Fishing Down South..
A couple months ago I took a quick two-day fishing trip around Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana with some family. I had just bought my waterproof camera – in fact it actually came in the mail right before I left to go to Slidell to meet up with my family. So it was great to get to use it right away. That being said, I purchased Nikon's waterproof AW100. All the pictures below were taken with it. First impression were awesome. It has a fairly large dynamic range for such a small camera, and it really packs a punch into one little device.
It was a day and a half of just fishing. We hurried across the Lake to Slidell from New Orleans, threw our bags at the house we were staying at and headed out in the boat.
Above: Newly completed I-10 Twin Spans – Where most of the fishing happened.
Above: Our chest – we did gooood!
After we filled the box we decided to take a break and headed towards a new fishing spot. In one of the canals off of the lake there is this dolphin (which my wife's cousin named "Pancake," which came here during Hurricane Katrina and is still hanging around). "Pancake" has gotten so desensitized because of humans swimming with him and feeding him, he often comes up to boats and swings alongside. There are now regulations in place that prohibit feeding and swimming with him (for humans' safety as much as his, he's tried to drown people) – there are signs everywhere. We did however get a show from him when he decided to "massage" himself on the boat. Ha! That's when we decided it was time to go.
Above: Bad Pancake…Behave yourself!
It was getting pretty dark by this point so we headed towards the house. At this point, I really got to see the incredible dynamic range of my new point and shoot waterproof camera. And as I said before I am pretty impressed with the quality of pictures you get. Especially since the specialty of the camera is that it's waterproof.
Above: Sunset on the lake
Above: Almost back to the house on the canal.
The next day we woke up bright and early and headed out again. But this fishing day would have quite a scary ending. We started off at the same hot spot as the previous afternoon. No luck! So we headed over to The Rigolets. No Luck. Then over to Lake Borgne. Got beat to hell by the waves. We keep trying different spots, but Nothing!
Above: Rigolets Railroad Bridge
Above: Trying to find the next spot
Above: Out in the Rigolets – Bunch of Hollywood movies are being shot at this house
Above: Hwy 90 Bridge over Lake Catherine
While we were doing all the running around our boat hull has been steadily sucking in water and LOTS of it. At first we really couldn't tell, but after we were stopped fishing for about twenty minutes or so and decide to leave and try elsewhere, we started having problems with the boat accelerating. We were at full throttle and but couldn't seem to get up and go. We all kept on thinking, "Something's wrong! Very wrong!"
Above: Accessing the problem
We were taking on water and fast. Luckily our captain (my wife's cousin) knew what to do – but he also knew how bad it was. He owns the local Sea Tow Franchise in south Louisiana. It would be pretty ironic to have to call one of his guys to come "rescue" us out of the water after our boat sank since that's usually what he is doing for everyone else. Finally after about two or three minutes of going forward we were finally able to get on a plane in the water and haul butt back to the dock. On the way in we made some phone calls to get a trailer ready to pull us out of the water before we sank.
Above: Barely getting out of the water before we sank – And it was alot closer then this picture really shows
It put a pretty abrupt end to our fishing day, but we did make it out of the water safe and sound. Getting out was kind of an ordeal. The only guy who had a trailer hooked up and who was at the dock happened to be driving a little Ford Ranger. Needless to say, it didn't have enough power to pull our waterlogged boat out of the launch and onto the trailer. So someone had to tow him out while he towed the boat out. It was a mess. You can see at the end of the video below how we got out of the water.
Quick little video I made from the trip – Made with Animoto:
All in all a very memorable fishing trip. The boat didn't sink and I came home with loads of fresh fish. Can't complain about that. Good times, good fishing, good little camera too. Hope you enjoyed.