I'll keep this as short and as sweet as possible, and please bear with me as I'm really just shooting from the hip here, as I wanted to explain what's been going on with myself and Louisiana Fishing Blog, especially if you're one of the relatively few people who actually visit my website (thank you for that).
First off, one of my continuing struggles with LAFB has been finding the right kind of content that people enjoy consuming, that I enjoy making and isn't incredibly difficult or time consuming to make. For example, people liked the produced and heavily edited fishing videos I published to YouTube — and I like them, too! — but those videos are an absolute pain in the ass to film, edit and produce. The video below is one such example, and in the opening scene at 0:49 you can see the timeline and the media on it. It's no slouch!
It took about three days of filming to get everything I needed for that video, and another couple weeks of editing. This video was actually pretty easy to edit because I only fished one spot, whereas videos where I go on a journey to find fish end up taking upward of 45 days to edit. This wouldn't be a problem except for one thing: hardly anyone watches them. It's not like these videos have hundreds of thousands of views. So I'm squeezing a lot of fruit and not getting a lot of juice in return.
I've also created other kinds of content that took non-trivial amounts of time and effort to create and, again, not much juice to match the squeeze. Some of that content you will find here on this website. It's great. It's banger. But you have to apply yourself and r-e-a-d. Being that focused is a high ask of people these days. Nevertheless, it's to your benefit if you can muster the willpower.
This was leading to burnout. I was beginning to get seriously bored with LAFB and ask "what's even the point?" A lot of my grievances can be found in this blog post about quitting social media. That's a dangerous road to go down, because what fuels something like LAFB is passion. Believe me, I can take the skills learned and honed here and apply them to greater effect elsewhere. I've thought about it a lot. But I've also spent the last fourteen years working toward what you see here, and it'd be great to keep it going.
So, if I'm not writing here and if I'm not making highly-produced YouTube videos, then what am I doing?
Well, it's been on my mind for awhile to try uploading entire fishing trips, unedited, or at least edited very little. Last month I finally said "F it" and tried. That's this video below:
That video is three hours long. This pales in comparison to the usual 15-45 minutes my videos were before. And what kills me is that this video is out performing the highly produced one embedded above. It is crushing the produced videos in analytics. I can attribute this to a litany of reasons, but I'd like to point out that editing and rendering this video took about a day's worth of work. That's great. That means I can crank these out at a much better rate. But there's more! Forget the analytics, the dry and inhuman numbers, all you need to do is look at the comments. People really notice and love this "long" format. That and this longer format is in keeping with my own digital ethics (i.e. not hacking your brain stem).
So, to answer the question posed earlier, I am making these long-form videos now. But I am also posting fishing reports inside LAFB Elite Community and helping members plan their fishing trips. I am also making content for LAFB Elite, whether that's more courses or behind-the-scenes stuff like developing an app. Finally, whenever there's free time, I am writing a book for inshore fishing in Louisiana. I hope to have that published some time in 2025.
I really enjoy writing here and taking time to deep-think inshore fishing ideas, tactics and techniques, but I just don't have time to do that and everything else. So, for the time being, there are the new YouTube videos and — if you're not scared to apply yourself, use the search function and r-e-a-d — you will find a ton of great fishing advice and information in posts from years past. Patterns repeat themselves, after all. If you're in my email list then you'll get a link to whichever guide or article currently applies to the season and/or conditions.
Last, but not least, the best way to learn everything I know to finding and catching speckled trout, redfish and more on Louisiana's coast is to join LAFB Elite and complete Inshore Fishing 101.
Jeffrey Stewart / Mississippi Angler
I grew up fishing Delacroix with my dad from age 8-14. I never understood what we were doing or why, and didn’t think to ask questions. Dad did all the leg work and put us on the fish, I just threw at 'em and reeled 'em in.
Today, Captain Devin's Inshore Fishing 101 helped me learn all the things my dad knew to make those fishing trips happen. I'm able to plan good fishing trips to find 'em and catch 'em.
This is much easier due to Devin's ability to "dumb things down" and make fishing concepts easily understandable.
Now 18 years later we are getting a new boat and getting back on the water. Looking forward to showing Dad what I have learned!
Keith Brumbaugh / Texas Inshore Angler
Being from Texas, I can say that joining LAFB Elite — even though it's targeting Louisiana — has been worth every penny! Hell, the angler's mindset you learn there alone applies to all fishing, even freshwater bass fishing!
Inshore Fishing 101 especially has been a great tool to learn the process to finding and catching speckled trout and redfish on my own.
Randy Ahrabi / Small Business Owner
I learned that I couldn't see the marsh for the bayou. What I mean by that is I was unknowingly doing a lot of things wrong with poor results and just chalked it up to a bad day of fishing. Devin presents a ton of concepts that the average fisherman either overlooks, isn't executing properly or is flat out ignorant of.
Inshore Fishing 101 isn't just a bunch of random tips! It is an intricate web of interconnected actions, equipment, locations, biology, conditions, techniques, technology, and experience that come together to give you the best chance of filling the box with fish on a consistent basis.
He shows how simple it is: you don't need a 24 ft bay boat, you don't need 500 different color lures, you don't need the most expensive gear, all you need to is a rod, a reel a lure and a little moving water, clean water and lots of bait in the area.
Dannie Spivey / South Carolina Angler
I too was frustrated with the many times I went and fished all day only to come home with little to nothing.
I have been an Elite member now for a couple of months, and while I haven't loaded the boat yet, I can say that I have learned a lot.
Some of the stuff that Devin teaches, I think that I already was doing but not understanding why. Plus I learned the things that "I didn't know that I did not know".
I am very pleased with LAFB Elite, and recommend it to anyone who's on the fence considering if they should join or not.
Like Devin says: it costs less that a bucket of live shrimp, so what do you have to lose?
Thank you so much, Keith! I won’t be going anywhere anytime soon!
I sure hope you don’t give up on LAFB. I’ve been fishing the La coast all of my life and I’ve learned more in the past two months from you than the whole 50 years of doing it the way dad showed me, not saying dad was entirely wrong just old school. Inshore 101 I by far the best tool I’ve seen, hands down. Keep it up Cap you got this!