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Home › Waters › Louisiana › Cypress Bayou
Bayou · Red River Valley · Louisiana

Cypress Bayou Fishing Guides

A cypress-shaded Caddo Parish bayou draining the country southwest of Shreveport, with a dependable spring crappie run, shallow bass in the flooded brush, and an active discharge gauge near Keithville.

Still bayou water ringed by moss-draped cypress at golden hour
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Cypress Bayou

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About the Cypress Bayou

Cypress Bayou drains the rolling pine and hardwood country southwest of Shreveport, moving north and east through Caddo Parish toward the Red River lowlands. The USGS gauge near Keithville records stage and discharge and is the practical reference for the whole middle corridor, because this is a flashy watershed: a heavy thunderstorm over the parish can double the flow overnight and drop it back inside three days. Anglers who learn the gauge learn the bayou.

The water itself is tannic and cypress-shaded, narrow in the upper reaches and widening into brushy sloughs and backwater ponds below. Largemouth bass are the headline fish and they relate hard to wood — laydowns, stumps, cypress knees and the outside of every bend. Spotted bass show up in the faster upper water. The crappie fishing is what fills the launches in March and April, when white and black crappie push into the brush tops and bridge timber in numbers that support a genuine local guide trade.

Bream fishing through May and June is excellent and underrated, with bluegill and redear bedding on the sand and gravel edges wherever the canopy opens. Channel and flathead catfish hold in the deep outside bends year-round and are the reliable fallback when a front shuts the bass down. Bowfin and longnose gar are common enough that anyone fishing soft plastics on the flats should expect to meet one.

Access is a mix of parish road crossings, small improved ramps and informal bank spots, which suits kayaks and jon boats far better than a full-size bass boat. There is enough timber in the water to punish a careless hull. Fish it on a falling gauge after a rise, keep the trolling motor down, and work the wood methodically rather than covering distance.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Cypress Bayou.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Cypress Bayou cfs

Now: 4.2 cfs, read 11:00 pm CDT, Wed Oct 21, 2026 (USGS 07351500, Cypress Bayou near Keithville, LA).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Keithville area bridge crossing on Highway 171 — nearest access to the USGS gauge, bank and kayak.
Cypress Bayou parish road crossings west of Keithville — informal small-boat and wade access to the upper reach.
Stonewall area landings — mid-corridor access with parking, popular in the spring crappie run.
Lower bayou sloughs off Highway 3276 — kayak access to backwater ponds and brush flats.
Wallace Lake area ramps — improved trailer launches on the connected impoundment downstream.
Caddo Parish public bank access at the Highway 175 crossing — walk-in fishing, no ramp.
Red River lowland landings near the confluence — trailer access to the lowest, widest water.

Seasons

Spring: the peak. Crappie move to brush and timber in March, bass spawn in the protected sloughs through April, and bream begin bedding as the water settles into the 70s in May.
Summer: fish first and last light. Shade under cypress and overhanging hardwood holds the bass; catfish take over the deep bends, and low tannic water makes long casts and light line worth the trouble.
Fall: cooling water and falling flows bring bass back to the wood through October and November, with the best topwater of the year on calm mornings.
Winter: crappie concentrate in the deepest bends and around bridge pilings, and catfish stay catchable. Bass fishing turns slow but a warm week will move fish shallow again briefly.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the Cypress Bayou?

As of Oct 21, 11:00 pm, the USGS gauge Cypress Bayou near Keithville, LA reads 4 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Cypress Bayou?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Bluegill, Bowfin, Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Longnose Gar, Redear Sunfish, Spotted Bass, White Crappie on the Cypress Bayou in Louisiana.

Where can you access the Cypress Bayou?

Keithville area bridge crossing on Highway 171 — nearest access to the USGS gauge, bank and kayak. Cypress Bayou parish road crossings west of Keithville — informal small-boat and wade access to the upper reach. Stonewall area landings — mid-corridor access with parking, popular in the spring crappie run. Lower bayou sloughs off Highway 3276 — kayak access to backwater ponds and brush flats. Wallace Lake area ramps — improved trailer launches on the connected impoundment downstream. Caddo Parish public bank access at the Highway 175 crossing — walk-in fishing, no ramp. Red River lowland landin...

When is the best time to fish the Cypress Bayou?

Spring: the peak. Crappie move to brush and timber in March, bass spawn in the protected sloughs through April, and bream begin bedding as the water settles into the 70s in May. Summer: fish first and last light. Shade under cypress and overhanging hardwood holds the bass; catfish take over the deep bends, and low tannic water makes long casts and light line worth the trouble. Fall: cooling water and falling flows bring bass back to the wood through October and November, with the best topwater of the year on calm mornings. Winter: crappie concentrate in the deepest bends and around bridge pili...

Where are the fishing regulations for the Cypress Bayou?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Louisiana agency site: https://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/page/recreational-freshwater-finfish-and-crawfish