Pogey Boat Buffer Zone Prolonged to Half Mile Off Louisiana Coast

On Thursday, Feb. 15, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Fee unanimously handed the emergency laws that created buffers for the 2024 season. The choice got here as a compromise was reached by conservation teams and business menhaden (pogey) fisheries operators. The brand new laws now require these pogey boats, which kill a whole bunch of redfish on account of bycatch, to make use of their nets a half mile off of the Louisiana coast. The earlier buffer zone was 1 / 4 mile. Additionally included within the new laws is a broader 1-mile buffer zone off Holly Seaside. It additionally accommodates extra stringent penalties and reporting necessities for future fish spills.

Pogey’s are a important meals supply for inshore and offshore fish together with speckled trout and redfish that are extremely prized amongst saltwater anglers in Louisiana.  Up to now, Menhaden boats have been allowed to fish as shut as 500 yards from Louisiana’s shorelines, and have been blamed for killing a whole bunch of redfish lately by bycatch. An estimated 1 billion kilos of pogies are taken by the economic Gulf of Mexico pogey fishery every year with nearly all of the catch coming from Louisiana.

Whereas the choice is a step in the fitting route, leisure anglers and conservation teams have been hoping to attain a 1-mile restriction. This is able to fall according to different states like Alabama and Mississippi that prohibit pogey boats from coming inside a mile of the shoreline. The restrictions would save 1000’s of redfish that inhabit the Louisiana Shoreline.

David Cresson with CCA of Louisiana hoped to see a 1-mile buffer zone however mentioned the half-mile zone is a step in the fitting route. “The 2 sides have been requested by the Fee, the Governor and the Legislature to discover a compromise. In any compromise, there’s give and take. Our facet needed the one-mile buffer. The compromise was 1/2 mile. It’s what it’s,” he mentioned.

Hopefully, with so many eyeballs set on the Menhaden Trade in Louisiana, Cresson mentioned we should always be capable of monitor the boats correctly to see if the half-mile buffer. “Solely time will inform if it helps. If incidents of fish spills, web tears, and lifeless redfish on seashores are lowered, then we are able to say it was a optimistic transfer,” Cresson mentioned. “If the incidents persist, then we are going to know we want extra. There’s additionally a bycatch research being achieved in 2024, and that ought to reveal much more about the place these boats needs to be allowed.”

The NOI will now undergo a 30-day oversight interval, the place the joint Legislative Oversight Committees could select to assessment it and make different suggestions. In the event that they take no motion, the NOI shall be formalized as a closing rule forward of the 2024 Menhaden fishing season.

Keith Lusher

Keith Lusher is an award successful outside journalist that resides in Covington, Louisiana. He owns and operates NorthshoreFishingReport.com and writes a weekly outside column for the Slidell Unbiased Newspaper. He additionally writes for the St.Tammany Parish Tourism Fee’s VisitTheNorthshore.com. He’s the previous host of The Northshore Fishing Report Radio Present and is on the board of the Louisiana Out of doors Writers Affiliation. Keith contributes to quite a few publications each on-line and in print and prides himself on selling South Louisiana’s distinctive fishery. To contact Keith e-mail: keithlusherjr@gmail.com