Due to the rain system and 80% chance of thunderstorms this Saturday morning, we’re going to have to postpone our demo.  We’ve decided to host a series of smaller demos for you to choose from this coming week:

Wednesday, May 16th  5pm-7pm
Friday, May 18th  8am – 10am
Saturday, May 26th 9am – 11am

Please call 337 232 5854 to reserve your spot at any of these demos.  Spots for these demos are limited – first call – first serve!
Our Demo Day Deals will be extended through Thursday, May 31st.

Smartwool Gift Offer
What mom would not love a gift of comfortable feet?  Stop by to see the hiking and casual socks in weights that work great for summer.
When you purchase 2  or more pairs of Smartwool socks, you will receive 20% off plus a free reusable shopping bag that makes a great mothers day gift bag.

Hydroflask bottles
This amazing bottle will keep your drinks hot or cold for an AMAZING amount of time.  Here’s a great story someone told me the other day:  They filled their hydroflask with hot tea and had to leave home – so they put the bottle in the refrigerator.  The next morning, they took the bottle out of the fridge, opened it and steam came pouring out!  Others love how this bottle will not sweat on your desk when filled with ice water.  This bottle makes a great “Can’t Miss” gift for anyone!

Summer Weight Scarves
We’ve got a wide variety of summer weight scarves that are the perfect thing to finish out Mom’s new outfit.  Wear them to work or for a night on the town.  These scarves will highlight the uniqueness that only your Mom has!

Sun Protection Hats
Functional and stylish, Sunday Afternoons women’s wide brimmed hats don’t have to sit in the closet waiting for an event. They travel well, look great, and most importantly keep you cool, shaded, and sun protected during the hottest days of summer. From practical Adventure Hat to the more glamorous Natalie Hat, Sunday Afternoons large brim hat styles will keep you fashionably crowned weather you are relaxing the beach, traveling the world, or putting miles behind you on the trail.

Outdoor Jewelry
We carry wonderful jewelry that fit into the outdoor lifestyle.  From locally handcrafted stone jewelry to Jade jewelry made in Colorado to Bronwen Jewelry made for swimming, running and cycling, we’ve got a great selection for the active woman.

We are excited to bring TOMS eyewear to Lafayette.  Like their shoes, when you purchase a TOMS product, you help a person in need.  For these great sunglasses, someone in need will receive life-changing medical treatment.

Here’s a great video that will tell you about this program:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s what TOMS says about their decision to help with visual impairment problems:

TOMS’ customers have given us the amazing honor of putting new shoes on children’s feet with every pair they have purchased. While giving some of these shoes to children in need, Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS, was struck by the poverty in many of the communities he was serving. He saw so many basic human needs that were still unmet.

Blake immediately recognized the incredible power of One for One™, and came to a startling conclusion: TOMS could be more than a shoe company – it should be a One for One™ company. With so many different needs around the world, he felt TOMS had an obligation to try to improve as many lives as possible.

The first step in this new chapter of TOMS is sight. We started here because sight is a fundamental need. The loss of sight has a dramatic impact on a person’s life – and on his or her family and community. TOMS is now giving to address this need because:

This is a Solvable Crisis

Blindness and visual impairment is the seventh-largest health disability in the world. But in most cases it can be prevented or treated. In fact, available solutions, including medical treatment, prescription eyeglasses or a 15-minute cataract surgery, could impact 80% of people afflicted with vision impairment and blindness.

We Can Help Break the Poverty Trap

Of the nearly 284 million people in the world who are visually impaired, almost 90% live in developing countries. It’s a vicious cycle — poverty and disease can lead to vision loss. And blindness and poor vision keep people trapped in poverty.

Sight Means Education and Opportunity

More than 18 million children around the world suffer from blindness or impaired vision. Children who have trouble seeing are often unable to go to or succeed in school, and have fewer chances to achieve a productive and successful life.

Women Have an Equal Right to Sight

Two-thirds of people who are blind are women, in part because many families in developing countries are more likely to pay for eye care for male family members. By providing easy to access local eye care, we can help more women and girls around the world get sight saving and restoring services.

There is an Immediate Impact

Many of the solutions to blindness and visual impairment can be immediate. If it’s a pair of eyeglasses or medical treatment that’s needed, patients are treated on the spot. Those needing eye surgery are referred immediately so their vision can be restored within just a few days.

We Can Create a Better Tomorrow

Regaining sight and preventing loss of sight transforms lives. Children can go to school the next day, and many adults return to work within a week and are once again able to provide for their families. When more people are able to lead healthy, productive lives, entire communities have a chance at a better future.

Kayaks are Stealthy:  No matter how  you slice it, a kayak is quieter and less noticeable to fish than any boat – even poling skiffs!  Not having a trolling motor makes you kayak quieter.  Even the pressure of the bow of your boat creating a small ripple will give fish in shallow water a serious case of lockjaw.  A kayak can slip into any size pond and the fish won’t even know you’re there!  To make your kayak even more stealthy, adhere stealth rubber to every spot on your boat that you lay paddles, Plano boxes and rods.

Kayaks offer better casting angles:  When fishing from a motor boat, most of your casts are perpendicular to the bank and your lure swims from shallow water to deep.  With a kayak you can gain a major advantage by placing your kayak right on the marsh grass.  Then you can cast up the grass line and retrieve along the grass.  This keeps your lure in the “red zone” for much more time than the typical boat cast.  Also throw out into open water and retrieve back to your kayak that’s placed on the shoreline.  This swims the lure from deep to shallow which is the instinctual way that bait fish typically avoid hungry predators.  Turning the tables on casting angles makes a huge difference in catch rate.

Kayaks are comfortable:  Today’s modern fishing kayaks have comfortable seats that make you feel like you’re fishing out of an easy chair all day long.

Catching fish is more fun in a kayak:  Hook into a 24 inch Redfish with a kayak underneath you, and you’re off on the “Cajun Sleigh Ride”.  Hook the same Redfish in a motorboat and you horse the fish into the boat in less than a minute.  Fish just feel bigger when you are catching them out of a kayak.  The fish may completely circle your boat during their initial runs – giving you that adrenaline filled out of control feeling that make fishing so much fun.  That “man vs. nature” feeling is so apparent when you have a big fish throwing mud and water up on you and over you as you struggle to gain the upper hand.

Kayaks are more fun when the fish aren’t biting:  Everyone has those days when the fish just don’t seem interested.  When you are fishing from a kayak, you have the added fun of seeing all the other wildlife abundant in the marsh.  I recall the thrill of seeing a mother deer and her baby emerge from the marsh grass, swim the canal and head off into the grass on the other side – all while never spotting me.  You’ll see amazing bird life, otters, raccoons, gators and more.  I’ve even seen a Black Bear swimming a canal and coming up on a mud flat in the marsh.  As an added bonus, you get a day of great exercise.

Kayaks allow you to fish where other boats cannot get:  I have spent countless days fishing in the marsh in my kayak where I don’t see another single boat, kayak or other craft.  Louisiana has so much marsh to fish that’s basically inaccessible to motorized fishing craft.  Not only is it accessible, but your craft is perfect for fishing these waters once you get in there.

Kayak fishermen are social:  Once you have a kayak – you’re in the club.  There’s a kindred spirit among the people that forego the common path and take up kayak fishing.  You’ll find that you are much more approachable by not only kayak fishermen – but also all the folks in motorized craft as well.  If you’re into clubs and tournaments, you’ll find a plethora of opportunities to join other kayak fishermen for club trips and tournaments year round.

Kayak fishing is downright cheap:  Take away fuel, insurance, storage, launch fees not to mention the upfront cost of purchasing a motor boat and you can see that kayak fishing is a great way to have more fun fishing at a much lower cost.  You may not want to sell that motor boat quite yet though.  Consider keeping the boat and using it as a “mothership” to carry you and your kayak to areas you can’t paddle to from the launch.  Truly the best of both worlds!

The bottom line is that coastal Louisiana is the perfect playground for kayak fishing.  I often tell people “If you want to ski powder snow, go to Colorado – but if you want to catch big saltwater fish out of a kayak  – come to Louisiana”.  We have a treasure trove of opportunity that is absolutely phenomenal for kayak fishermen.  I look forward to seeing you on the water!

Kayaking 101 has proven again to be more than an introduction to kayaking technique. I had the honored opportunity to introduce four great new friends to there own backyard in a whole new way. We had a Grandmother and teen, the Bayou Ladies, who went from wanting there boats tied together to paddling like pros. Then our sweet native to the Lake Martin area, Ashley, who had never been on the lake before and enjoyed the new beautiful perspective expressing how different it looked from the water. The guys bonded quickly discussing fishing out of a kayak. I can’t wait to run into this bunch out on the water again soon. It was a great start to the end of the week

-Amy Liuzza, Instructor

Dennis, Billy, Jeremiah and I met at Pack and Paddle around 4:30 am. This small group followed me to Pointe Aux Chenes where we met Lee, Amanda, and our other trip leader John Williams. John had a route in mind that he felt would be best for the 15mph sustained South East winds that we encountered most of the day. We divided the large group into two smaller groups. Dennis, Billy, and Jeremiah went with John and I guided Amanda and Lee.

After a nice paddle we arrived at a marshy area consisting of small islands and canals with running water. With the conditions the way they were I moved my group into the marsh figuring that the fish wouldn’t be on the normal ambush spots and outer shoreline of the large open lakes. Once we moved further into the marsh Lee threw a topwater lure down a canal and a redfish tried to inhale the topwater plug but missed causing excitement among the group. Before casting back out he allowed Amanda to throw at the redfish. After a nice cast she hooked into the 23” redfish! This was her first kayak fishing trip and her first redfish fight. She brought the fish to the side of the kayak and netted the fish like a pro.

A little time went by as we moved through very narrow channels looking for cleaner water. As Lee and Amanda fished I stood up looking for a way into ponds and dead end canals deep in the marsh. I spotted a nice looking dead end canal with a few ponds breaking off of the dead end canal. Lee worked his way to the back of the dead end and found a very nice 24” redfish waiting for him. The fish pulled Lee around the canal for a few minutes before he landed the fish. His smile as he held the fish up confirmed that he was having a good time.

We covered a lot of water often spooking fish that either couldn’t see the lures due to the heavily stained water or that were in a negative mood. I pulled up a mapping app on my iPhone and began looking for landmasses similar to the areas that held the two fish that the group caught. I spotted another nice looking area where Lee and Amanda caught three more redfish. One measured 15 ½”, a half inch under the legal slot limit that we released.

During the trip I tried to call John and check on their progress, but the phone reception in the area wasn’t the greatest. Around 12:30 I finally reached him and was informed that they had called it a day. Dennis wanted to come back out and give it one last try as their group hadn’t had much success. I told him how to find our location and we met him with just a little time left. On the way back to the marina Dennis began working a shoreline filled with submerged concrete sheets and oyster reef. After a few casts with a pink “Maniac Mullet” he set the hook on a very nice speckled trout that measured 20”! After taking a few pictures with the fish Dennis said that the decision to come back out was a good one on his part. Even with adverse weather conditions we managed to catch a few fish.

-Tray Collins, Trip Leader

To see all of the photos from this trip, click here!

In our group were two friends that had planned to sleep over the water that night in their camping hammock and tarps or “gator burritos” as I call it. No real danger but it makes for a good joke. When they mentioned this to me, I made sure to bring the group by to have a look at their camp so everyone could ask questions and see something not of the “norm”. Since this was their first time setting up the hammock over water while standing in a kayak it took them almost 2 hours. When they returned their boats to Pack and Paddle the next day, they reported that they had a great time and everything went well.

By the time we made it to the North side of the lake the sun was setting and the moon was completely out of the clouds. The sunset was mostly hidden in the clouds but projected subtle pink to purple highlights across the sky. Taking pictures slowed me down and distracted me enough to get left in the wake of my group. Darkness came upon us just as we arrived back at boat launch where a great red beans and rice dinner from Hub City Diner awaited us. We also can’t leave out the bread pudding, OHHHHH YUM!

Be wild, get outdoors!

-Kevin Wallis, Trip Leader

To see more photos from this trip, click here!

The feeling was short lived in our SUP 101 course as head winds took us down to our knees, and eventually to our seats. The sun was shining, though, so the three of us decided to enjoy the beautiful Sugar Mill Pond nonetheless.

Despite a few small spills, the sunset over Youngsville made for a flawless Saturday afternoon.

-Justin Leger, Trip Leader

Join us for the next SUP 101 classes on May 11th & May 27th

As the group gathered at the Fausse Point State Park boat launch, I was thinking how lucky we are to have so many people willing to come out and support the Basinkeeper program.  Twenty six people made the trip from as far away as New Orleans and even Arkansas for the chance to paddle among some of the old cypress with Basinkeeper Dean Wilson.

The kayaks and canoes were unloaded quickly and soon the group was on the water.  Our biggest obstacle this day was a very strong south wind.  We paddled out of the park and then took a canal to the south in order to stay out of the wind for as long as possible.  Before crossing the lake, we paused to gather everyone up and then we were off – paddling hard for the opposite shore where the larger trees grow.

Once on the other side, we found a peaceful cove and gathered everyone up into a compact group.  Cara Leverett gave a talk on the basin and it’s value to migratory birds and other wildlife.  Then Dean spoke about some of the problems facing this great ecosystem.  This was followed up by a short talk by noted photographer and author Greg Guirard.  Greg spoke about the trees as well as the traditional Cajun fishing culture that is being lost in this generation due to water quality and other problems.  It was so awesome to hear the words of these people about the basin – while surrounded by the basin.

The group then headed back north along the western shore of Lake Dauterive.  With an assist from the tailwind – we were soon at our next stop.  We all sat among the large cypress – enjoying the green glow of sunlight filtering through the canopy above us.  Before we knew it, lunch was calling and we headed back across the lake to the park.

We were greeted by David Alleman of McGees landing who was on hand to provide a fish fry for the group.  This was greatly enjoyed by everyone.  We were able to announce that through everyone signing up that the Basinkeeper paddle trip raised over $1200 for the program.  We would like to thank everyone who made this trip possible:  David from Mcgees langing, Greg Guirard, Dean and Cara, Kevin Wallis for helping to lead the group and especially everyone who attended this trip.

-John Williams

To view even more photos of this trip, click here.