I don't have it either... I'm still alive too, unreal

I get that. There's lots of venues that I avoid: twitter, instagram, etc. I didn't even have a cell phone until 2009 when I went to work for the Air Force. I also try and keep text messaging to a minimum.

I've found Facebook fairly useful for keeping lots of friends and family informed and updated on what's going on without a lot of repetitive stuff. I also like Facebook as an electronic platform for our children to stay connected with friends and family without some of the darker side of how teens use electronics today. It's not foolproof, but it is easier to for parents to monitor than many other options.

I hear ya, I spend enough time on FishBook - don't need to diversify yet!

My motto is if they need to be in the loop, they stay informed through my texts.

My wife had it for a while, but I got pretty upset at the insight into my life that people I chose not to stay in touch with had. I was at best buy one day and had someone I hadn't seen in years tell me how good the leveling kit and tires looked that I had just installed. I said "Say whaaaaaaaaaaaat???". She doesn't have Facebook now, and we spend more time together :)

Boycott the S.T.A.R.: Redfish starving in Big Lake
 

Red Drum Are Starving in Calcasieu Lake, Especially Bull Reds

As it happens, my colleagues and I have weighed and measured many hundreds of fish caught in Calcasieu Lake in 2011, 2012, and 2013. This large data set allows assessment of fish health by quantifying the ratio of a fish's actual weight to its expected weight based on its species, length, and time of year. This ratio is called the relative condition factor, Kn. A Kn = 1.0 is a healthy fish whose weight is the same as the typical weight of that species and season based on a large statewide data set of thousands of fish. Relative condition factors less than 1.0 are fish that are overly thin, often because of insufficient forage. Kn = 0.9 would be 90% of the expected weight (a fish that should weigh 3.0 lbs only weighs 2.7 lbs).

The attached graph shows mean condition factors for red drum from Calcasieu Lake by length class and year. You can see that most length classes and years are thin, showing an insufficient food supply for the population of fish, and that the larger red drum are having a particularly hard time maintaining body condition. As condition factors drop from 1.0 to 0.8, both fecundity rates and survival rates decrease dramatically. (Being 10-20% underweight significantly decreases the number of eggs and also puts energy reserves dangerously low.) Keep in mind that the graphs show the mean values. About half the fish in any group are thinner than the mean, and these fish are strongly at risk.

It takes some work and careful interpretation to discern from the data whether the most likely cause of the poor condition is the destruction of oyster reefs, the management of the weirs, saltwater intrusion, change in speck limit, erosion, or some other factor. Analysis of similar data for four species (red drum, black drum, gafftops, and specks), combined with the healthy relative condition factors observed by the USGS before 2005 and data from other locations suggests that oyster reef destruction is likely the strongest contributor to decline of body condition in redfish.

very well put together. seems we have all the evidence needed

im sure that based on this evidrence the black drum are also in the same situation since they are so very closely related

Now that is scary numbers. Something needs to happen and quick.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

Excellent insight. We'll post on black drum in a few days.

I applaud your research here . . . but it is only correlational in inference . . . no cause and effect.
And I am not criticizing here - because you did something that the purpose of correlational research suggests. And that is to point out factors which may associated with the health of the species you studied.
But....oyster reefs in themselves provide habitat for trout forage species. The habitat issue...the marsh loss on the southeastern section of the lake that is noted may also contribute to the lack of forage species entering the lake as well as the numbers of the species themselves - such as speckled trout and redfish. This would be certainly a competing hypothesis. But . . .I certainly still will not in any way Boycott the STAR. Maybe it's my age, but I remember the effects of nets for both speckled trout and the lack of redfish in the not-too-distant past. Back then , recreational fishing for speckled trout in terms of numbers was even much poorer than the recent two years. We would not be having this discussion if the politics of anti-netting had not resulted in the favor of recreational anglers. But again, I like what you have found . . . but there may be more competing hypotheses for this cause than you suggest. E-mail me and I'll be happy to discuss this. A look at the most recent marsh loss statistics in area demonstrate alarm especially for speckled trout unless you believe in the tide-runner theory.

people have been calling to boycott the STAR because CCA has done nothing since its gill net victory but restrict fishermens rights to catch and keep fish as we have always done and they have been doing this more and more lately by ignoring the scientific evidence saying not only there was no reason to do it but that it would cause overpopulations and issues related to that such as not enough food supply for healthy fish resource management.

even though all sane people were and still are in favor of the gill net ban, if you stop and think about it, really think about it, the gill net ban was another restriction of the rights of fishermen.

in truth they haven't changed in that they always work against the benefit to fishermen, its just we were in agreement with them for one issue that gill nets had to go and since then we are realizing that they are NOT on the side of recreational fishermen.

they never were on our side they just happened to champion a cause that everyone supported weather you were on the side working for fishermens rights or against them.

We've given a lot of consideration to competing hypotheses, and there are most likely many contributing environmental factors to the decline of fish condition.

The loss of marsh is certainly important. However, if the marsh loss were the dominant factor, then one would expect that the fish most strongly dependent on the marsh (speckled trout and shorter length classes of redfish) would be most strongly impacted. We find the opposite. The most strongly impacted fish are the more benthic species and the fish most strongly associated with oyster reef habitat: black drum, gafftop catfish, bull redfish. The shortest length classes of redfish and specks are the least impacted. We expect to post additional data in coming days as the discussion develops. The most convincing evidence of the role of oyster reefs will be if the fish condition rebounds with the oyster stocks.

USGS data showed that prior to 2005, fish condition in Big Lake was above the long term statewide average with mean Kn 1.03 +/- 0.02. The main reason to boycott the S.T.A.R. is because CCA has been pushing fishing restrictions since 2000 when they should have been more focused on habitat issues (oyster reefs, weir management, saltwater intrusion, marsh loss, erosion, etc.)

I see you are making your rounds.

If my memory serves me correctly . . . the purpose of the lower creel limit as well as the two fish over restriction on Big Lake and Sabine (as well as areas nearby) was never a "scientific" endeavor although the many pictures of huge stringers strapped over wade-anglers backs supported some concern over numbers. The restrictions were proposed at the time to support a "trophy trout lake" in Big Lake just like we had trophy and quality bass lakes. Whether or not the average size in trout samples have increased is still questionable . . . or I haven't seen any data on this as yet.

The trophy trout aspirations missed the scientific need to feed trout sufficiently to support fast growth rates. Specks are not long lived, and if they are not fed very well and growing very fast, you don't get good numbers of big trout. Tournament results are more anecdotal than scientific, but since 2005, most tournaments have been won with smaller trout than previously. Our data also shows that the longer trout in recent years have been thinner which suggest slower growth rates and lower egg production.

This dynamic is well known in the bass world where one needs to control the bass population relative to the food supply to produce good numbers of trophy bass. Recent efforts in the basin failed to produce a trophy bass fishery because the bass were not growing fast enough or living long enough. Producing trophy fish in good numbers requires much more than tighter harvest restrictions, and in these two cases, tighter harvest restrictions actually had a negative impact.

See the LDWF report on Basin Bass here:

http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/sites/d...1o-01-2012.pdf

It would be nice to see that kind of science BEFORE more restrictive limits are implemented to determine the likelihood of delivering on the promise.

MathGeek, you must admit though that this type of data did not exist before the 15- trout and associated length restrictions were put in place. In fact, we did not have any scientific results on the bass data from quality and trophy lakes that were published that I know of back then as well.
As for trout, the "gamefish" status was purely a political designation as I hope you are aware of. Biologists' data shows the population pie...and politics decides who gets the percentage of cut - commercial or recreational sectors.
I understand your exasperation with CCA as written, but other psychological data such as "Approach/Avoidance" would seem to give evidence for more political action on the part of a stronger push within CCA ranks to take a deeper look at these issues before action is called. Pushing a boycott of STAR would definitely usher an Avoidance response from both Administrative- and most of the membership ranks- of CCA.

The S.T.A.R. Boycott is about taking money out of the hands of parties who have proven to be ineffective and unproductive because they consistently push for harvest restrictions rather than habitat protection. Unless CCA feels it in the pocket book, I would not expect them to change their modus operandi.

Wasn't it the GCCA that got the commercial netting Stopped?

they dropped the G after that, for the most part its the same organization

Eman is correct
 

CCA has never had a gill net victory as mentioned above. When the gill net ban was pushed, accepted and passed as law in Louisiana, it was done so by GCCA. That group was completely in tune to recreational fishermen and ran by ALL volunteers.

NO WHERE near the same organisation . Gcca was a bunch of fishermen and guides and volunteers who got together and worked to get the job done.