Louisiana Archives - Page 37 of 45

LOUISIANA: Season opens early for bait fish to meet demand

March 6, 2017 — The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission announced a Declaration of Emergency to open the commercial season for the harvest of bait menhaden starting Wednesday, March 15, 2017.

The actions on this declaration by the LWFC comes after request from the bait menhaden industry.

The commercial season for the harvest of bait menhaden typically opens on November 1 and runs through November 30 with a 3,000 metric ton quota. In the event that quota is not harvested during the normal November season, the bait season may resume April 1 of the following year.

Read the full story at KATC

Louisiana menhaden season to open March 15

March 3, 2017 — The commercial season for the harvest of bait menhaden will open March 15, the state Wildlife and Fisheries Commission decided today.

The season typically runs Nov. 1-20 with a 3,000-metric-ton quota. But when quota is not harvested during the normal season, the agency can reopen the fishery April 1 of the following year.

The bait industry asked the commission to open the season two weeks earlier to meet customer demand, officials said. The quota was not met in 2016, and opening the season two weeks earlier is not expected to negatively impact the quota or regular commercial menhaden season.

Read the full story at Houma Today

Crabbers: Blue crab moratorium will hurt workers, customers

February 21, 2017 — Beginning February 20, Louisiana will enact a first-ever, statewide closure of blue crab fisheries. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says the crab stock is dangerously close to over-harvest and this break will give the population more time to grow.

The harvest restrictions are for immature blue female crabs, except those being held for processing of softshell crabs. According to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, the restrictions should help reduce the fishing pressure on the blue crab stock and encourage a stronger population when the ban ends March 21, 2017.

The statewide shutdown of the Louisiana crab fishery is new, and crabbers say holding the ban in the spring leaves many of them without work. Crabbers also argue it leaves customers without a Lenten favorite.

Crab will not be completely missing from local menus or markets. Crab from outside Louisiana will still be available, although crabbers said they predict the price for blue crab meat will increase and could come at a lower quality.

The 30-day closure of the commercial harvest and the use of crab traps will go into effect in 2017 and last through 2019.

Read the full story at WWLTV

Crab fishing closing in Louisiana, open for business in Mississippi

February 13, 2017 — Louisiana is planning a 30-day closure of blue-crab fisheries in state waters, but Mississippi officials don’t expect it to have much effect here.

From Feb. 20 to March 21, Louisiana is enacting a closure of the blue crab fisheries that will prohibit harvesting of immature female crabs in an effort to give juveniles a breather and hopefully encourage a stronger crab population.

The closure has everyone from fishermen to chefs talking, according to TheAdvocate.com, but officials with the Department of Marine Resources say it shouldn’t affect the fisheries in Mississippi waters.

Read the full story at the Sun Herald

LOUISIANA: Sea lords and the secret votes that made them rich

February 9, 2017 — What do you have the right to see, as a citizen of this country? if a vote takes place that essentially gives away a public resource for nothing, should you see who votes yes and who votes no?

When we showed Congressman Garret Graves the response to our Freedom of Information Act request, he laughed.

The response was a heavily-redacted tally of votes, conducted years ago, that helped hand over tens of millions of dollars every year to a small group of fishermen. We requested the vote count in our FOIA request, but the federal government gave us little of the information we requested, blacking out the key part: who voted yes and who voted no.

“This is a public body,” notes Graves, a Louisiana Republican. “You can’t hide the votes from this. That’s not OK.”

When we showed him the blacked-out lists again, he tells us, “Not for long – because I’m going to get the answer to that.”

Read the full story here at FOX 8

LOUISIANA: Gov. John Bel Edwards wants angler input on red snapper regulation

February 2, 2017 — Gov. John Bel Edwards told a group of recreational anglers Thursday that he was open to state regulation of red snapper fishing off Louisiana’s shore, which some anglers said was a rollback of the governor’s previous wildlife and fisheries leader.

“We ought to be able to regulate ourselves when it comes to fishing,” Edwards told the Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana annual membership luncheon during a 14-minute speech that otherwise was long on hunting and fishing stories and short on policy.

Using population and harvesting data, federal agencies have pressed the Gulf State Marine Fisheries Commission, made up of representatives from the five states bordering the Gulf of Mexico, have limited the red snapper season to nine days and restricted how many fish could be caught.

Read the full story at The Acadiana Advocate.

LOUISIANA: New LDWF boss Jack Montoucet outlines plan, moves into new office

February 1, 2017 — Jack Montoucet has been fighting fires for a long time, first when he was chief of the Lafayette Fire Department, then operating a alligator farm, and, for the past nine years, serving in Louisiana’s House of Representatives.

Now the 69-year-old Marine Corps veteran — and if you count back those years you come to know he spent some time in the Far East — then you know he’s been under fire for virtually all his adult life.

Why then, when asked by Gov. John Bel Edwards to step down from the State House into a firestorm as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, did Moutoucet agree to take that job?

In a few words, Moutoucet said he’s interested in Louisiana’s outdoors resources. He said that was made more a priority after working closely with the LDWF over the years with what’s become a blueprint for the successful recovery of what was an endangered species, the Louisiana alligator.

Read the full story at The Acadiana Advocate

Red Snapper Season Begins Tomorrow In Louisiana

January 31, 2017 — Recreational red snapper fishing will begin tomorrow (Feb. 1, 2017) in the state waters of Louisiana, and wildlife officials say they will remain open until further notice.

Louisiana waters include all bodies of water up to nine nautical miles from shore and they will be open seven days a week.

The decision to make the season longer was made last week by the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission during their monthly meeting.

Despite the longer season, fishermen will be regulated to only two fish per person and the red snapper must 16-inches in length.

Federal wildlife officials have not yet announced the dates for the federal season in 2017, which opens all waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year, the federal season was only nine days long in July.

Read the full story at WRKG

Price spikes for jumbo shrimp blamed on Gulf of Mexico dead zone

January 30, 2017 — Every spring and summer when the low-oxygen dead zone forms off Louisiana’s coastline, the price of jumbo shrimp briefly spikes, affecting Gulf of Mexico fishers, consumers and seafood markets, according to a new study published Monday (Jan. 30) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And the price for smaller shrimp generally falls.

The positive effect of the price increase on jumbo shrimp for Gulf commercial shrimpers are fleeting, however. That’s because the rise often triggers increased imports of large shrimp from foreign producers, including farm-raised shrimp, which quickly drive down prices.

Read the full story at The New Orleans Times-Picayune

Commercial fishing to open for large coastal sharks

January 30, 2017 — The commercial fishing season for non-sandbar large coastal sharks will open in Louisiana waters at 12:01 a.m. on Feb. 1.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico will also open at that time. The commercial season will remain open in federal waters until 80 percent of the federal quota has been harvested or is projected to be harvested in the Gulf.