Terry; Good Day With Son

Recently a great loss was suffered in the outdoor community with the loss of Terry Melancon in his battle with inoperable cancer. But he will be missed more as a husband to Lisa, a father to Aaron and Paul and a great friend to you and me. Terry lived his life to the fullest as he was very active in all his outdoor passions.

Even at his passing, he served as the president of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation. He was past president of the East Ascension Sportsman’s League and active in many arenas of outdoor conservation. His latest big project was helping to get ROWA (Restore Our Waterway Access) off the ground and running full speed.

He was diagnosed nearly a year ago and his prognosis wasn’t real good. The doctors gave him about 6 months to live. He fought a valiant battle that gave him twice as much time with family and friends as was expected. Terry, we’ll miss you greatly.

I don’t want to get real mushy right here but I remember the words to a song from 38 years ago by Joni Mitchell; “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Many things (especially people) that are precious to us will one day be gone forever with only memories to keep.

At Terry’s wake three was a photo-projected montage of his life that included many pictures of his days in the outdoors. Plenty of those pictures were of him and his two sons. I found a place to sit in the parlor where the view of that screen was unobstructed. I found myself unable to turn my gaze away. I had just left the casket and what I saw on the screen was the picture in my mind of how I wanted to remember Terry. I watched it over and over.

Last weekend I was blessed with one of those fishing trips with my son, Wesley down to Bayou Dularge and Lake Decade. The fishing there has been nothing short of spectacular and our anticipation was running really high. But things didn’t really turn out quite like we expected.

First there was the fog. We drove from Prairieville all the way to Theriot in the fog and not really knowing the way real well didn’t help matters any either. We had to stop twice for directions; we were going the right way, we just couldn’t tell with all the fog.

Fog and driving a boat doesn’t mix real well either. I remember a couple of horror stories from our days down at Venice trying to run the river and make our way back to the launch in the fog. I won’t even talk about it, it make me shudder just to think about it.

But we launched and headed slowly up Falgoust Canal towards the lake. We didn’t get very far, I had let the boat drift a little too close to the bank and we were on a mud flat. Nothing real bad, we got out in a couple of minutes. So we decided to pull in the next canal and just fish until the fog lifted.

It wasn’t a bad choice as we caught 3 redfish and 1 spec. One of the redfish was spotted tailing in the shallows and a well placed cast provoked a savage strike and the water exploded. Around 8:00 we decided to head out to Lake Decade and take our chances in the fog.

Visibility had increased a little but when we got out in the lake the bank disappeared and we slowed down and headed in the direction that I was sure was left. Wrong! We ended up on the right bank and just fished there until we could eventually see across the lake.

We headed to the spot that yielded 31 really nice specs the last time I was there, but we only managed 5 specs, one flounder and a white trout for our efforts. We decided to head toward the landing and try another canal to see if the bass would co-operate a little better. As we got into Falgoust Canal, a crab trap got tangled in the prop so we had to get it off before we could proceed.

Our move paid off some as Wesley caught a couple of bass on a spinner bait and I landed 2 more nice reds on a crank bait right off the bat. We fished it a little while longer and added 3 more bass to the total and decided to call it a day.

Our total for the day included 6 specs, 5 bass, 3 redfish, one flounder and a white trout. Gas in truck, forty bucks; gas in the boat twenty bucks; time spent on the water with my son; money can’t buy it!

So until next time, have fun in the outdoors, be safe and may God truly bless you!! “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”