WizardSleeve

Disappointed to open this thread and it not be about luring trout to the boat.

Usually need to be near the blue water line (check chlorophyll charts) and warmest temp. Right now warmest temps are in the 80s but in mid winter the warmest will be low 70s. Usually fine them stacked up on structure just on the warm side of the temperature break. This should usually be the blue water side as well.

Stretch 30s, nomads, bombers, marauders, all work great. Naked ballyhoo or on an islander also works great. Keep speed up over 7 or 8 mph to keep away from trash like AJs or mackerel but sometimes its unavoidable.

On the water look for frigate birds.

I have seadek on my offshore boat and I like it a lot. I would go for the HD version is isn’t as porous but even the porous stuff cleans up to looking brand new with just a little bleach in the soap mix. I didn’t think I would like seadek as much as I do. Kneeling to get stuff out of floor lockers or fish box is nice. It can be replaced if it gets too torn up after a bunch of years. I’m on year 5 and expect I’ll probably go to at least 10 years before I might replace due to tears or fading.

I have textured durabak on deck of my fiberglass bay boat. Really easy to clean but it does chip and flake and isn’t bullet proof. Easy to touch up with more coats if needed. Just like paint. To me it’s essentially rhino lining.

I’m not a fan of safefloor looks. But to each his own. I’d rather a seadek type product if you want a soft surface.

I like stairs or a ladder on the trailer to allow getting into the boat from the bow and maintaining complete control using motor. I don’t like letting the boat drift off attached by a loose bowline and risk the prop hitting a piling etc. All of my boats have the bow access stairs now and it’s awesome. Also makes getting into the boat when it’s on the trailer easy too.

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How many pogey boats are involved?

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27 pogey boats working from 3 docks (Abbeville LA, Empire LA, Moss Point MS). 2 companies process the pogy, Omega and Daybrook. Omega is wholly owned by Canadian international aquaculture conglomerate Cooke Aquaculture and Daybrook is owned by Oceana, a South African international aquaculture company. Both have fish and shrimp farms all over the world. Their entire business is to harvest marine forage species (menhaden aka pogy and sardines) and use that as feedstock to farm shrimp and fish. It is far more economical to produce shrimp and fish this way, which is why we are seeing our local shrimpers suffer as foreign farmed shrimp floods the market here.

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How much money do they generate?

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They employ a few hundred people here in Louisiana as part of the operation. As large international companies the profits (and taxes paid on the profits) are not realized here in LA but instead likely in some other country with the lowest corporate income taxes. The only economic benefit they have for Louisiana is the employment. They do not pay a substantial amount of taxes here. In fact the plant in Abbeville has an industrial tax exemption on the facility so they don't pay property taxes there on the building, you can see this for yourself on the vermilion parish tax assessor website.

Those of us who are for conservation and limits placed on the pogy boats think the value of 200 to 400 mostly-seasonal jobs they create are not worth a fraction of the damage they cause to our coast. They kill more than 30,000 breeding bull reds every year. They kill 84 million croaker. They kill millions of trout. They kill tarpon. All as bycatch. And the worst part is they remove over 1 billion lbs of biomass from the marine food web annually. This is the largest handicap we face. Our trout and redfish populations are in serious decline (hence lower recreational limits, despite rec catch biomass being at 4 decade lows), the tarpon have disappeared from our coast, and many other fish populations have collapsed (king mackerel for instance have vanished and commercial harvest is 25% of what it used to be 2 decades ago).

Hypothetically if the pogy boats were gone today, as they are gone from TX, AL, and FL, our ecosystem productivity would boom like we've never seen in our lifetimes.

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going to call him and see what changed his mind.

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Please do. He said in the meeting before his vote that the shrimpers association sent him a letter the day before that said they support the pogy boats fishing closer. The shrimpers do not want to see any regs on pogy boats because they think they will be next. It’s a blind solidarity of “commercial” guys against what they call “sports” anyone who cares about conservation.

Honestly I think everyone here would love to know why he changed his mind and why he would support the buffer reduction when it doesnt do anything but hurt bycatch, coastal damage, forage reduction, etc.

The real irony of the shrimpers relationship to pogy boats is that the same company that harvests 60% of the pogy (omega/cooke aquaculture) also owns the largest shrimp farms in Central America (seajoy). Louisiana shrimpers have no idea they are supporting a company that is actively trying to put them out of business. We are allowing the largest biomass of nutrient rich forage in North America to be taken without limit, without compensation, to feed aquaculture overseas including shrimp farms in Central America. All of that farmed product gets shipped back to compete against our wild caught shrimp. There are no shrimp farms in LA. It’s really sick the deeper you dig. If you get to talk to him, this should be something that is really driven home to him.

A reminder for all of you fine outdoorsmen that the LWF Commission hearing and vote on reducing the 1/2 mile buffer for pogy boats is this week, Nov 6 at 930. 2000 Quail Drive in Baton Rouge.

It’s important that people show up, even if you dont speak and just submit a card in opposition to the proposed change. The commissioners are sometimes very simple minded and will just vote based on how many cards each side submits, indicating how many people care enough to show up.

The commission chairman (Sagrera) is an alligator farmer and the main cost for alligator farming is food pellets made mostly of pogy meal. He is friendly with the pogy boats. After only 1 full season of the 0.5 mile buffer in place, the industry asked Sagrera to direct LDWF to reduce the buffer. What resulted is this hearing on Nov 6 where the 7 commissioners will vote on the fleshed out proposed new buffer where most of the 0.5 mile buffer would be reduced to 0.25 miles.

This matters because every inch closer to shore they fish, the more bycatch damage they do. They should be pushed out 1 mile or even 3 miles from shore, not allowed closer. A reduction in any buffer is going to increase the number of bull reds they kill. The LGL bycatch study made this crystal clear. Any of us would face a 150 fine and up to 60 days in jail if we harvested a bull red, but these guys kill over 30,000 every year and want to kill more by fishing closer to shore. They kill 240,000 speckled trout every year. Over 2 million croaker annually. All of these species have stocks that are critically low.

Louisiana is the only state in the gulf with virtually no restrictions on these boats and now they focus their harvest here intensely. Pogy is the most important forage for just about every other fish we care about from redfish to trout to tarpon and even yellowfin tuna in winter. In the 1960s only about half of the gulf pogy harvest came from Louisiana but today it’s almost 100% since FL, AL banned them, TX restricted to the point where they dont fish there, and MS has a full 1 mile buffer everywhere and around all islands. Every pogy plant has closed except for 3 remaining that process the 1 billion lbs caught annually in Louisiana.

Recreational anglers in LA harvest abut 35 million lbs of all fish species biomass annually. Shrimpers land about 60 million lbs annually. But the pogy boats remove over 1 billion lbs of the most important forage from our water. We used to have thriving populations of tarpon, but those are almost all gone. Tarpon only eat pogy when they migrate to the norther gulf every summer. They need the large schools, but since those are removed immediately as soon as a spotter plane sees one, the tarpon cant exist here like they used to. Large trout used to be more common, but no one has seen one hit the top 10 records list in almost 25 years. We reduced the limits of both reds and trout because those populations are falling rapidly and recruitment is at historic lows. All of this while recreational harvest biomass of reds and trout are at 4 decade lows. We dont have enough breeding stock of trout and reds, in other words. And guess what is the primary forage for breeding sized trout and reds when they spawn all summer… you guessed it, gulf menhaden aka pogy.

Showing up Thursday matters because the pogy industry is rich and in the pockets of important politicians. But this is a 90/10 issue - most people in Louisiana want the pogy boats gone. We have the power. But we have to take action when the opportunity presents itself. I look forward to seeing you there, please submit a card in opposition to the pogy boats. If you want to make a public comment, even better.


LWF Commission Meeting Details

There are 3 big reasons why both redfish and trout populations are down:

1) Lack of forage (pogey boats)

2) lack of habitat (high average river flow last decade)

3) fishing pressure

Nothing can be done about the river, it flows what it flows. Some years will be completely inundated by cold river water, but over long run that flooding adds marsh and helps the populations of these fish.

However the other two issues absolutely can be addressed. The fishing pressure issue has been addressed two years ago by lowering limits and preventing harvest of breeding bull reds. This will take a few years to realize into population gains, I hope people are patient.

The biggest issue IMO is the removal of 1.2 billion lbs of forage from the water (pogies) every year. For comparison the shrimp industry lands only 65 to 70 million lbs of shrimp every year in LA. The pogey boats are absolutely raping the coastline, taking every pogey they can capture in an area, then moving down the coast to rape the next spot, and so on. There are bycatch concerns sure, but the removal of these big pogey schools in summer is devastating. The breeding bull reds and large breeding trout are in nearshore waters feeding on these nutritious and critical pogey schools from May to October. Shrimp and other forage are not a major component of diet for these breeding populations at this time, its almost all pogey.

I heard that this week the WLF Commission is going to request LDWF loosen the 1/2 mile buffer restriction on the pogey boats in November. We cannot allow this to happen. If you havent called your rep or senator yet please do so. This is a really big deal and most of the politicians are only hearing from the pro-pogey boat lobby in BR. I called both of my reps and they had no idea about most of this stuff.

Just bumping this to ask everyone again to contact your state rep and senator to ask them to do something about the pogey boats - push them back 3 miles, limit their catch, or even completely ban them. Ask them to take some action.

I heard from my local rep that this was a hot topic this week in BR with people calling. If you havent called your rep please do so, its very impactful and its what is needed to have the legislature take action.

Earlier this week hundreds of dead bull reds wash up on the Grand Isle beach, check out the Facebook page of this guy linked below. He videos the entire beach and takes over 100 photos of individual dead fish. The GI fishermen reported seeing "thousands" of dead bull reds in the water on monday/tuesday. The menhaden boats had been working "right on the beach" of grand isle for the last few days.

Please call your state rep or senator to report this and tell them you've had enough of the pogey boats and something needs to be done, either increasing the buffer to 1 mile from shore or more, reducing their allowable catch from unlimited to half of what they usually harvest, or even ask to have them banned completely. Even you guys who only hunt, its really important that all corners of Louisiana fight these foreign companies strip mining our coastal resources, please call your rep. A couple of weeks ago they killed tarpon as bycatch near chandeleur island.



Facebook Link - GI Fisherman Keith Bergeron