More Fishing at the Speckled Trout Capital of the
World- Hackberry Rod and Gun
Hackberry – A Great Place for a Family-Fishing
Vacation
 Editor’s
Note: The first week in June, I fished at the Speckled
Trout Capital of the World – Hackberry, Louisiana,
located on Lake Calcasieu. In 2005, Hackberry was destroyed
by Hurricane Rita. However, in 10 months, with a lot
of hard work and sweat, it was restored. Today, it’s
better and stronger than ever before and home to giant
speckled trout, big redfish and plenty of medium-to
small-sized fish. This week, we’ll take another
look at fishing in Hackberry. Kirk Stansel, one of the
owners of Hackberry Rod and Gun, a guide service in
Lake Calcasieu, was my guide at Lake Calcasieu. Although
the weather was extremely hot (mid-90 degrees with high
humidity), I was cool wearing my new Under Armour fishing
shirts and shorts. Under Armour’s HeatGear Performance
Polos wicked moisture away from my body to keep me dry
and provided ultraviolet protection from the sun’s
intense rays. The Guide Shorts had mesh venting for
coolness. I asked Captain Buddy Oakes, sales and marketing
director for Hackberry Rod and Gun questions people
had been asking us about Hackberry.
 Question:
Buddy, why is Hackberry such a great place for a family-fishing
vacation?
Oakes: We have great food, fishing and family fun. Kirk
Stansel and his two brothers, Guy and Buddy, operate
the business, and we have some of their wives and children
working here. Kirk’s dad makes many of the lures
we use. We’re a family-owned and operated business.
So, we understand families and are always glad to have
Moms and Dads and their children fish with us at the
Speckled Trout Capital of the World. Eighty percent
of our customers are 30- to 60-years old. About 15%
to 20% of our customers are families who come here every
year.
Because we have 16 to 20 boats fishing every day, we
have a wide selection of guides. Some of our guides
do extremely well with families, while we have other
guides who are better with power fishermen. Too, some
of our guides work better with business and corporate
groups. So, we match our customer with the guide we
feel best suits him or her and the people they’ve
come with to fish. We have some guides who can take
a man, his wife and his children out fishing, and if
none of those people know how to fish, the guide can
teach them all how to fish, where to fish and what bait
to use. About 80% of our guides teach our customers
how to catch fish. We believe that if we don’t
teach people to fish now, we won’t have sport
fishing in the future. So, we’re encouraged when
we see families come to fish with us.
We have a good number of mothers and daughters, mothers
and sons and blended families come in to fish with us.
We have quite a few single parents who come with their
children – maybe Mom or Dad doesn’t know
how to fish, but their children want to fish. So, they
can come here, and we’ll teach everyone how to
fish. We also see grandfathers bringing their grandchildren
to fish with us. So, yes, we’re a very family-oriented
business. If you visit our website, you’ll see
that we take numbers of young people fishing every day.
Question: You also have quite a bit of corporate business
here, too, don’t you, Buddy?
Oakes: Yes, we do. We can accommodate up to 50 or 60
people and take care of all their needs. We have salesmen
bringing clients, companies who use a fishing trip as
an incentive program for their employees, and companies
who just like to fish together that will book a day
or a week worth of fishing.
Question: Buddy, how many fish over 5 pounds will your
guides bring in every day?
Oakes: We’ll have four or five fish over 5 pounds
come in just about every day. When you fish as many
people as we do, we can spread out over a wide area
of the lake. When one of our guides finds big trout,
he calls in some of the other guides for what we call,
fleet fishing. We make sure all of our customers catch
good numbers of fish every day they go fishing.
 Lake
Calcasieu is a very-unique estuary because it only has
one opening to the Gulf of Mexico through the Cameron
jetties, and there’s no beach intrusion. I’ve
heard that the biologists think that this area even
may home a different strain of speckled trout because
we catch so many big fish. Last year, the state had
changed the limits. Today an angler only can keep two
trout that are 25-inches long or longer. The last week
in May, a friend of mine won the Speckled Trout Shootout
with a 7-1/2-pound speckled trout. So, there are numbers
of big fish and lots of fish here.
Question: Buddy, how plentiful are the redfish on Lake
Calcasieu?
Oakes: The redfish are extremely plentiful. If you can’t
fish a limit of redfish every day, it’s only because
you’re not fishing for them. There’s an
incredible number of redfish at Lake Calcasieu. Last
fall, you could catch 100 redfish a day, although many
of those fish were less than the 16-inch limit. But,
if you just want to catch fish, you can wear out your
casting arm. You can keep one redfish over 27-inches
long. We also have some big redfish to be caught. Remember,
those 16-inch redfish we were catching last fall are
now 17- to 19-inches long, and they’re everywhere.
If anyone wants to know more about the type, the size
and the number of fish we’re catching every day,
we’re putting pictures on our webpage, so visit
the webpage and check us out. I think you’ve had
a pretty good time, haven’t you, John?
John: I’ve had a fantastic trip. I’ve caught
plenty of specks and reds every day. I’ve eaten
too-much good food, laughed too much and had a great
time. Can I come next week, Buddy?
For more information on Under Armour’s cool summertime
clothing, visit www.underarmour.com
To learn more about Hackberry, go to their web page
at www.hackberryrodandgun.com,
or call 888-762-3391.
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