Hodges Garden State Park

I'd never heard of it until seeing this thread. I had to google it to determine where it was then realized I have no idea where Florien, LA is.

I'm not much help.

Actually went there about 6 weeks ago for the first time, as mentioned it no longer run by the family that originally owned it so it's not quite as nice as it once was but still pretty cool.

Just a heads up but you're not allowed to bring in your personal boats, you can only rent what they have, canoes, kayaks, paddle Jon boats, etc.

Yep, I was going to bring my kayak but couldn't. Something about they're afraid of outside boats bringing in non-native water plants.

Supposedly pretty good fishing.

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Used to be the tits back in the day. Nice motel with two pools, club, coffee shop and a nice restaurant. Then they built a golf course behind the motel. Started with nine, then added another nine. When the old man Hodges died they sold the motel and golf course to a local dr. here in Leesville. Seems the insurance papers rubbed together and started a fire at the restaurant and it burnt to the ground. Hasn't been the same since. Then the family couldn't sustain the gardens practically gave it to the state, another mistake. Local business man here bought the resort back in the 90's, it was fixing to go into foreclosure, for less than a million. Held onto it for about 10 or so years and turned around and sold it for a nice profit to a group from china with ties to dr.s here. They were going to bring over jr. high kids from china to play golf and go to school here. But the market crash in the late 2000's killed that and now its closed except the gardens. Dad used to take our family up there for mothers day weekend. This was before the golf course. My dad used to know Mr. Hodges and he would let my brother and his friends, I was too young, fish the lake at the gardens. Used to have one old john boat with a paddle pulled up on the bank. Those cheap nylon stringers you can get for like .50cents, they would bring em loaded from end to end with bass. Good times.

Used to tear up the bream when they were spawning. When the state took over, the employees would beat us to it, and never again caught em like we used to. Nothing to catch 60/70 hand size bream in a couple of hours.

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Used to be the tits back in the day.

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I looked forward to the Lions Club golf tournament every year from the late 80's until about 1995. Dad would always partner up and rent on of the houses on the course with another family and turn us loose for the weekend.

The two ponds on the course were small, but full of fish. I would say the big lake in the gardens is about 60 acres. I'd say on average, every trip I ever fished on it we caught 20 to 24 bass with one or two weighing over 5 lbs.

It stayed closed down for years in the 2000's and my annual trips with friends fell by the way side. Anyone I talk to now that's fished it says it isn't the same. It's decent fishing, but the big ones aren't being put back.