re: What are some memories from your young vacations to Grand Isle and other Louisiana areas?

Getting foot fungus after going surf fishing. It was magical.

Crabbin at Holly Beach. Late 80s early 90s.

I now live down that way and take my kids.

Grand Isle: All day every day on the beach fishing and swimming. Before any mention of sunscreen or skin cancer…………..Ohhhhh…..the sunburn!!!!!!

quote:

---

Grand Isle: All day every day on the beach fishing and swimming. Before any mention of sunscreen or skin cancer…………..Ohhhhh…..the sunburn!!!!!!

---

I remember spending a few days at a time done there. my brother would get so burnt we would pop the water blisters on him for fun. and the itching and peeling skin would go on for the next week or so

I started going down there around since 1991 or so. I was about 5. My grand parents bought our camp and at the time it had no roof, windows, finished floors, or walls. Plumbing and electrical were incomplete. My grandfather, uncle, and dad finished it out. It was an old Exxon camp. I was down there this weekend. When I think back about what GI used to be like, it's almost unbelievable how much it's changed in the past 30 years, although somethings never change, because my dad and I are still working on that place.

As for old memories:
The fishing is not nearly as good. A lot more people, a lot less habitat equals a lot less trout. Caught limits on the regular as a kid. Admittedly, I don't get to fish as much now, but it's been a while since I've caught a limit.

Trash, rusted out cars, falling apart buildings. Everywhere. The beach looked like a city dump. There would be everything you could imagine on that beach. Dead animals (not just fish), furniture and structures, all sorts of garbage and debris.

It's not there anymore, but a building my younger brother used to call "the upside down camp" because the building was on the ground and it had pilings sticking up out of it.

No water pressure on holiday weekends.

Everyone claiming to have encountered Whitey Bulger.

The power going out randomly and Cigars being the only place to eat.

There were puddles/mud holes that seemed to never dry, ever. Mosquitos the size of seagulls. I don't recall a single paved road other than LA1 when I was kid. I really think everything was gravel or dirt.

I remember my sister bringing this old beat up tailgating tent that was a piece of shite. Me and my brother in law tore it apart and used it as poles to put our crab lines on.
Then we went to a bar to watch a lingerie contest. It was only 2 girls and they both had meth mouth

Spent many summer weekends on Grand Isle as a kid. My aunt and uncle used to have a camp there. We used to catch speckled trout galore. Great times.

Too many grand isle memories to list…
Mid-70’s we would take our pop-up camper set it up right on the beach in the state park…no electricity, no generator, no water…big bathhouse you’d walk to for bm’s and showers…water always stopped working at some point of the weekend…
We would catch so many speckled trout on shad rigs…hook one, drag it through the school and try and hook the second.
Crabbing with 2 wooden poles, string, shower hooks, chicken necks, and a net…one year we filled up my dad’s 18ft bateau with crabs…spent two days processing the meat back home.
Dad woke us up in the middle of the night one time because the tide came in too far…we had to hook up the camper and move it further inland…huge rain squalls would just hammer you out there…
Always had a great time but it was roughing it…

My brother was add and couldn’t have anything with red for coloring. We’d go to the public beach ab the red wieners were good to feed the coons that lived there.

Grandfather got bit by a bull shark in early 70s catching trout Wade fishing there as well.

Entrance to Elmers Island was a different conversation