Capt. Gregg Arnold, who has spent many years guiding on the east side of the Mississippi, out in Breton Sound and the Chandeleur Islands, as that’s where many of the bigger redfish are found, had this to say about the situation: “It’s early May, so for now I can still fish in Louisiana, on the west side of the river, where I first started. But I see this only as a temporary fix. This disaster will impact the guides and all the areas along the Louisiana coast and the Gulf for a long time. It is going to put a lot of guys out of work. The oil will kill the plankton, the baitfish, shrimp, crabs. Then the game fish will leave. Where does that leave the Gulf guides? Out in the bayou without a paddle.”
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.