A large segment of Louisiana’s freshwater fishing community has become obsessed with black bass, almost to the exclusion of interest in other fish. Two species of black bass live in Louisiana waters, the largemouth and the spotted.[…]
Never take a biologist fishing; they can really slow things down. So Ed Sexton, the great Trout Master, found. South of Venice, where Sexton fishes, he has to wade through a lot of redfish to catch the big sow speckled trout that he loves.[…]
She’s beautiful; she’s exotic; she’s delicious.
Huh? Delicious?[…]
The quest for trophies in modern hunting and fishing is unquenchable. More and more deer hunters put up high fences to segregate the animals under their control from surrounding populations and then buy trophy bucks to upgrade the “quality” of their herd. If you can’t get a trophy any other way — well, you just grow your own.[…]
Most fish-identification books (except mine, of course) list the value of lizardfish to anglers as either a “nuisance” or “useless.” I happen to think that they are a pretty interesting critter. It could be the biologist in me.[…]
Generally speaking, a shark, any kind of shark, just doesn’t make the average Louisiana saltwater angler’s heart beat faster.[…]
Without a doubt, the flathead catfish has more aliases than any other fish, probably beating out even the infamous choupique.[…]
On a fishing trip last spring, one of the fishermen in a boat with me commented that he sure hoped we would catch some flounder because his wife had asked him specifically to bring some home.[…]
It is hard to believe that the recreational season for Gulf of Mexico red snapper has shrunk to less than two months this year.[…]
In 1993, the Louisiana Legislature picked a state fish. It wasn’t the much-hyped tournament fish, the largemouth bass; it wasn’t any one of the glamorous snapper species; it wasn’t even the beloved speckled trout.[…]
How old is that redfish? Fishermen are, for the most part, intensely curious about their quarry.[…]
No, I don’t mean those wonderful Louisiana canned red beans. I am talking about the fish, Caranx Crysos, a.k.a. hardtails.[…]
The herring family is a big one. Called Clupeidae by biologists, it holds 28 members in North America.[…]
Think of what life must be like for a hardhead catfish — despised by all, loved by none. The contempt is universal.[…]
The words “I didn’t think that anything so ugly could ever win an award” really caught my attention.[…]
Largemouth bass are the most popular freshwater recreational fish in America, in spite of the changing face of the fishery. Gone are the days of a bass fisherman being pictured as a grandfather in a rowboat with a grandson or contemplative pipe-puffing angler patiently casting a clunky wooden topwater plug with his old knuckle-buster.[…]