Blog

Year of the bird 2018 marks the year of the bird, and this weekend, the 2 nd Saturday of May, marks National Migratory Bird Day. Louisiana’s fertile forests, swamps and marsh are ideal migrating, nesting, and wintering zones for nearly 100 million birds. One of many who are in danger in Louisiana, the Prothonotary Warbler,…

A Poetic Happening by Kelley Kirkpatrick   Dragonflies capture more and more of my attention. I often tell clients that you can only see as much as you are looking for, and encourage them to place their attention on the whole array of life within the swamp. Witnessing the markedly vibrant and contrasting colors of…

Who Dat Splash? by Nick Napoda   Paddle down a bayou in Louisiana, and chances are you will see something splashing in the water. People on our tours often assume it’s alligators, but this isn’t typical gator behavior. The majority of the time, it’s a different kind of monster lurking below! Imagine a ‘living fossil’, a fish that has hardly changed in 100 million years, with an elongated, toothy snout and scales so tough they’re like a plate of armor. This is the Gar fish, and Louisiana is home to four different species. The largest of these is the Alligator Gar, which can grow to over 300 pounds and 10 feet in length! Although the Alligator Gar is the most famous for it’s incredible size, what we typically see observe in Manahac Swamp are their smaller cousins, the Spotted Gar…

Stories from the Swamp by Jake Beale   Each day I come to the bayou to paddle, I am going with the flow, and not necessarily that of the water. Albeit paddling familiar routes, the daily changes of company and circumstances generate a healthy sense of detachment to outcome. Balancing both my kayak and the…

Yellow Swamp Canaries by Kali Bunn   2018 marks the year of the bird, and this weekend, the 2 nd Saturday of May, marks National Migratory Bird Day. Louisiana’s fertile forests, swamps and marsh are ideal migrating, nesting, and wintering zones for nearly 100 million birds. One of many who are in danger in Louisiana,…

Check out the lineup for the last weekend and dont miss Maggie Belle Band!!!  I’m the manager and bass player.  Actually, Im a kayak guide, a lawyer, a bassist, and I also book shows for bands all over New Orleans but you can call me Max!

The New Orleans Pelicans by Mike Maher for Mike Maher   Hey the Pelicans are playing some dang good basketball. Finished the season strong on a 5-6 game win streak, I think. Came out on top of the Spurs in the final game up 20-30 points, sure the Spurs have been having some trouble this…

Controlling the Mississippi by Emma Reid   On a dry day, the Lower Mississippi River normally expels more than 600,000 cubic feet of water per second into the Gulf of Mexico. During rainy seasons,  that can increase to over one million cubic feet per second. Since the early 1900’s, the Corps of Engineers has been…

I-49 by Mike Maher So they’re not done with I-49, and I tell ya, it’ll be a pretty nice time once they got that sucker done. I was cruising down from Arkansas the other day, and bam! Suddenly I’m getting routed around the gosh darn countryside. Sure, lovely country, don’t got a bad thing to say about it, but I’ll tell ya I was trying to get back to Louisiana and I sure woulda loved a dang interstate. So ya putz around for a good hour, hour and a half until ya make it down to where the 49 starts up again and boy, I will tell you, open road, sunshine, heck I even had the window rolled down a bit. Smoked a cigarette, sure, that type of thing. So I get down to the end of the 49 where…

The Spillway by Mike Maher   The spillways been open for about a week, which gives a lil look at how much water the Mississippi carries as ya drive west on I-10 towards Manchac. It’s pretty interesting I think so the other day I was taking some folks out to Manchac for an 11:30am tour. Actually, wait no, I think it was the 2:00pm tour. Anyway yeah I was taking them out for the 2:00pm tour, and someone asked about the spillway. So I got to talking about it, ya know, the history, how much water it moves, the importance of it, this kinda thing. And ya know, I’m driving so I’m watching where I’m going, we pride ourselves on safety. So I can’t see the folks in the back, I assume they’re totally enthralled by the engineering marvel and the implications for fisheries in the…

The darned Water Hyacinth by Mike Maher   A lotta folks’ll ask me what other swamps they should check out in the New Orleans area. An easy choice is Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. They got a lotta nice walking trails, through a Cypress-Tupelo swamp, a palmetto forest, along a bayou, etc. I…

  Deep Thought on Mardi Gras by Mike Maher   Sure, I like Mardi Gras. Ya know, I’m not the biggest party guy out there but it’s a darn good time. Folks get to bounce around, do as they please, have a drink, sure ya have a couple drinks here and there. Get into a…