Big Lake Oyster assessment

[Ray]

The LDWF assessment for Big Lake is done by randomly throwing a 3' by 3' square frame on a known oyster reef in the month of July. There are samples in this area taken by SCUBA diver at each station for each portion of the lake. They remove all of the dead and live oysters adn shells on top of the sub base. The live and recently dead oysters are measured and divided ito 3 categories. Spat <25 mm, seed oysters 25mm to 74mm and sack oysters > 74mm(3 inches). Oyster predators such as hooked mussels are collected, identified and tallied also.

Growing area 29, East side of Big Lake, south of Long Point indicates 94.3% decrease in sack oysters from the 2009 assessment. Seed oysters showed a 93.3% decrease.
Growing area 30, West Cove, showed an increase of 229.5% from the 2009 assessment of sack oysters and a 387.8% increase in seed oysters. Guess where the oyster fishermen are gonna be this year???

The 14 acre Oyster cultch plant by Mark Thompsons camp North of Cameron indicates presents of spat and seed oysters, but no sack oysters. Mortality on the cultch plant was 4% over the last year.

Overall Oyster assessment is up 7% from the 2005-2009 average, but is offset by the decrease on the East side. The LDWF is concerned by the sharp decrease on the East side. The oysters on the reefs are healthy, but the amount has declined dramatically. There is an increase in harvest vessels from 38 boats in 2006 to 149 boats in 2009. Those are average numbers. The highest number of boats in Big Lake was Jan. 2010 at 190 registered harvest vessels dragging dredges in Big Lake. That is way too many for our lake.

In 2008 season, there were about 64,000 sacks landed and in the 2009 season, there was about 137,000 sacks landed. Double the oysters. This, in my opinion, is gonna hurt our fishing also.

Hooked mussels were much lower this year than last year. East side had no Hooked Mussels in the samples. West Cove had a lot of them. One station had 168 Hooked Mussels in a sample area for the West Cove and another sample area had 346 Hooked Mussels. There were 13 Southern Oyster Drill Snails. This is a very high sample number for this area. Very few have ever been found in Big Lake samples.

Oyster harvesting pressure is starting to become more of a concern for the East side.

For the past 3 seasons the LDWF has urged the Oyster fishermen to utilize the West Cove, but they don't listen becuase the West Cove Oysters are less desireable for the market. They are calling them Lizard Tongues. Long and skinny. Not many buyers want them.

The price per sack and the lower manpower needed due to dredges, had a lot more boats fishing than the past years.

Commercial Oyster fishing was closed in Big Lake from 1967 to 1975 due to over harvesting by dredge. It took way too long to recover because Big Lake Oysters reefs are natural, not seeded like the East side of the state. From 1975 till 2004, it was hand tongs only, no dredges. Once the Oysters bounced back to a good number, they opened dredging again, except with dredges 3 ft or smaller and hand dredges only, no mechanical dredges.

They also close the East side when the water levels in Kinder reach 12 ft. and close the West Cove side when it gets to 7 ft. Once the levels fall below these numbers for 48 hours, they will reopen the waters for Oyster harvesting. This is for health reasons.


Looks like with the low numbers on the East side, the West Cove will be over fished this year. I will be fishing a lot more on the East side, where there will be less Oyster boats dragging.