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This guy has teeth
The great barracuda, Sphyraena barracuda, is a common fish in the blue waters offshore of Louisiana. Yet one never sees a fishing story about anyone fishing for them off of our coast. […]
Creature Feature
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Louisiana sawfish are just memories
It’s not likely that many Louisiana coastal anglers give sawfish a thought. In fact, it’s not likely that anyone under the age of 50 even knows we ever had a sawfish population in the state.[…]
Bass Fishing
Do released bass live to fight again?
Whether one loves it or hates it, a certain amount of catch-and-release fishing is here to stay. While fishermen have released some fish for a long time, the practice became high profile with the commercialization of black bass fishing through the founding of the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society by Ray Scott in 1967.[…]
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What is a black snapper?
What’s a black snapper?
Hmmm. That’s a good question. […]
Columns
Bluefish eat everything
Bluefish are truly the cannibals of the sea. They eat anything and seem to take special delight in eating each other. It makes you wonder why they are still around — how they get close enough to spawn with each other before biting their paramour in half. […]
Columns
An apple a day — yuk!
In 1988, The Blob invaded Louisiana. The star of the remake of the 1958 film of the same name was a big, slimy, snotty alien thing.[…]
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Watch out, sucker!
Every fish makes its own living in its own way. Some are hard-swimming, driving predators. Others are kind of laid back and take advantage of their fellow fish in the sea.[…]
Columns
Interesting blue crab trivia
Blue crabs are one of the most-beautiful and interesting creatures in Louisiana’s coastal marshes. They are pugnacious — actually downright aggressive may be a better characterization — but within those armored bodies lies some of the most delectable of all seafoods.[…]
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Redear sunfish
Yes, I know that a redear sunfish isn’t really a perch, but that along with “bream” is the generic name for the clan of freshwater panfish that includes bluegills, goggle-eyes, slick perch (green sunfish), sunperch and stumpknockers.[…]
Columns
Are goliath grouper fish or footballs
Last month, we discussed the biology of the goliath grouper, a fish still often called by its old name of jewfish. The fish is intriguing, if for no other reason than for its size.[…]
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Are goliath groupers fish or footballs?
The glamour boy of the grouper family, the 800-pound Atlantic goliath grouper, is becoming the Gulf of Mexico’s latest fisheries management football, to be passed and punted back and forth between recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, environmentalists and fisheries biologists.[…]
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When a mullet is king
Biologists like writing about cool fish — odd fish, fish that are a swimming riddle. This month’s guy (or more properly “guys”) is that.[…]
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Hey, ray, what you say?
At least that is what some shrimpers say they hear. The animal that they have nicknamed “choo-choo” for the whoofing sound that it makes after it hits the deck of a shrimp boat is known by scientists as a cownose ray, Rhinoptera bonasus. […]
Columns
The case of the slippery eel
Nothing could be worse for a freshwater natural-bait fisherman. Something obviously huge had grabbed the worm or crawfish on his hook and was fighting furiously. He could almost imagine the broad head of a big catfish emerging from the water.[…]
Columns
Yes, we have no bananas today
“Yes, We Have No bananas Today” is the nonsensical title of a novelty song composed by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn for Broadway in 1923. Like the song, the little fish that Louisiana coastal anglers call “banana fish” is self-contradictory. […]
Columns
Lane snappers are candy
If red and mangrove snappers are the meat and potatoes of the snapper fishing world, then lane snappers are the dessert. Maybe that’s why one of their common names is candy snappers, although it’s probably because they are striped, like a candy cane. […]