Gulf, lake anglers will find dead zones
July 2008
This summer, like each summer for the last dozen or so years, we will get our annual report on the size of the Gulf of Mexico “dead zone.” This year as well, the Bonnet Carre Spillway was opened, releasing large quantities of nutrient-rich Mississippi River water into Lake Pontchartrain and the surrounding wetland system. Often, smaller dead zones develop in the lake after spillway openings.
Summer trout have active libidos
June 2008
This is the time of year when speckled trout fishing really heats up in the major bays and along the coast. In these high-salinity areas, specks prowl relentlessly, and greedily feed day and night all through the warm months.
Are marsh bass really different?
May 2008
It’s the end of spring, and the peak of marsh bass fishing is past. Marshes near the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers are still brown with river water, and everywhere else in the marshes, aquatic plants are going into their summer growth period.
Fingers beware of this aquatic bruiser
April 2008
Trivia time. What looks like a shrimp, is as mean as a preying mantis and is eaten by red snappers like popcorn?
What’s not to love about seabream?
March 2008
Some fish just don’t get any respect. The sheepshead is one of those. It is attractively colored, grows to a decent size, is a dogged fighter and may be the best, or at least second best, tablefish in the marsh.
Aggregations make fish easy prey
February 2008
The term “spawning aggregation” is one that recreational fishermen are likely to learn in the future. The term simply refers to a synchronized spawning event by a number of fish that are not normally schooling species.
Funky-looking flounder great on a plate
January 2008
In Louisiana, flounders are enormously popular food and sport fish. Although 18 species of the lefteye flounder family are found in the northern Gulf of Mexico, “flounder” in Louisiana almost invariably means the southern flounder. Its Latin name, Paralichthys lethosigma, literally means “parallel fish that forgot its spots.”