LAKE CHARLES, LA. -- The birds. The fish. The fish painting. The over-the-top yummy Cajun food. It was my second trip to Lake Charles in a few months. And the place was better than ever.
You don't necessarily think of Louisiana and eco-tours together. But Lake Charles, 30 miles from the Gulf Coast near Texas, is a major route for migrating birds in the fall and spring.
Thousands of birds. Hundreds of species. So close, you can photograph them without hefting a telephoto lens.
But the area's No. 1 draw? Alligators. Large, 4- and 5-foot (and bigger) 'gators, seriously up close and personal.
Birding in the Lake Charles area is a bit of a secret outside Louisiana.
"It's unknown, really. It's not been heavily promoted," said Dave Patton of the local Audubon Society. "But those people who do know about the birds in this area treasure it."
There are many ways to see the birds ... hiking on a boardwalk, driving a 3-mile loop, taking various tours.
What I really loved was the tours. These people know what they are doing. They know where to go. They've got the equipment (namely the boat). My best 'gator encounter was on a road but for birds, nothing beats nosing around a marshland or bayou in a boat, looking for nests and crowds of wings.
Locals don't think it's strange that an oil company runs eco-tours on reclaimed wetlands, but for outsiders, it is a fascinating look at coexistence. Sweet Lake Land & Oil built a dike around 484 acres of marsh to keep it flooded year 'round.
Now, it's home to nearly 500 species of birds who come through each spring and fall.
The company first created the permanent wetland to stock it for bass fishing. It's strictly catch and release here, with anglers sometimes snagging 50, even 100 fish on a trip. But a few years ago, the company decided to add eco-tours for the birders, said manager Bobby Jordan.
We went out with the company's Grosse Savanne Eco-Tours in a flat-bottomed, open boat that could easily skim through the water lilies and grass to nose up close to birds and nests.
In the fall, you get lots of birds in the trees. In the spring, when I was there, there's the added nests and the babies with tufts of feathers and open mouths. We eased our boat in to inspect a nest with eggs almost close enough to touch. For nests with hatched babies, you keep more distance, but not so far that you can't get a shot with your cellphone.
The birds in the trees were amazing. We'd float by and see half a dozen cattle egrets sitting on branches. And the huge ibis were stunning. You don't realize how large they are until you are near one and it stretches out its wings.
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But for up-close 'gators, nothing quite beats Cameron Parish National Wildlife Refuge. Pintail Wildlife Drive has a half-mile boardwalk where we could photograph blooming water lilies at our leisure, along with one curious 'gator who swam right up to where we stood. Even better was the 3-mile gravel loop drive. You can't hike or bicycle it, for safety reasons that soon became obvious. But in a car, you can still get close enough to alligators to photograph their eyeballs.
We stopped to watch one 6-footer as he stretched out in the sunlight. He slowly opened his mouth, which is a alligator's way of regulating heat.
"'Gators are our No. 1 draw," said Anne Klenke of the Lake Charles Convention and Visitors Bureau. "There are few other places you can get so close and see them so often."
There's also swamp tours. On a previous trip, I went out with Jimmy Miller down a local bayou and into the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge where we saw anhingas, cormorants, bald eagles and yes, an alligator Jimmy has named Lollypop.
Then, there's the fishing. But first, fish painting.
The idea at Arts' Desire in Lake Charles is to play with art, kind of like you might have done in elementary school. You can paint a scarf, make pottery, design your own jewelry.
And, best of all, the fish. Owner and resident artist Raejean Clark-German uses real fish, which she stores in a freezer. The thawed fish is wiped down, then painted (the brighter the colors, the better), pressed onto paper, a board or ceramic platter. Then the fish is peeled off.
What remains is a form of Japanese art called gyotaku that looks somewhat like it has been stenciled on.
As for the fishing, there are seven lakes in the Lake Charles area, all connected by channels, and dozens of fish guiding services. Many guide services have lodges as well. For light-tackle salt-water fishing, Big Lake Guide Service fishes Calcasieu Lake. The average trip is eight hours and on a normal day, three people can come back with 40 fish. Or more.
"It's brackish or salt water, depending on the time of year and you can fish year-round all the way to Lake Charles, clear up to the casinos," said Big Lake owner Jeff Poe.
"The redfish are sometimes so thick, you can't get away from them. And there are days the bait fish cover the water like a blanket."
They use lures rather than live bait. "Heck, otherwise we'd hit our limit in an hour," he said.
So what do folks do with all that fish?
"They drive in with coolers, take it home, smoke it, freeze it or, I guess, feed the neighborhood," Poe said. His service will clean the fish, bag it or, if people fly in, freeze it for travel.
Locals swear what Poe claims is no exaggeration.
FOOD
Cajun food isn't something you are served in a fancy, sit-down restaurant. It's by the side of the road during a parade, in a bar, under a tent, in a community center, in a tiny hole-in-the-wall cafe.
At Guillory's Famous Foods in Lake Charles, my friends and I learned about cracklins.
Cracklins are fried fatback. It comes from around the pig's midsection and includes the skin, some fat and if it's quality cracklin, some meat. Darby Guillory had cut it into 1-inch cubes, which floated in a mammoth vat of hog fat until he fished them out with a slotted ladle. Then his wife added seasonings.
The secret, he said, is, "You've gotta eat them fresh and hot."
For full Creole immersion, there's the Southwest Louisiana Boudin Trail with more than two dozen stops in two parishes (counties) that range from convenience stores to cafes. Few have websites, but many have Facebook pages. Boudin is a staple snack of rice, ground pork, liver, onions, celery and spices in sausage casing.
But what is Cajun food? We asked to Al Kuhlman at the Forest Inn in Franklin to explain.
Canadian, Creole and French roots combine in Cajun food, he said, adding that gumbo is the star. At the heart of gumbo is a proper roux, which is basically hot oil and flour.
"You have to know how long to leave it cooking so it won't taste burnt," he said. Then, to this base add the "trinity" of onions, bell peppers and celery, then the sausage, chicken or shrimp.
Much later, at Big Al's Seafood in Houma, there were crawdads.
All in all, it was an amazing week.
IF YOU GO
Lake Charles is about 360 miles south of Little Rock, on the path of five routes for migrating birds. Bird viewing is best in August-October and March-May. For fishermen, flounder runs usually happen in spring and fall.
For more information: visitlakecharles.org
• Creole Nature Trail Adventure Point office. Take Exit 20 off Interstate 10. Four wildlife refuges managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service offer bird watching, boardwalks, fishing, crabbing and more. Plan on a day for the Creole Nature Trail main loop and another day for side trails. visitlakecharles.org/adventurepoint
• Cameron Parish: cameronparishtouristcommission.org/listing/pintail-wildlife-drive
• Grosse Savanne Eco Tours: grossesavanne-ecotours.com
• Annie Miller's Son's Swamp and Marsh Tour, annie-miller.com
• Arts' Desire: artsdesirelc.com
• Southwest Louisiana Boudin Trail: visitlakecharles.org/boudintrail
• Tour Lake Charles historic district: Victorian architecture from late 1800s.
• J&R Carriage: facebook.com/JR-Carriage-144726940521
• Mardi Gras Museum: visitlakecharles.org/swlamardigras/mardi-gras-museum
• Lake Charles Photo Diary: goo.gl/photos/Mjw7repreqpLVUQo6
Travel on 07/31/2016