[YellaBlazer]

Posted this to FB earlier. Seems fitting to post here as well.

(I’m using speckled trout as an example here. This same general principle goes for any fish. Kinda hoping MathGeek reads this and chimes in.)

Why do speckled trout eat?


They eat because their bodies require energy to do 3 things: Survive, Grow and Reproduce.


Each of these stages in a young trout’s life is based on the preceding factor. It cannot grow without first meeting its basic needs for survival. Likewise, it cannot reproduce efficiently without first having an adult body.


When food is plentiful and conditions are right, the survival stage is met rather easily. The trout in this set of conditions grow rapidly, and, once they reach adulthood, reproduce often. This set of conditions has a high carrying capacity.


On the other hand, when food is scarce or conditions make survival difficult, less energy is spent on grown in order to ensure the young trout’s survival. This results in trout that are smaller when compared to other fish in more ideal conditions. This condition set has a lower carrying capacity.


And now to the point…


It’s been a tough spring for us in Barataria Bay, that’s a given. The amount of “keeper” trout is down from previous years. It has some people panicking and wanting reduced limits. To say the sky is falling and the estuary is crashing is foolhardy. What we have is a problem in meeting the trout’s first and most important life factor, Survival.


To prove this theory, all you have to do is go out into the bay and fish for a while. You will be bombarded by 10”-11” fish. These are our “keeper” fish under normal conditions from previous years. The absolute brutal winter we’ve just been through made surviving difficult. It’s tough to hunt down, catch and digest food when your metabolism is in slow motion. A slow metabolism equates to less energy transfer and less energy means less growth. This is a basic principle to all life as we know it.


The silver lining to all of this is that conditions have become more favorable in the last few months. These 10”-11” trout are eating vigorously, because the amount of food available to them now is easily meeting their first stage of Survival.


What this equates to is all these undersized fish are growing, and growing fast. And, there’s a ton of them out there… We haven’t been keeping any of them because they don’t meet the minimum length requirement.


So what does this mean for the fishermen across the state? Once the cool fronts start coming down in October/November, be ready. The fall trout migration this year will have the potential to be awe-inspiring.