If someone's going hunting or fishing three or four days a year, they usually aren't going to have their own camp. The Beau Rivage Lodge represents the top of the line in public hunting and fishing facilities. The lodge, built on a barge, is towed to the Louisiana Marsh for the duck season, then to Chandeleur Island, a federal bird sanctuary that offers fishing comparable to that in the Florida Keys the rest of the year. Guests have their choice of arriving by boat or plane. Duck hunting is done from boats that turn into duck blinds.
Fishing is done from flatboats.
All trips are accompanied by guides, who also clean and cook or pack the catch for transportation. But sometimes the husband comes to the lodge and the wife stays at the hotel to shop and go to the spa, maybe. Mike Herrmann, who operates Louisiana Gulf Coast Outfitters, has also found that customers want far more than an opportunity to bag a duck or land a fish these days. They'll have three bedrooms, a couple of baths, and plenty of heat and hot water. Roughing it is getting up early and going out into whatever weather's there.