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A platinum sun set on a warm March afternoon as I drove from New Orleans' Louis Armstrong Airport toward the mouth of the Mississippi to a place known as "the end of the world."

When Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana nearly two years ago, it must have felt like the end of the world. But as I scanned the New Orleans skyline from a freeway overpass, the only signs of destruction were the ones playing in my head, the flashbacks from TV news clips during the storm. The Superdome, once battered and overrun with evacuees, had a new roof, and the dry city streets flowed with activity.

As I rolled south along Louisiana 23, past the small towns bordering the Mississippi, the signs of damage were more obvious. Storm-ravaged homes, boats, barges and cars, broken like beaten piñatas, their contents spilled onto lawns, marshes and cypress groves.

As darkness descended, I followed the river until the four-lane highway turned to a dirt road and the dirt road ran into marshlands.

Here I was, a map-toting tourist reversing the path of one of the nation's costliest and deadliest hurricanes. As I squinted through the descending gloom to see the narrow road in my headlights, I wondered whether my visit would feel as though I were crashing a funeral.

Since the storm, most media accounts have focused on the recovery of New Orleans (even being used as the setting for a police melodrama on TV this fall), but I was heading 75 miles south to Venice, a delta town at the southernmost tip of Louisiana.

I came here to do what thousands of people have been doing in Venice for decades, through rain and sun. I came to participate in the pastime that has made this town of about 500 legendary among sportsmen.

I came to fish.

Seagulls cawed. The motor of a fishing boat roared. Then a loud rap on a door.

I awoke in the Venice Sportsman's Lodge, a 130-foot-long barge moored at the Venice Marina.

The knocking came from Susan Gros, a guide and world-record angler who had helped arrange my trip. Gros formerly was a corporate manager who gave up the 9-to-5 grind to become a full-time fishing guru and promoter of Venice.

We stepped into a warm, blue-sky morning, and she introduced me to our guide for the day, Brandon Carter, a young, rosy-cheeked Louisiana native who was tying his boat to the barge.

The marina opens up into 3 million acres of wetlands, cut by a network of waterways, that protrude from the southern tip of Louisiana like a giant peacock feather. This is Venice's backyard, and this spectacular confluence of fresh and salt water is the reason some consider the Mississippi delta the nation's finest fishing spot.

I had mixed feelings about being here. As an avid angler, I was eager to drop a line, especially because I had heard reports that the fishing was better than ever. But I was uneasy with the thought of casting a lure while the struggle to rebuild was so clearly visible. They say vultures are thriving in the delta in Katrina's wake. Would I be seen as just another scavenger?

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