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Home › Waters › Louisiana › Bayou Mallet
Bayou · Acadia Parish, a Cajun prairie bayou north of Iota draining south into Bayou Des Cannes and the Mermentau system · Louisiana

Bayou Mallet Fishing Guides

A prairie bayou north of Iota with a stage gauge on Highway 91, fishable in the windows between rice-field drainage and summer low water.

Bald cypress hung with Spanish moss standing in still bayou water in Louisiana
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Bayou Mallet

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About the Bayou Mallet

Bayou Mallet runs across the Cajun prairie of Acadia Parish, north of Iota, and carries its water south into Bayou Des Cannes and eventually the Mermentau River. This is not cypress-swamp Louisiana. It is farm country, rice and crawfish and soybeans, and the bayou behaves like a prairie drainage rather than a backwater: narrow, low-banked, willow and cottonwood along the edges instead of tupelo, and a bed that is mud and sand rather than standing timber.

The gauge on Highway 91 reports stage, and stage is the number that decides whether a trip is worth making. Bayou Mallet responds quickly to rain across a wide, flat, heavily farmed catchment, and it responds again to the rice cycle, because water moving in and out of the surrounding fields is part of the hydrology here in a way it is not on most bayous. A hard rain turns it the colour of coffee with milk and pushes it out of its banks. Two dry weeks in August drop it into disconnected pools.

Fished in the window between those two states, it is a genuinely good small-water fishery. Largemouth hold against whatever wood and undercut bank the bayou offers, bream stack in the deeper bends, and the catfish population is substantial for a watercourse this size. Bowfin and gar are common and worth expecting rather than resenting. Access is informal and mostly from bridge crossings, so a pirogue, a kayak or a small jon boat is the right craft, and a trolling motor is more use than an outboard. Landowner permission matters here more than it does on the bigger bayous, and it is worth sorting out before launching.

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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 Bayou Mallet.

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

Iota - the nearest town, the reference point for the gauge, and the closest place for fuel, ice and bait.
Highway 91 crossing - the gauge bridge itself, and the most commonly used informal launch for small craft.
Bayou Des Cannes - the receiving bayou downstream, larger and more consistently fishable when Mallet is low.
Mermentau River - the main stem at the bottom of the system, the fallback when the prairie bayous are unfishable.
Lake Arthur - the broad water at the bottom of the Mermentau drainage, reachable by road for a change of pace.
Crowley - the parish seat a short drive east, with tackle, groceries and lodging.
Jennings - a nearby town on I-10 offering the closest cluster of motels and services for an overnight trip.

Seasons

Spring: the strongest stretch of the year, with bass shallow and bream moving onto the bends as the water warms.
Summer: low, warm and often disconnected, fished at first light along the deepest holes, with catfish carrying the day.
Fall: rainfall returns and the bayou freshens, bass feed hard on the wood, and crappie gather in the deeper water.
Winter: slow and cold but reliable for crappie and catfish, with bass taken on patient, deliberate presentations.

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Questions

What species can you catch on the Bayou Mallet?

Anglers target Black Crappie, Blue Catfish, Bluegill, Bowfin, Chain Pickerel, Channel Catfish, Flathead Catfish, Freshwater Drum, Largemouth Bass, Longnose Gar, Redear Sunfish, Spotted Gar, Warmouth, White Crappie on the Bayou Mallet in Louisiana.

Where can you access the Bayou Mallet?

Iota - the nearest town, the reference point for the gauge, and the closest place for fuel, ice and bait. Highway 91 crossing - the gauge bridge itself, and the most commonly used informal launch for small craft. Bayou Des Cannes - the receiving bayou downstream, larger and more consistently fishable when Mallet is low. Mermentau River - the main stem at the bottom of the system, the fallback when the prairie bayous are unfishable. Lake Arthur - the broad water at the bottom of the Mermentau drainage, reachable by road for a change of pace. Crowley - the parish seat a short drive east, with ta...

When is the best time to fish the Bayou Mallet?

Spring: the strongest stretch of the year, with bass shallow and bream moving onto the bends as the water warms. Summer: low, warm and often disconnected, fished at first light along the deepest holes, with catfish carrying the day. Fall: rainfall returns and the bayou freshens, bass feed hard on the wood, and crappie gather in the deeper water. Winter: slow and cold but reliable for crappie and catfish, with bass taken on patient, deliberate presentations.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Bayou Mallet?

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