Report Available Relating Fish Condition and Primary Production to Calcasieu Oysters

[Smalls]

Originally Posted by Marque

The guy I talked to was at the launch at Prien Park on a day that no one in their right mind should have been fishing. It was 3 or so in the afternoon and I was the first person he questioned all day.I had only run up to the park to pick up a pack of cigarettes from the store across the street on my way to the casino. We had caught like 2 trout in turners that morning so he did his survey and thats when he told me about their study. He told me that the net in Prien had far more trout than any other one he checked for the last couple of weeks. Which surprised the hell out of me. the water temp was in the mid 50's and the river was at flood stage and fresh as hell. We ended up picking up a few off the ship channel after we left but I would have never thought to fish there on that day in those conditions. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I think it would be great to have that kinda timely info available. Especially in a year like last year where the long cold winter screwed up the normal pattern.

That's probably a good reason why that information is not timely. They are collecting data for a purpose, and that purposely surely isn't to tell people where the fish are at the current time.

[Marque]

Guess I just have to find a biologist who hadn't talked to another person for 8 hours and chat him up.

[Gottogo49]

Originally Posted by Marque

Math geek, I talked to a biologist doing a creel survey the other day that told me that LDWF has 7 gill nets placed through the estuary and that 5 of them are checked randomly each week. They fish retrieved are autopsied and documented. I had no idea they did that and didn't know if that buy was pulling my leg. Seems like a report generated from that kinda research would be a pretty useful to a lot of us. Was this guy messing with me? If not, is that something they publish or is it confidential?

Yes they really do run gill nets in the area. I have seen them running them several times. In general they make a set and run the boat around to scare the fish into the net. I have not seen them leave out the nets. They also drag seines to sample baitfish, shrimp and crabs. It is hard to get a hold of the data they collect. During their creel surveys, they sometimes remove the otoliths from trout and redfish. The survey guys/gals in the white trucks are not enforcement officers (black trucks), they are friendly, interesting folks if you have time to talk to them.

[Smalls]

An old college buddy of mine works in fisheries over there. There's some good people there.