Kayakers paddle among towering cypress tress in Lake Martin in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana. Lake Martin and the Nature Conservancy’s Cypress Island Preserve is one of the largest wading bird rookeries in North America.

Mark Allen of Allen’s Guide Service in Vivian, Louisiana, fishes for bass on Caddo Lake. The largest natural lake in the south, Caddo holds nearly 33,000 acres of water and straddles the border of Louisiana and Texas.

Tourists ride an airboat through the cypress forest of Henderson Swamp with the help of tour guide and airboat captain Byron Lemaire from McGee’s Atchafalaya Basin Swamp Tours in Henderson, Louisiana.

Before sunrise a charter fishing boat glides to the dock at the TradeWinds Marina & Lodge in Cocodrie, La. to prepare for a day of fishing for Red Snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

The skeletons of dead trees rise above the marsh across the water from nearby homes and fishing camps in Terrebonne Parish south of Dulac, Louisiana.