Louisiana Flats Update

[Neal Osborn]

Dear All,

The Louisiana flats are currently closed east of the Mississippi river due to the oil spill/leak.  However, the western flats ARE open for fishing.  I had a chance to go out yesterday and now provide you with an encouraging report and photo-documentation on the health of the water.  Unfortunately, this water is a bit more challenging to fish but we did see tons (and I means TONS) of big redfish.  Because of the rain over the past weekend the water was very dirty and the clouds made for horrendous sight fishing.  Furthermore, the fish just flat out wouldn’t eat.  Long story short, no fish pics.

If you are thinking about planning a trip to this area for Redfish I would say that it is still good water.  However, you might want to wait and see how things shore up (literally) over the coming weeks.

Here are some pics of what hopefully remain some of the greatest flats we have in America.

We will always have this to deal with as fly fishers, ha.

For now, the crab industry is on standby; pray that doesn’t last.

Of Course New Orleans will survive any tragedy.

Token fly art (too bad none were photographed in a fish’s mouth,  :'()

[Tim Pommer]

Thanks for the good news Neal.

[Mike Anderson]

Neal nice crab boat shots. Sorry you didn’t score on the Reds. Did you throw the spoon?
Oh well hopefully there will be a next time!

[Neal Osborn]

Tim – thanks for your kind words. As you know the flats ate a real challenge to shoot. However, the cloud cover gave great diffused light.

Mike – LMAO!

[mark s]

Neal did you shoot those HDR or straight up?

[Neal Osborn]

Mark, I get asked that same question often because of the unique stylistic look.  I process most of my images through Lightroom (3.0 currently v.2) and then post-process in Photoshop using old school tonemapping techniques.  It is the same process used for medical blood-and-gut shots, so it is tailored for high structure and detail and works great on the water.  I am not a fan of HDR at all and often advocate against it.  That is just personal opinion and it’s a debate for another time.  IMHO the real treasure involves knowing how to pull information from a RAW image versus letting the software automate the process.  A good B+H circular polarizer is also a critical piece of equipment for these shots.

Viveza 2.0 by Nik Software is also a software I use a lot and it can be purchased as a plugin for Lightroom or Aperture.

[Douglas Barnes]

Good stuff Neal. Those first two are just sublime!

db

[Tim Angeli]

Neal, very cool shots.

[Steve K.]

Thanks for the report Neal.

Question(s):

In photo number one, is that a school of reds in the lower right? That is a great shot!

Were you in a small aircraft or helo for the aerials….or commercial aircraft on an approach to MSY?

Great job…Thanks…..Steve

[Neal Osborn]

Tim – it was great meeting you and sorry we were both too busy to fish together.  Next time for sure.  

Steve – That is a school of glass minnows in the first shot.  All the flats pictures were taken with a 24-70 lens while standing on a skiff.  The city shots were taken from my hotel window on a tripod, LOL.

I have received additional PM questions about the photographic technique used above so once I find some time I’ll post a tutorial on how the process works.

[Bob Riggins]

Beautiful shots Neal.

[Author]

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