what y'all make of this?
 

The article is a year old, but I just found it.http://www.nola.com/outdoors/index.s..._overfish.html

I would like to see 10-20 year info on number of guides from dulac/dularge and over to the east, and number of chartered trips.

They call out increased technology for over fishing and making it easier to target fish, and link that to more difficult limits. Then post info that clearly shows most average folks don't catch limits. Did new technology enable us recreational anglers to "smash them" for a brief period of time?

The reason I would like to see guide numbers and tourism/charter numbers is because it would be nice to see how much additional fishing pressure has actually come from how heavily we have marketed the state as a destination to "rape" some fish.

Not knocking guides, but the overall harvest has had to increase in the last 10-20 years.

Bass fishermen have for years embraced a catch and release mentality that has had a tremendous positive impact on their fisheries. In fact, now you are looked down on if you show up at a freshwater boat launch with an ice chest full of large mouths. You might even get run off! I by no means like the goverenment telling me what I can and cant do, but if you run your fisheries into the ground you open the door for the Feds to come in and take control. Why do we saltwater fishermen have such a huge problem embracing a similar culture. I know trout are better eating than bass, they spawn different, and so on but it seems like the Bass guys figured out a LONG time ago that if you keep to many today there wont be any to catch tomorrow......pretty common sense if you ask me.

P.S. plenty of freshwater and also tarpon, bonefish, and permit guides make a great living practicing catch and release.

All the data I've seen suggests that current harvest levels are sustainable.

The 2011 data was influenced by a couple of significant non-harvest factors: The 2010 oil spill and hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Assuming that all fluctuations in the population structure are due to harvest pressure is bad science. Speckled trout are extremely prolific spawners and recruitment rates in Louisiana are very high due to the quantity and quality of spawning habitat.

Reducing the limit from 25 to 15 in Big Lake in 2005 has proven to be a mistake. Reducing the limit elsewhere in the state (based on current data) would also be a mistake.

I hope LDWF actually provides the data in future assessments of speckled trout stocks rather than saying "trust our conclusions" while wanting us to accept CCA-backed policy changes.

"Generally speaking, you'll see fewer big fish at first," he said. "It takes four years to grow a big (speckled trout). If we're cropping more fish at a smaller size, then obviously fewer of them will have the chance to get big."

This is the biggest lie in wildlife management today. Fast growth rates are more essential to producing big speckled trout than protecting younger fish. In most Gulf coast estuaries, plenty of speckled trout survive to 4, 5, and 6 years of age. FL and TX produce more fish over 10 lbs, not because of higher survival rates to the older ages, but because of higher growth rates in the estuaries that produce a lot of trophy trout.

If you want more trophy trout, it is more essential to protect their forage base.

I bet this one voted for Obama, green energy, and thinks his car will run on iced tea.

Feel free to release your fish if you want. I'll eat most of the ones I catch tho. I am not interested in buying my fish from h.e.b. just like I don't buy meat from them. My family takes great pride and expense in the fact that ALL our red meat , pork, fish, and most of our shell fish are personally harvested, butchered and cooked by us. That is a hunting and fishing heritage and lifestyle that my grandfather instilled in me as a young man. And one that was instilled in him by his father and so on. It is my responsibility to pass these values and and heritage on to my children. Yet this lifestyle is now considered "greedy" or labeled as a "game hog" or "resource raper". I will not condone this attitude. Why make me and my family feel guilty for harvesting what we will consume. Don't get me wrong.. it's not about "feeding my family" we spend far more money in our hunting and fishing pursuits than we would spend at a grocery store for the same amount of fish and meat. But that's not the point...this is our heritage. And when these limits on legal harvest keep decreasing it makes pursuing that lifestyle much less rewarding and will no doubt deter future generations from keeping those traditions alive. It's like I posted earlier about the snapper....lower the limit enough and most people won't be interested in spending the time or money to catch them. Now there is an overabundance of snapper that far less people than before are interested in pursuing and that overabundance is hurting other marine species(grey triggerfish by eating the eggs) You'd think we would have learned by the failure of that model. But the CCA continues to support lower and lower bag limits....Have you heard that the trout limit just dropped to 5 from Freeport to Brownsville? I see you are a fellow Texan...

Well said Mr. Crab. I second the motion.

This article is old first off but MG this is getting real old and I can't bite my tongue much longer. You never had a shred of credibility in my mind but I think u just lost a little more.:shaking:Jerald Horst has forgotten more than most of us will ever know about fish, he has written numerous textbooks and other field guides for fishes. This is what he did and still does for a living. I think most people would take the word of a leading
fisheries biologist on any subject regarding fish populations over a physicist pretending to be one. It would behoove you to read a book on principles of ecology (not Wikipedia). Wildlife and fisheries and the mgmt of them is far from an exact science and it's often not just one thing that is the causal agent but a multitude of factors working together. So the use of the word 'proof' or 'proven' or any phrase containing those words are rarely used when dealing with wild animals (although you have used those words repeatedly in your rants). This isn't an exact science like physics.

"This is the biggest lie in wildlife management today". Lord have mercy :*****:

A physicist with all the answers to our fisheries issues. Knows more than the people who wrote the textbooks on the subject haha

I believe they are realizing that the catch n release of all bass is a mistake as seen with several lakes no longer producing quality fish sec to being overpopulated by lil dinks.

Correct, the original purpose of slot limits was to allow people to take fish from the population and leave some as well. It all went south when folks were not keeping anything at all.
You have to remove fish from the population or else they font work Happens in private ponds often , the owner doesn't want to remove any fish and like u say before long the entire pond us overran with dinks

I've never claimed to have all the answers, but my biggest strength as a scientist has always been counting data as more important than expert opinions.

My claims in the above post are well supported by the data in Stephen Bortone's book, "Biology of the Spotted Seatrout." I have access to many books and publications in fisheries biology, and I've spent an average of 10-20 hours per week over the past several years reading the literature on fisheries science.

My PhD is in fact in Physics, but my first laboratory job was in fisheries science at the LSU aquaculture facility under Dr. Dudley Culley. Scientists with PhDs in the physical sciences have a long history of making important contributions in biology. Perhaps you have heard of Francis Crick and Louis Pasteur?

I can't claim any discoveries rivaling theirs, but I have managed meaningful contributions to over a dozen scholarly papers in fisheries over the past few years. All of our papers have been well-received and the most severe criticism has been from other authors who we have embarrassed by pointing out their published math errors. We commonly receive positive feedback from numerous, well-recognized names in fisheries science for our published contributions. One state DNR in the mid-west recently wrote to us because they are applying a new analysis technique we developed to assist them with addressing a challenging management problem.

Please, if you take issue with my claims on spotted seatrout, try and support your position with data rather than just claiming your expert is smarter than me. Perhaps he is smarter, but unless he can cite data to support his position, he might still be wrong.

That's how science works. Science favors the position supported with data, not the "smartest" expert.

Our saltwater estuaries are open to the gulf of mexico. Catching limits and keeping them isn't going to run down populations. Many other factors will kill our fish populations before over fishing will.

Tarpon, permit, and bonefish do not compare to trout, redfish, and flounder.

I tell you what........

I pursue trophy fish in both fresh and saltwater - so maybe I can bring some street cred to this conversation. Now I don't have a degree in fish management, but I can say the trophy fish just aren't what they use to be.........both Salt and Fresh.........in Lousiana and Texas. I blame Obama, the umbrella rig, myself, the new trout limits and these new fish finders.

And for this guy....... I fish trophies numero uno and I fish for food numero dos. So you (Mr. Office fisherman) can eat a topwater with your new limit proposal.

Been windy lately.......but here are few trophies for 2014.

Three of Louisiana's all time top ten speckled trout were caught in Big Lake between 1997 and 2004 (before the limit change from 15 to 25).

The limit change was based on the idea that preserving more younger trout would lead to more trout reaching older ages thus producing more trophy trout.

It did not work. Big Lake has not had a single additional entry into Louisiana's top ten specks since the limit change in 2005. Most tournaments and guides also report fewer trophy trout since 2005.

Having good numbers of 4, 5, and 6 year old specks is no guarantee of a trophy fishery. Those fish need to be growing fast enough to reach 22" total length by age 4. This will put them into a length class big enough to eat dinks to both control the population of younger fish (so younger fish grow fast) and to maintain high growth rates over their 5th and 6th winters when smaller forage becomes less abundant.

Fact is there were no trout caught in the last nine years from any where in the State that made the top 10. This is not just a BL problem.

exactly and if you reduce limits you will have even less big fish because there wont be enough food for them to grow big.

instead of talking limits they should be talking increasing food stocks and creating more food supply.

this old article has been regurgitated every few years by those who want to limit everyone to 5 or 10 specks to be the same as other states for no reason at all just because it makes em feel good to "help the environment".

even bob marshal was spewing this load of manure in the paper and online justifying it solely on the basis that nobody is taking pictures with really big trout anymore. what a load of hooey.

science says if we take more fish out of the water then the ones left will get bigger because they will have an abundant food supply for them to grow. but NOBODY will promote increasing limits but everyone always wants to reduce limits no matter if it helps or not.

DO WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS YOU NEED TO DO - that's all that is needed

Louisiana’s Top 10 Speckled Trout
Weight Angler Location Date
1. 12.38 Leon Mattes Lake Hermitage May, 1950
2. 11.99 Kenneth Kreeger Lake Pontchartrain Jan. 1999
3. 11.24 Jason Troullier Rigolets (Lake Borgne) Sept., 1999
4. 11.16 Timothy Mahoney, II Calcasieu Lake May, 2002
5. 10.81 Kevin Galley Calcasieu Lake May, 1997
6. 10.75 Randolph D. Green Sandy Point Aug. 1970
7. 10.70 Barry Terrell Calcasieu Lake May, 2004
8. 10.65 Jason Ellender Sabine Lake March, 2013
9. 10.63 John Kaparis Unknown May, 1979
10. 10.50 Dudley Vandenborre, Jr. Lake Pontchartrain April, 2002
10. 10.50 Ed Sexton Venice April, 2000

Perhaps CCA could fund some of those automatic feeders and place them out all over the lake or maybe me of the CCA bigwigs knows one of the owners of L'auberge and can convince him to get the cook staff to throw out the leftovers from the buffet into the lake:grinpimp:

Doesn't count,
there aren't any wiers on sabine:rotfl:

Mr Crab...the irony of your arguement is that if you want your heritage to continue you better start conserving the resource! Or your grandkids or great grandkids wont know it bc the feds will control it and restrict it. Learn Self preservation or the government will do it for you. Im all for leberal limits and i dont buy any of my fish from HEB either....

Oh yea and all you CCA haters out there...if it wasnt for CCA you wouldnt have a fishery left bc the commercial sector would control it....smells like a bunch of hypocrites in here...

:)


You just shook the hornets nest, should be worth 10 more pages:rotfl:

See y'all next week

why the hell yall out in this pain in the neck sun, when you could be fishing on this here nintendos. ya caint eat em but they sure is pretty. and they give u points too son. HOW MANY POINTS YOU GOT MR HCHOL??? HENRYBOY??????

Not a hater here. GCCA did some good things in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the last decade, the organization has taken a turn for the worse and focused too much on angling restrictions, higher license fees, and contests to bring boatloads of cash back to TX for real conservation and restoration projects.

Calling that out is not hating or hypocrisy, just hoping to inform the public.

By your logic, one must hate blacks if one wants to cut welfare.

Is that a coherent sentence?

You just completely discredited yourself with that last comment...

I am no biologist by a long shot. I grew up shrimping and fishing in the marsh longer than i can remember. imo it soon won't be about limits up or down or big fish to worry bout being caught. There won't be any marsh left to support fish. As the marsh erodes away there is less place for the fish and shrimp forage to grow so you will have less and smaller fish. I don't think it takes a biologist to figure that out. It was said by mr. horst years ago that as our marsh begins to erode we will have a fish bonanza , then you will see it decline within a few years because it won't be able to support itself no more. Looks to me he knew what he was talking about. I think if all this fuss was put into fighting coastal erosion we may buy a few more years for what we have. You can increase or decrease limits all you want but at the rate we are losing marsh your kids or grandkids aren't going to have nothing anyway. rite or wrong just my opinion.......

You concluded that we hate CCA because we want to stop giving them money. Where is the logical flaw?

I Couldnt agree with you more!

How much has the east bank of Sabine eroded in the last 20 years?

This was my last conservation trip..........a few shy of a limit, but not a bad day.

Already happening. Look at what CCA did to trout limits and tripletail limits, and that was without and evidence to support these decisions. We don't need the feds to regulate anything, another 10 years with CCA getting what they want we won't be able to keep anything.

MG you think all welfare goes to blacks?

HCHOL

Name 1just 1 thing the CCA has done to improve fishing in Big Lake as per there mission statement

I got rest of day

There certainly is a good chance it could work out this way. I'm optimistic that fairly good fisheries can be preserved over the next 100 years as the marshes turn into open lakes and bays by:

1. Minimizing future loss of marshes and preserving marsh that used to be more brackish or even freshwater swamp.
2. Restoring, establishing, and preserving oyster reefs in the bays to provide valuable ecosystem services.
3. Managing salinity in the lakes and bays by controlling salinity flowing in from the Gulf and freshwater flows from rivers and freshwater swamps.

The big picture is to be more intentional about what levels of salinity are maintained in which regions. The "saltwater" line may end up further north than it is now and there may be some trade-offs between crawfish/bass/crappie habitat and crab/redfish/speck habitat.

Hear! Hear!!

Get em Dubya!!

Pulled the gill nets out of the water, that's a tough one "W"

I consider this a Texas fish brought in a La. landing. Thanks for pointing this out.

CCA did not do that either it was the GCCA which was whole different organization ran by real fisherman, not business men in suits and ties who fish 9 X's a year at best

dont talk down to me you hillbilly

Keep you from keeping 25 fish a day!!

BOOM!!!!!!!

You sure do talk a lot of trash about these "office fishermen" although they are the ones that provide your income.

Hey W...you'd be broke if it wasn't for those office fisherman!!!!!!

So are Schol and Hchol brothers or boyfriends??

That is the question??

I think I have figured all this out:

its called the Coastal Conservation Association and not Defender of Fishermens Rights Association or Science Based Wildlife Management Association so there it is, its all in the name.

lets stop bashing CCA for inaction on our important issues because they are a Conservation based organization only and that's why they care little about fishermens rights or science based species management, they are only concerned with things that are conservation based and habitat creation.

so there you have it, they only get involved to restrict fishing and hunting rights and work to build reefs and plant things to create new habitat and that's ALL they care about.

hey, I don't see them as bad at all, they do a good job doing what they do but what they do will NEVER be the things we care about. you don't ask a carpenter to fix your car so don't ask a conservation group to do anything but work to restrict fishing rights and build habitat.

there needs to be an effort to work to enlarge and generate more support and fund raising for any organization that is about fishermens rights and science based management ONLY.

leave the grass planting and reef building to CCA because that's what they do and they do it well.

Game changer on Sabine after nets where gone.

Sent from my C771 using Tapatalk 2

No one doubts that GCCA contributed to the gill net ban and reducing commercial pressure on redfish in the 80s and 90s. In 1997 there were some changes to the organization, and it emerged as CCA.

After that time, CCA has taken a number of odd positions for a group purportedly committed to scientific management positions. Most of their work in LA has been focused in increasing restrictive regulations, raising fees, and bringing boatloads of cash back to TX for expensive restoration projects:

http://www.ccatexas.org/wp-content/u...Funds-2013.pdf

http://www.ccatexas.org/wp-content/u...Scientists.pdf

http://www.ccatexas.org/conservation/research/

I think W would still be a successful guide had CCA never existed. Eventually redfish would have been protected and gillnets would have been banned. Redfish and speck populations are extremely resilient, especially in Louisiana, and the populations would have bounced back by the time W became a guide.

Unlike resilient redfish and speck populations, habitat does not bounce back. Once it's gone, restoration is painstakingly expensive and slow.

And how did that improve our fishing?

BOOM

Try again Troll

We can't afford anymore conversion to open water. Why do you think the Cameron-Creole and the weirs are such a point of contention? They didn't put those there for ducks or for fish. They put those there for the Marsh. If we lose too much more Marsh in Cameron parish, it will compromise all the infrastructure to the North. All that Marsh is important flood control. Without it, a major hurricane like Rita or Katrina would be devastating.

I hope they don't move the saltwater line further north. We've already lost many acres of valuable fresh water habitat.

I have been saying this for months on here, but no one believes it.