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.