John Wesely Latta
Justin Landry with a Rio Grande Perch
Rio Grande Perch
In 2010 I visited city park around lunch to go get a poboy from the casino building. I took a hunk of bread off of my poboy and threw it in the water for some ducks. Before the ducks could get close to the bread the water boiled with fish and it was gone. Now I was always used to fishing with crickets and worms in the swamp so this surprised me. I decided to bring a pole the next day and try to fish with some bread. I returned to the same spot and brought some polarized glasses so I could see through the glare. I was surprised to see the number of fish right in front of me but there was something else that caught my eye. A few of these swam with the sun perch but had very distinguished features that made them stand out they were much closer to the banks than the sun perch were and much larger in size and some had a large bump on their head. I thought it was some sort of pond fish the park put in the water for who knows what reason. I put a small piece of bread on a small bream hook. i dropped it in the water and within seconds I had the strangest fish on my line that I had ever seen. I took a few pictures of it weighed it and let it go. The fish weighed right under a pound.
A few days later I talked to a game warden and he filled me in on everything. They are actually an invasive species that continually grow in numbers. But I saw this as an opportunity. I started a small fishing organization called BlueGillGuides. We teach people who are new to fishing or who have never caught a Rio grande perch, how to catch them and also teach them tips on catching BlueGill also known as Sun perch. Keep fishing a Louisiana tradition. FISH ON!
Please Join us on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/bluegillguides
September 24, 2012 at 11:26pm