In the bayous of southeast Louisiana, there’s an old school redfish camp called Bourgeois where the gastronomic influence of New Orleans hangs like Spanish moss. Lean in, and you’ll hear the Cajun guides bantering about tides and flies in one breath, and in the next, how to cook frog legs (deglaze your pan with bourbon, of course).
I came here not interested in cuisine, but to fly-cast for tailing redfish, which, when conditions are right, can be spectacular in the shallow bays and passes that stretch to the horizon.
Alas, the weather gods snookered us. The night before, the jagged blue edge of a cold front descended, and temperatures plummeted. By daybreak, northwest winds scudded across the flats, churning and muddying waters.
I stood on the bow of a bay…