For the BEST FISHING EXPERIENCE, come stay at our spacious, comfortable camp in Cocodrie, Louisiana. There is a boat launch just 600 feet away. Bait, gas, ice - whatever your fishing needs and more is right next door at Lapeyrouse’s store. The industrial look of the camp tells the history - this was the site of our family's seafood dock until our parents retired and decided to turn it into a family camp that we are now sharing with you! Our waterfront camp is located along Bayou Petit Caillou, at the junction of scenic Louisiana Highways 56 & 57 and it is situated on 2 acres.
Upstairs you’ll enjoy spacious living quarters and a large screened porch overlooking the water. Because this camp is still our family camp too - we have everything you need from linens and towels to cleaning supplies! Upstairs you'll find two bedrooms each with king beds and one bunkroom with two bunkbeds (one bunk has a larger bottom bed). The main living space features a fully furnished kitchen including a dishwasher. Just off the kitchen you’ll find the washer and dryer. The open space keeps everyone in touch from meals to playing games to watching the big screen TV. Double doors connect the living space to the full length screened porch overlooking the bayou. It features outdoor dining, seating and a swing. The swing is our favorite spot for a cup of coffee to watch the sun come up behind the trees across the bayou or simply enjoy the sights and sounds of the bayou from the comfort of a bug free porch!
Our family camp is situated 27 miles from downtown Houma in the heart of Cocodrie, Louisiana on a part of land that’s continuously been in the Lapeyrouse family since the 1800’s.
You can stop here and just check the calendar to book your stay or continue on to read a bit of history of our family's connection to this building and to the land surrounding it!
------ Our History
This location has been used for the livelihood of our family back to the 1800’s. Actually, buried beneath the camp’s cement slab is the foundation of a derrick, used in loading sugarcane onto barges to get the product to the sugar mill in Montegut in the late 1800’s. At the start of the 1900’s, sugarcane farming began to transition to the seafood and trapping industry, again using the bayous for transportation. As the hub of growth and employment in Cocodrie, the store that stands next door was built by Gustave and Josephine Lapeyrouse and employed many families. Soon after the store was built, another building was built for the growing seafood industry to clean, peel and pack shrimp, crab, oysters and fish for transport inland.
Gustave and Josephine’s son Chester and his wife Ruby took the reigns and continued the work in the 1940’s. As the demand for dried shrimp grew, a large cement boiling tank was built for boiling shrimp. While peeled shrimp was boiled to be canned, but whole green shrimp, with shell and heads on, were boiled then spread out on cypress platforms to sun dry. Once they had dried enough to separate from the shell, they were scooped into a gas heated rotary dryer that further dried the shrimp meat while the rotary turns “beat” the shells into fine powder. Both shell powder and dried shrimp meat were packaged for transport.
By the 1950’s many trappers and shrimpers were lured by higher pay to the oil industry and by the end of the 60’s our parent’s, Joel and Diana, had a boat rental business that filled the slips to the side of the camp where houseboats now rent space annually. Their iron-hulled crew boats ferried men and gear to inland derricks scattered around the bays and bayous and as far as the barrier islands. In the mid-1980’s Dad’s brother Cecil took the reigns of the old store and began creating a truly special destination that is on most tourism site’s “must see” attractions. In the manner of storekeeping that’s goes back to the day Gustave first opened the store in 1914, it strives to have everything you might need, from a loaf of bread, milk & eggs to hardware and nails to tackle and bait, gas and ice.
About the same time, the oil bust led our parents to decide to sell the boats and return to brokering seafood. This is the initial incarnation of the building we now call Little Caillou Packing Camp. Its wharves and building levels were structured for the smaller trawl boats. The large cement “first floor” held the conveyor to offload and equipment to sort, weigh, ice and store the fresh shrimp. Insulated trailers shipped the fresh catch inland and around the gulf and east coast. Upstairs, the bunkroom and the bayouside bedroom were offices while the living space and back bedroom were used during trawling season when the dock operated 24/7.
With retirement and grandkids, the decision to convert the business into a family camp was easy. And yes, we simply added “Camp” to sign. It continues to be the spot to celebrate birthdays, and any opportunity to gather and enjoy being in Cocodrie, Louisiana. As the grandchildren have grown, we now share the camp with those who appreciate this bayou paradise. Stays at the camp are generally available with a 2 night minimum, longer for special events and holidays. We continue to make improvements to the camp as we can and also take plenty of time to enjoy the sunrises and being on the water.
