  • David Buckner with Merkin Crawfish fly pattern
  • Knots Leaderman shares leader construction tips
  • Catch Cormier on why Goats are Grrrreat!
  • The sad decline of one of America’s great fishing lakes
    – and more!
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Registration now open for the 2025 Classic

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Catch Cormier

Registration is now live for our 3rd annual Gulf Coast Classic to be held May 2nd and 3rd at the Learning Campus in Gulf State Park. This event continues to grow in popularity, featuring some of the nation’s top fly tiers, regional fishing experts, educational workshops, as well as a slew of fun activities such as a Mixed Bag Challenge fishing contest, a Fly Fishing Film Tour showing, and a large raffle with many one-of-a-kind items.

Located in Gulf Shores, Alabama, the campus and park offer state-of-the-art theatre area, meeting rooms, outside facilities, dormitory lodging, a casual restaurant, easy access to a 600-acre brackish lake and to beaches, hiking and biking trails, and much more.

Complete information is available on the Classic website at www.ffigulfcoastclassic.com

Currently, tickets for the Classic and tickets for the Fly Fishing Film Tour (F3T) showing are available for advance purchase. You do -NOT- need to be registered or attend the Classic to purchase tickets for the F3T Showing.

Attendees can register for the Classic for one or both days. There’s also a family registration discount.

Roughly ten workshops are being offered during the Classic. Registration for these – as well as dormitory lodging ($50 per night) is separate and will be available April 1st. You must be registered for the Classic to register for the workshops and any available on-campus lodging.

For complete details, go to www.ffigulfcoastclassic.com.

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Red Stick Day coming March 8th

Posted on February 19, 2025 by Catch Cormier

30th annual Red Stick Day
Saturday, March 8th, 2025
8:30am to 3:00pm
LDWF Waddill Outdoor Education Center
4141 North Flannery Rd, Baton Rouge, LA

RSD is one of the longest-running fly fishing festivals in the South. There’s seminars by local and regional experts, fly tying demos by several of the top fly tiers on the northern Gulf Coast, casting instruction, food, loads of raffle items, and more. And best of all, admission is free!

The ponds on the premises at the Waddill Education Center are full of bass and bluegill. In addition, Masseys Outfitters of Baton Rouge will be on hand with a variety of kayaks from Hobie, Native and other brands for folks to test paddle/pedal.

Details about the event, including speaker and tier bios, schedule of activities, and more can be found by clicking on the “Red Stick Day” at the Red Stick Fly Fishers website at www.rsff.org.

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Winter storm brings fish kills along coast

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Catch Cormier

Winter Storm Enzo (January 20-21, 2025) brought record low temperatures and record snowfalls – some up to 13 inches – across most of southern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and southern Alabama, and the Florida Panhandle. For many, it was an opportunity that only comes once every 20-30 years – a winter playground wonderland! But sadly, it also came at a high cost for our inland coastal fisheries.

Almost immediately after the cold snap, reports began to surface on social media of fish kills across the coast, mostly mullet, speckled trout, black drum, and redfish. Water temperatures in many coastal areas had fallen below critical temperatures (40 degrees F) for saltwater species such as Spotted Seatrout and Red Drum, and lasted for two or more days.

Since then, each of the states in the Gulf Coast Council region have done preliminary evaluations to the extent of the kills.

Louisiana

LDWF has investigated 71 fish kills statewide while documenting coastwide observations in each major basin. The collected data indicates fish mortality occurred coastwide with concentrations of kills occurring in some areas where fish likely did not have time to leave shallower areas or have access to deep enough, and slightly warmer, water.

While kills were spread throughout the coast, not all coastal areas were affected and not all to the same level. It appears the highest levels of speckled trout and black drum mortalities were in the Terrebonne/Timbalier Basin, and the highest redfish and sheepshead mortalities were in the Barataria Basin. In general, the highest overall mortalities of all species occurred in the marshes between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. One exception was striped mullet, which had high mortality east of the Mississippi River.

Mississippi

It appears that by far, mullet were hit the hardest on the Magnolia State coast. In Grand Bay, the Mississippi Department of Marine Research estimated over 100,000 mullet killed by the freeze. Grand Bay was likely hit the hardest since it’s the shallowest area on the coast, and lacks easy access to deep water refuge.

Other than mullet, it appears other species were largely unscathed by the freeze. However, there were some social media reports of dead sheepshead in some backwater areas. The extent of those kills is unreported as of yet.

Alabama

The Alabama coast saw massive numbers of dead mullet in shallow canals, backwaters and other interior waterways. Although mullet was again the most impacted, there were sporadic reports of dead redfish, spotted seatrout and sheepshead. Some social media reports of dead sheepshead in the Weeks Bay area also emerged.

Of great concern what was this winter storm did to the emerging snook population. Snook were finally becoming established in Alabama to the point where recreational limits were being proposed. Unless they found a warmwater discharge, its likely very few survived.

Northwest Florida

Although there was some fish kill along the Emerald Coast, it was rather insignificant compared to the extensive kill that occurred in south Florida and even the Atlantic Coast. Most were tropical species or semi-tropical such as snook.

Summary

It appears that the most significant kill to game fishes came on the Louisiana coast, likely because the polar jet that fed Enzo was aimed directly on the state, resulting in record low temperatures in most areas along this area of the Gulf coast.

Compared to the freeze of December, 1989, the kill was not nearly as massive or extensive. Following that kill, it was two years before decent fishing returned.  It should be pointed out that in 1993, we had the best fishing for reds and specks in many years.

Still, there is some concern.  New regulations were recently initiated for speckled trout and redfish due to declining numbers.  A fish kill of this magnitude is not normally factored in recovery estimates.  The FFI Gulf Coast Council is reviewing data with our partners in the American Saltwater Guides Association and Louisiana Wildlife Federation to determine is a temporary action may be needed.

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Make plans for the NOFF Expo Jan. 25th

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Catch Cormier

New Orleans Fly Fishers Expo
Saturday, January 25th
8:00am to 3:30pm
St. Christopher the Martyr School Gymnasium
3900 Derbigny St, Metairie, LA
Free admission!

Held in odd years, the New Orleans Fly Fishing Expo is hosted by the New Orleans Fly Fishing Club and is one of the more interesting club fly fishing festivals.  It features a number of saltwater speakers and fly tiers from across the northern Gulf Coast.

There’s a good number of exhibitors, casting clinics, an Iron Fly Tying Contest, raffles and more.  Whether you’re wanting to get into fly fishing, or a seasoned veteran, there’s a program or activity certainly to be of interest.

For more info, go to www.neworleansflyfishers.com

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