Trout
Watchers Filled the Gap
Posted:
3/3/04
Louisiana
coastal anglers love to catch spotted seatrout. Fishermen
pursuing this fish landed an average of 13.6 million of them
in Louisiana annually between 1999 and 2001. Anglers’
continued interest in pursuing and landing these fish means
that the fishery must be carefully managed, not always an
easy task. Successful management depends upon data about the
size of fish, ages at maturity and in relation to size, their
habitat, their life spans,— in general the health and
size of the species’ population. Just about a year ago,
the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF)
realized that it had only a small amount of data describing
the age and growth of big trout, those about 25 inches long.
The small amount of existing data showed that some six-pound
and larger fish were about three years old, and some (of a
similar size) were actually eight to nine years old. More
data was needed to better determine the possible correlation
between size and age.
“For
management purposes, it’s incredibly important to know
if a 25-inch speckled trout is young with superior genetic
traits or is it an old fish,” said Jerald Horst, Sea
Grant Extension Fisheries Specialist with the LSU Agricultural
Center.
Such a
study is very time and labor intensive. The fish must be caught,
measured, weighed, and dissected, and all information carefully
recorded. LDWF and Sea Grant asked for help from the recreational
anglers already active in the fishery.
Forty-eight
volunteers decided to add a little work to their recreation,
becoming “Trout Watchers.” They attended training
workshops conducted by LDWF to learn how to dissect a seatrout
to determine its sex and remove otholiths (tiny bones in the
fish’s ear) to determine age. (The otoliths were analyzed
by the LSU Coastal Fisheries Institute and LDWF in a process
similar to counting the rings on a tree.) The fishers had
the fun of catching big fish in many areas like Lake Pontchartrain,
Calcasieu Lake, and Southwest Pass, and then they went to
work to produce good data for fishery management.
“It
was a great partnership,” said Randy Pausina, LDWF biologist
program manager. “We provided training. Sea Grant supported
the project and identified the anglers and the LSU Coastal
Fisheries Institute provided age verification to determine
age and organize data. We (LDWF) learned a lot about habits
of recreational fishers, and the anglers learned a lot about
fishery management and fish biology. These carefully collected
data will help us better manage the fishery.”
The project
is going to provide an unanticipated benefit to the database
on speckled trout. LSU Coastal Fisheries Institute plans to
perform micro-chemical analysis on the otoliths, hoping to
identify the estuaries in which these fish were born and spent
parts of their lives.
According
to Pausina, the Trout Watcher program was so successful that
Sea Grant and LDWF have decided to extend it for an additional
year and they are seeking more volunteers.
“We
need trout anglers, especially those who fish the Gulf Coast
between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya,” Horst said.
“To participate in the Trout Watcher program, they should
ask themselves if they really catch, on average, at least
one 25-inch fish per year. If they do, they qualify.”
To participate, contact Horst by email jhorst@agctr.lsu.edu
or by phone (504-838-1170).
For more
information about the program, contact Brian Hardcastle at
LDWF (985-787-2163), Kevin Savoie (337-491-2065) or Mike Liffmann
(225-578-6290), both associated with Sea Grant Extension.
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