Cull the oyster fishermen
 

more oyster boats than ever on big lake this year. ultimate destruction of reefs in west cove lately.

lets start a grassroots effort to fix this issue!

They in all your holes or do you honestly think that it is causing irreversible habitat destruction?

3 boats is enough on big lake

I'm with ya.

Good ill send a email to baton rouge monday...

They hit the reefs on the East side a lot harder than in West Cove.
They only hit the reefs on the West side after the East area closed due to someone getting sick.
9 Mile Cut, Steam Engine, Washout and all the reefs North of the Old Jettys were pretty much wiped out. The bottom is still hard, but not as many oysters. Just a few that were culled and thrown back.
Towards the end of the season, they opened up the whole lake. We saw a bunch of them dredging all of the newer artificial reefs in the lake.
They didn't hit much of Turners cause it is full of clams.
I banged around the bottoms with a PVC pipe Thurs. night to see what it felt like at different places. Lots of hard bottom. Not much oysters.
They will fish themselves out of a job real soon. Allowing dredges in Big Lake and allowing an individual to have several boats is going to wipe them out.
If they go back to tonging and allow a license per individual instead of allowing a person to have a license for 5 boats, the oysters will outlast them.
Dredging makes it too easy to catch oysters.
Before dredging, it took them half a day to all day to catch 15 sacks.
Now they can do it in 3 hours and it is very easy with the dredge. Not as much work.

they are destroying reefs period, it is sickening. why should we spend all the money to put in artificial reefs as habitat but allow these guys to come in and dredge up the real reefs.

lots of tx oyster boats now also.


Jeremy see if you can find us some names and phone numbers, let's get our voices out there.

:spineyes::)

Ya they gave me the red a** yesterday in west cove. But I guess people gotta make money so cant be to mad at them. Does any one know when or if the season ends?

april 30 i think

it's not that i would be mad at the fishermen for "feeding a family"

Someone has to be responsible to make sure the lake habitat survives.

They are just getting payback from all the La. boats that invaded our bays and raped them few years ago.

Ya I am totally with you on that they need to maybe set areas off limits and even change the areas each year. I was out there thinking they are spending money to build these artifical reefs then giving the GPS corr out something just doesnt seem right about that.

hopedale ='s tons and tons of oyster boats it sucks seeing them wreck them reefs . im not against harvesting oysters but there needs to be limits on everything. what are the regulations concerning these oyster boats?

Big Lake is way too small for dredges.
We have natural reefs, not state funded and seeded oyster leases like in S.E. La.

Yea yea yea
 

Have fished big lake my whole life and never seen even 1/5 of the oyster boats I have seen this year.. THEY SHUT THEM DOWN IN SABINE, so we have now taken upon ALL THE OYSTER BOATS FROM TEXAS and it is a huge problem. I have seen 60 boats cover a reef several hundred yards long, and drag there chain's and baskets over them till all are gone.


15 sacks per person!!! I saw a boat Sat. who drove right to me on the South end. "Says heck I have no Idea where to find reef I just look for guys fishing, haha" He then says you IDIOTS over here do not care how many oysters we catch!!!!!!!!! I have caught my bag limit for my whole family every day this month!!

Basically the trout are trying to spawn now, but the reefs where they bed are being destroyed!! The short and long term ramifications of what
they have done this year are unreal!!!!!:work::work:




BIG BIG PROBLEM

When I get back from fishing I will send a Email to the CCA in Baton Rouge and the WL&F......Lets see if we can push this law!!!......... Cut them out to no dredging for oysters....

Please
 

I am on bored with this 100% !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!they shut them down in Texas--
Recreational fisherman bring revenue to that lake, not out of state oyster fisherman...

Don't worry about it.
If the trout numbers go down due them messing up the spawn
they will just put more rules and regs on the recreational fisherman.
Like we are the ones really hurting the fisheries:confused:

good info mike

i am hearing this from more than one person who knows the lake well, it isn't good.

Oyster Boats
 

The other night as I was sitting on my porch well after dark and I saw some activity down at the marina at Heberts, i jumped in my golf cart to see what was going on, there was a 30ft oyster boat that was laying on it's belly in the parking lot due to the trailer the boat was sitting on had cracked in half. 4 dudes were shoveling the most oysters I have ever seen out of the boat into waiting trucks. It made me sick seeing that at the time. I've been away from home the last few weeks with my job so i haven't been on the lake to see what has been going on. I agree we need to get something going on this issue.

this kind of thing is exactly why I'm studying natural resource conservation and management at McNeese..gonna go study fisheries as my masters..

They are doing what they are allowed to do by the LDWF.
Dredging should have never been allowed in Big Lake.
They wiped them out before with dredges. Just no one remembers it.
If they go back to tonging, it will cut the number of boats way down.
Make it easy to make $300/day and everyone will be buying a boat to oyster fish.

sent this info to Ryan at CCA in BR and Keith Richardson head of Acadiana Chapter CCA

ThEy were oystering on a donated reef today....

thank you

i am going to try to find the right LDWF contact to send our thoughts to.

Anyone got some picture of oyster boats?

Ok guys I called LDWF baton rouge this morning.

The Oyster Program Manager's contact info is:

Patrick Banks

pbanks@wlf.la.gov

(225) 765-2370

Yep on my phone....they had 4 boats raping chenier. South

They hit the donated reefs earlier this year.
They know where more reefs are than any fisherman on the lake.
I went to a very small reef yesterday, they had 3 boats on and around it.
It was smaller than my house...
I saw about 20 boats on the East side of the lake and about 40 boats in
West Cove. They were hitting every spot you could think of.

We really need to get something going on this. I had several reefs that i have fished for over twenty years that are now gone since dredging has been allowed in the lake. they are destoying bottom habitat at an alarming rate. Come on guys we limit the number of commercial shrimping licenses why cant we do something about the number of boats, or what oysterman can take. I understand everyone needs to make a living, but getting greedy with natural resources is not the way. We ALL need to contact our state and CCA officials and complain about this problem that WILL effect everyone............:pissed:

HH you are right on...this needs to be a joint effort on all fronts...

If they were too lazy to tong oysters, they shouldn't get a license to dredge oysters.
Also, limit the number of license's to one per person, not one per boat.
A person can, and some do, have 5 boats with a license for each boat.

Im on board. Hey bruce can ya email me that info. Im gettin on the horn today. Aint tearin up our fisheries. Them bastids

I don't know what to do but point me in a direction and ill help

They did the same thing to Lake Pontchartrain. As big as it is...they eventually picked every reef. The lake finally made it back but look how long and what a huge effort it took.

Lake P was a big clam lake too. But the clam dredges killed a lot of them.
I remember growing up, no one had limestone roads. All roads were clam shell.

well i never got a call back from that LDWF guy i listed above, on to the next one.

Never have I seen a spectacle like that on Big Lake!
 

About 3 weeks ago we were in West Cove. Got there just before sunrise and there were already about 20 boats dredging. All of a sudden within the first 15 minutes (as we just started fishing) there was a STAMPEDE of oyster boats that came in the Cove. Some even came within 50 yards of us after they saw us fishing in only one spot (they didn't seem to care we were there). I understand that people have to make a living but when you're trying to fish at 6 in the morning (conditions were perfect that morning) and all you can hear is loud music, people yelling and banging the aluminum hulls, and their engines while they dredge, thats just mind blowing. Never have I seen a spectacle like that on Big Lake! We litterally counted over 60 boats just within sight in West Cove alone that morning and I will swear to that number until the day I'm gone. We really need to take action so I will contact the oyster program manager as well to ask questions and complain. Someone let me know what else can be done so we can stop the destroying of our reefs and fisheries.

May I suggest something? The head of LWF is Robert Barham, I believe we will get farther by contacting his office than starting on the lowest rung of the ladder. I am trying to get an email address and phone # for Sec Barham right now and will post when I get it. Pictures will be very helpful in getting this phenomina stopped. The way I see it, this is no different than setting out 2 miles of gill webbing in the lake.

Speaking of "gill webbing".......why hasn't the CCA gotten involved in this matter....or, have they?

There was nothing wrong with tonging oysters. It kept the hard core oyster fishermen working.
Now it is so easy to make $300/day, everyone is buying a boat and making a dredge. But in a couple more years, when there are no more keeper oysters, some of them will cry and not understand why there are no more.
Some of the oyster fishermen can see what is going to happen soon. The ones with a brain can see the writing on the wall.
Like they say, education will never be as expensive as ignorance. They will wipe out the oysters, LDWF will make them go back to tonging them. 50% will quit oyster fishing cause tonging is too hard. When the oyster beds rebound, LDWF will let them dredge again. Turnaround in the LDWF is what's killing the oysters. It happened before, they stopped the dredging cause Big Lake was too small for dredging. New LDWF management steps in and sees all the oysters in Big Lake and lets them dredge again. Cycle of life.

CCA
 

I was wondering the same thing. Seems like a better fight for them than bowfishing reds.

:*****: True dat.

And this is probably the most brutally honest and depressing thing I've read all day.

CCA is too busy selling STAR tickets

first response back from LDWF:


Mr. White

I have been out of state this week and will return to the office on Monday. We will review your concerns and respond early next week. Thank you for contacting me.

Patrick

Patrick D. Banks
Biologist Program Manager
LDWF Marine Fisheries Division
225.765.2370

You should'a told him you were W. He would have gotten back to ya immediately. :confused:

Biggest problem on Big Lake imo; I can deal with other fisherman, but removing the habitat... no way.

pretty funny when you think of all the time and money spent on artificial reefs; when this year probably nixed more habitat than all the artificial reefs combined.

They cannot catch any more than they could with tongs. 15 sacks.
But making it easy with dredges, probably doubled the amount of fishermen.
Plus some of them are fishing more boats. The LDWF allows them to get 1
license per boat, not 1 license per person. So, 1 man can have 5 boats, with
a license for each boat.
With tonging oysters, by the time they caught their limits, they were too tired
to catch another.
Plus, they didn't hit the big reefs. It is a lot easier to catch oyster clumps instead
of tonging the big reefs. Scattered clumps were their targets.

bill
 

Anyone know if a bill has been introduced this session to address this?