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Home > Current News > 2004

News: 2004

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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