re: proposed speck and redfish changes

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You said "no science". Doing just a quick search on my phone, I found this on red fish.

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20 plus years without a stock assessment on redfish - WOW.

simply look at the rise of:
Meteoric rise of shallow draft, surface drives and bow fishermen hammering previously virtually untouched places.

explosion in number of guides, increased recreation pressure(launch parking lots used to never be half full on weekdays)

combine that with the habitat degradation over a 20 year period and what that does to the biomass and of course pogey boats leaving other states and coming here.


would love to see data on the recreational catch from 2000 until today.

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would love to see data on the recreational catch from 2000 until today.

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This is where I have an issue as well. Recreational fisherman need to do a better job of reporting their catch, but the ldwf also has a duty in facilitating this. Do the guides have a system where their catches can be recorded?

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Idk where you go, but I bowfish pretty regularly and I rarely see more than q or 2 other boats a night.
This is Leeville and grand isle fwiw.

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Agreed, I make 8-10 trips a year in that area, almost always during what most would call the "busy" time of the year for GI and haven't seen another boat once this year. The hate that bowfishing gets on this board is comical, especially for recreational /noncharter guys. Much easier for the state to control us than the people lining their pockets.

I used to be heavily involved in all this and helped Mississippi set its original 14 inch size limit decades ago. It’s all really to do with SPR and hatchery locations. When we were doing Mississippi we carefully looked at Louisiana too. Basically Louisiana at that time had a multitude of trout hatchery locations while Mississippi had only one or two known areas so Mississippi is never going to have the numbers of fish like Louisiana. So Mississippi decided to go for bigger trout hopefully 11/2 to 2 pound average and a creel limit of 15, (which was like the average best day for typical trout fisherman or something.)

This was all best on evidence and best available science for a once in a lifetime basis.

This is from memory but what you really need to understand the SPR. This is the ratio of fish this size that get to spawn. If you are get to 100% it should be impossible for a species to be decimated by hook and line fishing as you are replacing the fish u catch with new fish.

For trout in Gulf Coast from memory:

12 inches 93-95 % SPR
13 inches 97-98% SPR
14 inches 100% SPR

You need 20% or better of your fisheries to reach spawning size for a fisheries to be considered sustainable

That said if you want a ton of big trout get rid of the damn pogy boats. Buy them out

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get rid of the damn pogy boats. Buy them out

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frick that. Just run them off.

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14 inches 100% SPR

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This is probably why Angelos Apeitos told me we should go to a 15” minimum. He said that would make a huge impact.
People who are afraid of increasing the minimum size don’t realize that your overall biomass would catch up in a year or two. They don’t realize those 11.9” trout everyone catches would grow to 14.9”s.

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You seem fairly knowledgeable on the subject, any idea why a limit on the upper end of the slot?

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All the stuff I’ve gathered is from Angelo’s Apeitos, Greg Stunz, and one conversation with Jerald Horst. I’ve talked Chris Bush a few times but he’s getting his info from those guys as well.

From what I understand, an upper slot on trout honestly doesn’t help much if certain spr numbers are your main goal. Angelos actually said he prefers to keep trout over 20”s because he believes the 14-18” are your most prolific breeders. The bigger trout do release more eggs but the smaller trout are likely to spawn more often (this is obviously a generalization but it’s more often correct than not).

That’s why I’m all over the place and probably seem like I contradict myself at times.
If I could make the rules I’d say everyone can keep 10 trout from 15”-20” but that’s because I genuinely don’t care about catching numbers anymore and I’m targeting “big” trout on 90% of my trouts. That’s my selfish take and I understand that biases me towards certain preferences.

The reason I got involved with the release over 20 stuff was because I wanted a chance at catching bigger fish in LA. Angelos said a 20” trout in LA is 1-3 years away from being 25” and I’d consider that big for the areas I fish.

What’s best for the fishery long term is probably something like the 15 fish with 15” minimum.

Having said all that I’m not really into government regulations so I’d be hypocritical if I really promoted regs in general. I don’t think the fishery should be based off of what I think. All the stuff I’m spewing isn’t out my arse but everyone should do their own research to come to their own conclusions.

I apologize if I’ve come across as snarky because you’ve been very reasonable during this whole discussion. There’s just a few points I think are worth pushing back on

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if we adopted those measures that it still wouldn’t yield the numbers of fish like Texas/Florida due to the difference in habitat/salinity level?

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Are you meaning for big trout or just in general?
I definitely think varying salinity levels might be the biggest contributing factor to the decrease in size. Big trout are generally lazier and don’t move as much. The fact that our fish travel so far to spawn can’t help. I also think the areas our fish spawn are less protected from predators. Fish in FL/Texas can live in bays year round and be protected from dolphins/sharks. I fished the Guana river outside of Jacksonville this spring and it’s a perfect example of that. The guide fishes the same 500yd stretch of shore year round and consistently catches 25”+ fish.

MS is probably a better comparison to what we have here. I think some of the big trout in the pontchartrain basin actually go to MS in high river years.

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remember a bunch of really large ones being caught in lake ponchartrain years back,

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If you look back at the record books for LA, big trout catches almost always coincide with droughts. Devin Denman recently wrote an article on this. I’ll try to find it and link it

LINK

I wish some of your charter boat guys would do this and put it on you tube. Mississippi has 15 inches right now which I have hated because it’s a complete result of ignoring the science etc, abs changing the rules to satisfy one fat State Senator Tommy Gollot so his grand kids could catch legal trout off is pier in back bay. That said even with 14 inch limit our average trout was 16 inches to 18 inches. I swear the meat from 15 trout 16 to 18 inches is as much if not more than 25 trout that are around 13 inches. I wish some charter boats would test my theory out on this this. I can also promise you cleaning 15 big fish is a lot easier and quicker than cleaning 25 12 inch trout. Any takers?

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any idea why a limit on the upper end of the slot? Bigger fish release more eggs. So keeping a bunch of big trout removes the best breeding stock. At least thats the argument in favor of having an upper slot

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This is true but misleading in a way. The bigger fish release more eggs but the smaller fish spawn more often and end up contributing more eggs over a season.

For instance, a 25” fish would release 3 eggs twice in a spawning season (6 total) and a 15” trout could release 1 egg eight times (8 total). (Obviously an oversimplification)

The better argument for releasing big fish is for the trophy aspect. Trout can potentially grow really fast in LA so those released fish have a chance to get to trophy status.