Kisatchie Bayou Fishing Guides

About the Kisatchie Bayou

Kisatchie Bayou drains the highest and most rugged country in Louisiana, the sandstone hills of the Kisatchie Ranger District, and it looks almost nothing like the picture most people carry of a Louisiana bayou. Instead of slack tea colored water moving through cypress, it runs clear and quick over white sand and gravel, cutting small bluffs and shoals through longleaf pine forest. The state named it a Natural and Scenic Stream, and the designation is easy to understand within the first hundred yards.

The hydrology is what makes it different. The surrounding hills are sandy and permeable, so rainfall soaks in rather than sheeting off, and the bayou is fed by a steady seep of groundwater out of the sandstone rather than by flashy surface runoff. That gives it a firm bottom, a visible current and water clear enough to sight fish in, which is rare in this part of the state. It still rises hard after a heavy rain, but it clears within a day or two instead of staying stained for a week.

Fishing is a small stream proposition. Spotted bass hold on the current seams below the sand shoals and take a small crankbait or a spinner worked across the flow. Largemouth sit in the deeper bends and around fallen pine, and the bayou carries a genuinely good population of longear sunfish, which are the reason many local anglers come at all. Chain pickerel show up in the slower backwaters. Channel catfish work the deeper holes at night.

Nearly all of the corridor is national forest, which solves the access problem that shapes fishing almost everywhere else in Louisiana. There is no permission to ask and no lease to worry about. The Kisatchie Bayou Recreation Area sits on the water with camping and a developed put in, and forest roads reach the bayou at a number of points above and below it. The stretch through the Backbone country is walk and wade water at normal flow.

The best approach is to fish it like a small mountain stream rather than like a bayou. Wade upstream, stay off the skyline on the clear shoals, and work the heads and tails of pools rather than dragging the middle. A canoe or kayak covers more water in the deeper reaches downstream, though low summer flows mean dragging over the shoals. Light tackle is the right choice, and a fly rod works better here than on most Louisiana water.

Access

Kisatchie Bayou Recreation Area - the Forest Service campground and developed access on the water.
Kisatchie - the small community the gauge is named for, the usual reference point.
Kisatchie National Forest, Kisatchie Ranger District - the public land covering most of the corridor.
Longleaf Vista - the overlook and trailhead on the Longleaf Scenic Byway above the drainage.
Natchitoches - the nearest town with full services, northeast of the bayou.
Forest Road 59 - the gravel route crossing the bayou and reaching several informal put ins.
Red River - the larger river receiving the drainage well downstream.

Seasons

Spring: the strongest flows of the year, with the bayou running full and the sunfish moving onto beds.
Summer: clear low water over the sand shoals, best fished wading early and late.
Fall: steady moderate flow, cooling water and the most pleasant conditions on the bank.
Winter: cool and often high after frontal rain, with fish stacked in the deeper bends.