FFI Gulf Coast Council

The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission will hold their monthly meeting at 9:30am this Thursday, June 4, at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries headquarters in Baton Rouge. Added to the agenda is a report by Jason Adriance, LDWF Marine Fisheries biologist, on the Status of the Commercial Menhaden Fishery in the Gulf of Mexico (agenda item #12).

Each and every predatory fish that sports anglers target along the northern Gulf Coast feed on menhaden (pogies) at some stage. In some estuaries, it’s the most important feed source for redfish, speckled trout, spanish mackeral, flounder, jack crevalle, and several others.

Equally of concern is the bycatch. The methods used to harvest menhaden often lead to the demise of thousands of bull reds (spawning stock). There is grave concern among a large number of Louisiana fly fishing guides that continuation of harmful commercial fishing practices may negatively impact gamefish.

Due to health guidelines set in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 25 members of the public will be allowed to attend the meeting. However, a live video stream of the meeting is available via ZOOM app.

To attend via Zoom webinar, click here to register. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email on how to join the webinar.

We strongly encourage all FFI members to attend via webinar (if not in person) and to send comments by email via comments@wlf.la.gov. The email must include the agenda item # (for menhaden, it’s #12) in the email subject, and your name and address in the email body before your comments. Here is an example:

Subject: Status of Menhaden Fishery in GOM #12
Body:
Jonathon Smith
123 Green Forest Rd, Chicotville, LA

I believe menhaden are overfished in the Gulf of Mexico, and there is too much bycatch that harms other fisheries of greater value.

Email comments must be received PRIOR to the meeting and no later than Wednesday midnight.

There hasn’t been much good news since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in February. But the Alabama Marine Resources Division had some last week, which brings hope for saltwater anglers in years to come.

AMRD released the first batch of southern flounder fingerlings spawned at their Claude Peteet Mariculture Center in Gulf Shores. Approximately 12,000 fingerlings were introduced into Wolf Bay and Josephine areas. These 1-inch fish are just one-fifth of their goal to stock 60,000 fingerlings annually in Alabama waters.

Ideally, other areas such as Bon Secour, Oyster Bay, and Dauphin Island would’ve been stocked if not for low salinity. Juvenile flounder develop best in salinites of 10-15 parts per thousand.

Across northern Gulf waters, southern flounder numbers are on the decline. Among the reasons are overharvest, accidental bycatch, and water temperature rise. Flounder sex (male, female) is determined at the larval stage, and is temperature dependent. Rising sea temperatures over the last decade have resulted in far more male than female flounder. Ideally, the reverse would be better.

Alabama is one of a few states either with a supplemental hatchery program, or in the stages of initiating such a program. AMRD Chief Marine Biologist Kevin Anson said that he hopes funding for a tagging program is available in the future to determine how many of the hatchery-raised fish enter the adult population (recruitment).

Hatchery manager Max Westendorf is confident that the lessons learned from this initial spawning will lead to better results in the future. For one, his team had to deal with getting broodstock flounder to eat consistently after captivity. Second, flounder don’t readily expel eggs in a hatchery, requiring the staff to strip-spawn the fish. But too many strip-spawns of the same fish resulted in deterioration of the egg quality.

Significant support from Alabama Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) made it possible for the hatchery to expand capacity for the next flounder spawn. What is now  needed are tournaments for anglers to collect and bring in live broodstock. That – given the pandemic – may be awhile in coming.