February 28, 2016 — Before the current Gulf red snapper controversy that has lasted what seems like an eternity, the Gulf of Mexico’s most hotly contested fish was red drum, or redfish. In his latest work, author Robert Fritchey brings to life the history of a recreational fishing organization that influenced fishery management and the politics of the Gulf states in a way that resulted in taking fish off Americans’ dinner plates and placing them on the hooks of private anglers.
Missing Redfish: The Blackened History of a Gulf Coast Icon ($9.99), from New Moon Press, chronicles the transformation of a universally shared source of nourishment and recreation into an engine for the consumption of goods and services related to sport fishing.
Fritchey, from Golden Meadow, LA, is the author of Wetland Riders. In his latest e-book recently released on Amazon Kindle,Barnes & Noble’s Nook Press and Apple iTunes, he documents how politics, policies and bad science and fishery management by both federal and state agencies led to the Coastal Conversation Association’s (CCA) takeover of a species gone missing years before Cajun Chef Paul Prudhomme blackened his first redfish.
“Our wildlife and fishery resources are held in public trust, which in essence means they are owned by everyone,” Fritchey told Gulf Seafood News. “When everyone has a say in how these valuable resources are to be utilized, a babel of conflicting and emotional claims arises. And in Gulf fisheries, so it has.”