TT brings up the heart of the issue. The East side, for what ever reason, is suffering lower catch rates. The rest of us, west side/central coast will be effected in that what ever happens there will be inflicted on the rest of the coast. This will make it far easier to enforce creel limits for LWF. East dictates to the rest of us because of its political muscle. Granted there are real issues facing the east side but perhaps we should isolate this area and fully concentrate efforts toward improving fish stocks/habitat. Areas west of Cocodrie were not adversely effected by BP spill. With that the central and west side should be monitored to compare population densities along with fishing success rates.
Even with high river stages this past spring, the central areas had good to great fishing...from my experiences. Going half cocked to cut down on creel limits in un-effected areas is poor management, but easy to implement, imo.

I think the long term interests of the fishery are best served by pressing LDWF to document the science and explain their data and reasoning behind any limit changes. A long term limit change would be a bad response to a short term circumstance. Even if one has full confidence in the current LDWF biologists, I still think the public good is best served by close examination of the science to verify that the decisions are well considered and data driven. After all, the next group of biologists may not be as trustworthy as the current group. What if the NOAA/Vision 2020 types end up employed as future LDWF biologists? It would be better to have a pattern established of being open with the data and scientific reasoning. There needs to be accountability both to the general public and to independent scientific analysis of the data and decision making process.

Do you have a source or link to back what your saying about the oil amount picked up because I call 100% bull **** 700-900lbs everyday

And how do you know the fish population is half of what it was from 2005 when a lot of guides are posting record years from these areas

Here's where I become skeptical MathGeek. There are tons of scientific studies that have been conducted by independent as well as LWF biologists concerning the BP spill. Most, if not all studies are not public! Most all have a gag order because of litigations on-going with BP. We, as citizens, are again in the dark as to exactly what did all that oil and dispersant's do to our fish stocks and environment in the affected areas.

The studies are not going to come out until the litigation is all over. There are however plenty of studies on Corexit and its toxicity in the environment dating back to the 1970s. You can go to google scholar scholar.google.com and type in Corexit and you will get many hits.

Am I missing something? The oil spill happened in 2010, so why are you comparing menhaden numbers from 2005?

Could this also be from the big purse seiners out of Empire that supply the pogie plant?

Same could be said about the amount of mullet around Grand Isle/Elmers Island. I remember as a kid fishing the surf that there would me mullet rafts as far as you could see in any direction. You don't see that anymore either. Could this be due to the net fishermen that catch them for their eggs? I'm not sure, but it's another plausible possibility.

And they still picking up 700-900 lbs of oil everyday..
http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-conte.../cosby_omg.gif

There are several different Corexit formula's.
The oil spill did kill off fish, but the Menhaden numbers have been going down hill long before the spill.
I have a brother in law who is a captain on a pogy boat. His pay has been dwindling over the past 20 years. Less catch, less pay.
There have not been much difference in catch numbers since the spill, but he fishes out of Cameron.

All netting and fishing was shut down towards the East. I agree that there is a lot of tar in Eastern GOM, but not as much inshore. Most is still in deepwater.

Interview from last week directly from oil spill cleanup workers. Have a good day.
http://www.theamericanzombie.com/201...bayou.html?m=1

OMG LMAO x1000

America Zombie ??? C' Mon man ... Come with a creditable source ? I'm mean I have been in the oil field 13 years and I get emails from about 12 sources of Gulf News ,and no search proves this!

You post. A zombie link and in the comments people talking about emails getting hacked and virus LMAo

Man get me some real news

Watch the interview with the head of the Wisner property who tells them how much oil they are retrieving. Guess you didn't watch the video interview.

I watch video of people who saw big foot also !!

America Zombie ..


Stop Reading

Video says 100-200 pounds a day and most of the bags they had were mostly sand. Most of us realize it is a big coverup and the media makes it sound like the oil is gone. Imagine the amount of oil sitting on the bottom of the gulf.

IMHO, The media loves our president and with his liberal agenda pushing "green" energy, the media would be reporting everything they could find to hurt the oil industry.

X10000000000

America Zombie media

Watch that documentary on the oil spill I posted very interesting....shows how corrupt our government is and how they used media to cover it up. Crazy stuff!

I don't believe the media covered up anything . They are there to make ot look like the worst event ever!!!

The thing that shocked me is how they test the fish crabs and shrimp.....a smell test,if it does not smell like oil its good to go.

The menhaden are scarce on the East Coast also. There is a big push to shut pogy fishing down over there, and there was no oil spill over there.
Their Oyster fishing is going South also.