Hope you have more to do today on this special holiday than reading rather than enjoying the great outdoor adventures our Louisiana has to offer.

Remember to stay safe, avoid drinking alcohol, and driving on the road as well as on the water, and that goes for Monday when most people have their threesome weekend. days.

In any case, there is news from our outside world, and it starts at the Ministry of Wildlife and Fisheries.

COVID-19 has appeared in the licensing division of the LDWF.

The report from mid-last week was that “several staff from the licensing division located at its head office at 2000 Quail Drive in Baton Rouge have either tested positive for COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone who tested positive “.

So, just as all hunting and recreational fishing licenses were due to be renewed (or purchased for the first time) – remember that the 2020-21 licenses expired on Wednesday – staffing was an issue at headquarters. the state even if the office remained open.

You can renew / buy licenses from resellers or go to the LDWF website: wlf.louisiana.gov.

Peach

With a front covering southern Louisiana with rain on this vacation, it’s good to talk about the coast and all the action on the brook trout.

The word is, when the weather permits, trout appear in good numbers east and west of the Mississippi River. Work the beaches at rising tide and the passes, points and reefs at ebb tide.

Pick your favorite lure, although it looks like hard plastics like MirrOlures and surface waters catch bigger trout.

News from the MRGO / Intracoastal Channel regions is that redfish has settled in, providing the opportunity to take trout, reds and bass in roughly the same areas. Looks like Sinkos and other jerkworm type baits work on all three species.

The Verret region produces bar on Chatterbaits, spinnerbaits and shad-colored crankbaits. Bream takes crickets, and there has been a good run on chinquapin (use nocturnal caterpillars) in the Flat Lake area.

Fish in motion in the Atchafalaya basin.

Deeper water

LDWF marine fisheries staff posted the latest catch of red snapper at 286,833 pounds during the three-day June 20 season. That’s 34% of our state’s annual private recreational allowance of £ 832,493.

If you want to see the landing estimates, go to this LDWF site: www.wlf.louisiana.gov/page/red-snapper.

• Federal fisheries managers have revealed their final rule for gray triggerfish in the Gulf of Mexico with increased recreational and commercial catches.

The new rule has an effective date of July 29 and allocates 79% of the total of 456,900 pounds to the recreational sector and 21% to advertisements. This is an annual recreational catch limit of 360,951 pounds (whole weight) with an annual catch target of 274,323 pounds. For commercials, those numbers are the catch limit of 95,949 and the catch target of 88,273 pounds.

The complete filing is listed in the Federal Register (name / number): 86 FR 34159, published June 29, 2021.

• The last meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Board showed that the cobia (lemon) is not overfished, but “is currently experiencing overfishing”. The suggestion is that although “the stock assessment appears to allow an increase in harvest, it actually represents a reduction of about 30% from the current allowable harvest”.
• The board went with the “preferred” alternative which retains a 92% allowance for recreation and an 8% allowance for advertisements in Florida waters, and one catch per day for advertisements there.
• For king mackerel, the report states that the stock is not overexploited nor that there is no overfishing, and goes on to state: “Since the recreational sector has not caught its allocation of king mackerel For more than 20 years, the board has asked staff to update the document by adding alternatives that consider moving the allowance to the commercial sector.
• For the big amberjack, the ratio is not good. This species continues to be overfished and the stock is “under overfishing”. The report used data from the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) showing that landings and recreational effort more than doubled previous estimates.
• For redfish, the council “discussed extending state management of the red drum for Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana up to nine nautical miles.”

Our young fishermen

Dylan breaux and Gage Boquet finished 10th among a long list of qualifiers in last weekend’s Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster High School series on Lay Lake, Alabama. The five basses of this Lafourche Bassmasters team weighed 11 pounds, 5 ounces. The winning weight was 17-15.

Other South Louisiana teams finishing in the top 50 include Walker High’s Garret thomas and Caleb Seymour (29th, 9-5); The secondary schools of the center Cayden Walls and Connor mill (31st, 9-2); Brentyn Wheat and Samuel cobb the Bassmasters of the parish of Livingston (38th, 8-11); Parkview Baptist Hunter Hamilton and Noah Higgins (41st, 8-6); West Baton Rouge Bassmasters Tyler morris and Connor hebert (47th, 8-3); and, Sulfur High’s Blayne Charpentier and Drake koonce (49th, 7-14).

In the Bassmaster Junior series on the same lake, Lafourche Junior Bassmasters Matthieu Fontenot and Cole billiot finished 16th with a 5-2 catch.