New 1-Mile Pogey Boat Buffer Shows Promising Results

After an estimated 2.5 million kilos of lifeless fish had been recorded in 2023 off the coast of Louisiana, 2024 appears to be like promising with a noticeable drop in fish spills.

In February of this 12 months, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Fee unanimously handed an emergency regulation that created a 1-mile buffer zone off the coast of LA. This restricted Menhaden (Pogey) Boats from utilizing their nets within the shallow water, the place a whole lot of redfish fall sufferer to the nets. The swap from 1/4-mile to a mile appears to be working, in line with Chris Macaluso of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

An evaluation from over a decade of fisheries knowledge by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership exhibits that the not too long ago created near-shore, no-fishing buffers in Louisiana could also be lowering the variety of pogies spilled from the economic harvest of this ecologically useful baitfish – to a mere quarter of the historic common.

“This knowledge signifies that the efforts to maneuver the economic pogy boats into deeper waters to guard nearshore, shallow habitat is paying off,” mentioned Macaluso, director of the Middle for Marine Fisheries for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “Few issues anger and disgust anglers and beachgoers in Louisiana greater than seeing rafts of lifeless pogies and different fish left by the menhaden discount business floating nearshore or washed up on seashores. This 12 months, we’ve got seen far fewer of those spills and anglers have additionally famous a rise in nearshore forage like pogies, mullet, and different fish.”

Whereas there are nonetheless a number of months left in 2024, the numbers are displaying that solely 0.3 million or 300,000 kilos of lifeless fish have been recorded off the coast to this point this 12 months. This knowledge was gathered by inspecting public data for fish spills stored by LWDF. The division began retaining data in 2013, and after evaluating the numbers, 2024 appears to be like as whether it is shaping as much as be the second-lowest variety of fish spilled since 2013.

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Keith Lusher

Keith Lusher is an award successful outside journalist that resides in Covington, Louisiana. He owns and operates NorthshoreFishingReport.com and writes a weekly outside column for the Slidell Impartial Newspaper. He additionally writes for the St.Tammany Parish Tourism Fee’s VisitTheNorthshore.com. He’s the previous host of The Northshore Fishing Report Radio Present and is on the board of the Louisiana Out of doors Writers Affiliation. Keith contributes to quite a few publications each on-line and in print and prides himself on selling South Louisiana’s distinctive fishery. To contact Keith e-mail: keithlusherjr@gmail.com