Best Outdoor Activities In Shreveport-Bossier: Gary McCoy’s Top 5

Knowing how popular golf is around here, I knew I had to include it. I mean, my boys all play, my brother in laws play, even my step-mom was the president of the Shreveport Women’s Golf Association, but I don’t know a thing about the game. Well, that’s not entirely true. I played once down at Cypress Bend on Toledo Bend. It was the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. The game for me was actually seeing if I could hit the ball far enough to ride to it in the golf cart or just walk over to it and hit it again. Pretty sure the people playing behind us; and then in front of us, probably never played that course again. But the scenery was incredible and you just can’t beat hanging out around Toledo Bend any chance you get. With some of the South’s leading courses just minutes away including Cypress Bend, Stonebridge, Northwood, Olde Oaks, Palmetto and Southern Trace, if you’re into the game, you don’t have to go far to hack away.

So my idea of “4-wheeler riding” is going from the house to the barn to feed my father in law’s horses or making that short trek from the deer camp to one of my stands, but the huge increase in this sport’s popularity made me include it. For the life of me, I don’t understand how some people can waste an entire day just staring at the tail light of the ATV in front of them only stopping long enough to wench out another idiot who was just sure he could make it through that hole, but we’ve put on our Mudstock long enough now to know that there are people who set all their vacation time around where/when they’re going riding. Speaking of Mudstock; it’s back again this year October 13 through 16 at our brand new location, River Run ATV Park in Jacksonville, Texas. Check out ATV Mudstock on Facebook. Course, we’ve got several other great parks around here including Mud Creek Offroad Park, ATV Mud Fury in West Monroe and the off road trails at the Kisatchie National Forest. And if you want to get out of the mud a while and do a little “rock climbing”, take a little trip north to just outside Mena, Arkansas and check out Wolf Pen Gap. My family loves that place!

Okay, you’ve got to combine all 3 of these because they’re so seasonal. And around here we don’t just “love” these sports we have life long passionate affairs with these sports. 90% of all our clothing proclaims our love for one of our teams! From the Shreveport Captains on the professional side, to the college world with LSU, LSUS, Bossier Parish Community College, Centenary College, Louisiana Tech, University of Louisiana Monroe and Northwestern State University, to our own Independence Bowl, there’s always a high caliber event to check out. Maybe even more popular than those events are the high school games with some of the top teams in the state right here in Northwest Louisiana. Throw in all the Dixie, Little League, Cabosa and Shreveport and Bossier Youth Programs and most Saturdays have more parents in bleachers than KMART could ever dream to have in the store for a 2 for 1 Blue Light Special.

In the event you’re new to the area, you might have noticed that we have a LOT of water. Hey, it’s Louisiana and THIS is the SPORTSMAN’S PARADISE and that requires an abundance of H2O. Cross Lake, Caddo Lake, Lake Bistineau, Cypress/Black Bayou (both of ‘em), Black Bayou Hosston, Toledo Bend, Wallace Lake, Lake Irling, Flagg Lake, Lake Ivan, the Red River, Twelve Mile Bayou, Bayou Dorcheat, Bodcau…hey, we could play this game all day, but I’m betting you get the idea. These are the places our web guys go hang out in the park with a Cappuccino and play chess, but the rest of us are there to get wet! Water skiing, jet skiing, tubing, knee boarding or just plain old boat riding, our lakes, rivers, streams and bayous are the perfect place to play. And if you’re hankering to do a little fishing, we have some of the best holes on the planet. Toledo Bend itself has been named one of the Top 10 Bass Fisheries in the entire country. Cross Lake was mentioned by one of the premier outdoors magazines as being the #1 Catfishing lake in the country. The Red River hosts national bass fishing tournaments annually, much like the Walmart FLW Tournament last month and the Bassmaster Classic will return in February 2012. Around here we know the Good Lord wouldn’t have made this much water if he didn’t plan for us to pull something out of it…or throw something in it.

To learn for yourself just why I consider this the number one activity for our area, all you need to do is get up around 4am on a November morning and park alongside I-20, I-49 or any major roadway in Northwest Louisiana and just count the trucks going by loaded with four wheelers or followed by a camouflage aluminum boat and you’ll soon discover that HUNTING is king in these parts. Santa Claus brings good little boys and girls a shotgun, rubber boots and some Columbia bibs for their first Christmas. If a survey on cell phone texts were done any Saturday in November, I’m betting the top phrase would be “Seeing Anything?” In August, we’re putting on the “Sportsman’s Expo” at the Bossier Civic Center and I’ll eat my insulated underwear if there aren’t as many as 5,000 people a day checking out all the latest and greatest additions to our hunting arsenal. From duck calls to deer lure, camo patterns and high powered rifles, we spend enough time in the woods or on the water to know we deserve the best and we’ll have it all at the Sportsman’s Expo. See, hunting is the sport that binds families; those long, cold mornings where Dad/Son whisper and giggle together in the deer stand or duck blind, to the nights at the deer camp wondering what the heck Les Miles was thinking while we watch our beloved LSU Tigers in the big game. And even Momma takes part in the action these days…and in some cases she’s a better hunter than Dad. But that’s another story for another day.