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Home › Waters › Louisiana › Chemin-A-Haut Bayou
Bayou · Northeast Louisiana, draining Morehouse Parish south past Beekman toward Bayou Bartholomew · Louisiana

Chemin-A-Haut Bayou Fishing Guides

A quiet northeast Louisiana bayou of cypress flats and slow tea-coloured water, fished from a small boat for bass, crappie and catfish.

A slow bayou channel under overhanging live oak and Spanish moss
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

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About the Chemin-A-Haut Bayou

Chemin-A-Haut Bayou drains the pine and hardwood country of Morehouse Parish and moves south through Chemin-A-Haut State Park before feeding the Bayou Bartholomew system. The name is old French for high road, and the bayou earned it by running along a ridge that Native American travellers and later French traders used. It is small, intimate water by Louisiana standards, and it fishes nothing like the big river systems an hour to the east.

The character is classic Delta-edge bayou. Water moves slowly and often barely at all, stained the colour of strong tea by leaf tannin, with cypress and tupelo standing in the shallows and their knees breaking the surface along every bend. Depth is inconsistent: long shallow flats give way abruptly to holes that hold fish through the hottest part of summer. Laydowns, stumps and undercut root wads are the structure that matters, and reading them is most of the game.

Largemouth bass are the headline fish and they relate hard to wood. Spotted bass show up in the moving stretches. Crappie, both white and black, stack on brush in the deeper bends and are the reason many local boats are here at all in early spring. Bluegill, redear sunfish and warmouth fill out the panfish, and catfish work the bottom of the holes. Bowfin and longnose gar are common enough that anyone fishing here should expect to meet one.

This is small-boat water. A jon boat, a kayak or a canoe suits it; anything with a deep draft will find the shallow flats frustrating in summer. Levels swing with rain rather than with any dam schedule, so the gauge matters, and after a dry spell flow can drop close to nothing.

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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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Posting to Chemin-A-Haut 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.

Access

Chemin-A-Haut State Park, near Bastrop - the main developed access with a launch and camping.
Beekman - the gauge reach and a local access point on the middle bayou.
Bastrop area bridge crossings - informal bank and small-boat access.
Parish road crossings south of the park - walk-in and light-boat access.
Lower bayou toward Bayou Bartholomew - access for boats running the bigger system.
State park boat ramp - the most reliable launch for a trailered jon boat.
Upper bayou above Beekman - shallow, narrow and best suited to a kayak.

Seasons

Spring: the best fishing of the year, with crappie on brush and bass moving shallow to spawn.
Summer: hot and low, with fish holding in the deeper shaded holes and early mornings the productive window.
Fall: cooling water brings bass back onto the wood and catfish feed steadily.
Winter: slow and cold, with crappie stacked deep and the best days coming on warm afternoons.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Chemin-A-Haut Bayou?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Blue Catfish, Bluegill, Bowfin, Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish, Largemouth Bass, Longnose Gar, Redear Sunfish, Spotted Bass, Warmouth, White Crappie on the Chemin-A-Haut Bayou in Louisiana.

Where can you access the Chemin-A-Haut Bayou?

Chemin-A-Haut State Park, near Bastrop - the main developed access with a launch and camping. Beekman - the gauge reach and a local access point on the middle bayou. Bastrop area bridge crossings - informal bank and small-boat access. Parish road crossings south of the park - walk-in and light-boat access. Lower bayou toward Bayou Bartholomew - access for boats running the bigger system. State park boat ramp - the most reliable launch for a trailered jon boat. Upper bayou above Beekman - shallow, narrow and best suited to a kayak.

When is the best time to fish the Chemin-A-Haut Bayou?

Spring: the best fishing of the year, with crappie on brush and bass moving shallow to spawn. Summer: hot and low, with fish holding in the deeper shaded holes and early mornings the productive window. Fall: cooling water brings bass back onto the wood and catfish feed steadily. Winter: slow and cold, with crappie stacked deep and the best days coming on warm afternoons.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Chemin-A-Haut 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