Month: August 2018

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Biloxi Marsh

I caught my Louisiana red.  It was three or four pounds, a decent fish for Texas but nothing special for Louisiana where redfish are larger.  It’s caught though, and Louisiana is done.

We fished the Biloxi Marsh Wildlife Management Area, a  36,644 acre estuary 40 miles east of New Orleans, owned by the Biloxi Marsh Lands Corporation and leased to the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, subject to mineral rights. The Biloxi Marsh Lands Corporation was founded in the 30s to own the marsh and lease land for oil and gas exploration.  I suspect it was a transfer of public lands to private parties for the benefit of Huey P. Long, his friends, and his family. It was probably formed after oil had been discovered but before state lands were leased.  If that’s not the case, if the land was always private and it was all on the up and up, I’d be pleasantly surprised, but it wouldn’t change my opinion of Huey P. Long. If he didn’t run that scam in the Biloxi Marsh he ran it somewhere.

On a Saturday in August the Marsh was mostly empty.

The marsh looks like how a marsh is supposed to look: flat and watery and grassy. It’s shallow, but it’s no Caribbean flat, and it’s too far north for mangroves. There’s no clear water or sandy bottom.  It’s muck, mostly, muck and oysters, and not a  place for wading. When the pole went deep in the mud black ooze came up with the pole.

We launched out of Campo’s Marina in Yscloskey.  Yscloskey was originally settled by Spanish Canary Islanders in the late 18th century, and in 1900 was still a Canary Islander descendent fishing village. That Campo surname probably isn’t random.

Yscloskey was destroyed by Katrina–the New York Times reported there was nothing left intact but a single light bulb and a garden hose–but it looks well enough now.  It was busy on Saturday for the blessing of the fleet at the start of the shrimp season. The shrimp boats as often as not flew Confederate battle flags, along with plenty of pennants, the Louisiana state flag, the American flag, and some other flags I didn’t recognize. There was lots of red, white, and blue and purple and gold.

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You’re never very far from a discussion about Katrina in New Orleans. It’s not the same city, literally. What held people in New Orleans before Katrina was extended family networks and the Ignatius J. Reilly state of being: if you were born in New Orleans and lived in New Orleans you as likely as not never went anyplace else unless it was 90 miles to LSU.  Katrina forced people to leave, and after Katrina the family networks were damaged.  Cousins who left for Houston or Dallas or Atlanta got new jobs and better houses and schools and never came back. Twelve years later in the Treme near Willie Mae’s Scotch House there are still boarded houses.

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Kris caught two reds. She hooked a big red, at least 20 pounds, but got distracted and the fish broke off.  You can’t multi-task when landing a 20 pound fish. Lesson learned. I learned a lesson too.  Fishing the second day with a New Orleans hangover isn’t that much fun. I really didn’t need that final Sazerac even if it was the Sazerac Bar, and I didn’t need the Abita with the oysters at Felix Oyster House to start the evening, and I certainly didn’t need what came in between. Lesson learned. Also, take insect repellent, and use the insect repellent you take.

Our guide, Bailey Short, used big heavy flies, 10 weight rods, and 20-pound leaders.  It was big stuff, much bigger than I’d expected.

He polled slow. There was no hurry to get anyplace because we were already there. Thorough, he said, you gotta get to the spot and be thorough. There were fish where we were, and we needed to take our time and spot them. Sooner or later we did, even if we didn’t catch them.

We talked to Bailey about the fall and winter months, the supposedly best months, but he said that the fish were just as big in the summer and that everybody now had heard about the big winter reds. There was so much winter pressure with interloper guides rolling in from Florida and Texas that July and August were in some ways better. He showed us lots of fish and we got lots of shots. Bailey did great, and was great company, but the fish didn’t cooperate. It certainly wasn’t my hungover casting. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

When we left Yskloskey for the airport Kris said she wanted a burger but I said po’boy and at the turn on to the highway Yelp! told us that the Last Stop Grocery and Deli sold po’boys. We sat out under the awning in the Gulf breeze and listened to the insect sounds and watched the jungle green on the side of the road. It was the perfect last moment in Louisiana.  Good fried shrimp po’boys too.

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Transgender Redfish Romance

Stevenson, Charles Hugh, Report on the Coast Fisheries of Texas, Report of the Commissioner (United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries), 1889-1891. From Wikimedia Commons.

The fishiest class warfare in Texas was fought in the 80s over redfish. Redfish had gone from trash fish to prom queen, and wild redfish were depleted. The war was fought in the Texas Legislature, which has since moved on to crucial issues like transgender bathroom use. Unlike, say, global warming or education or medicaid expansion, transgender bathroom use in Texas is a big problem.  We’ll fix it though. After the legislature gets done those transgender folk will just have to cross their legs and wiggle. No more peeing for them.

The Redfish Bill was H.B. 1000, and proponents of a commercial fishing ban were portrayed as wealthy sport fishers, which in fact they kinda were. The opponents were portrayed as working class commercial fishermen who were losing their livelihood, which if that includes seafood distributers and restaurant owners they also probably were. Texas passed the Redfish Bill and banned commercial harvesting of redfish and speckled trout.  There were other reasons for the redfish decline in Texas and around the Coast:  no size and take limits, loss of habitat, and damage to water quality certainly had as much or more to do with stock declines as inshore commercial fishers. Really, what happened on the Gulf Coast in the 70s was pretty much what happened to stripers in the Chesapeake in the 70s.

Notwithstanding predictions, after passage of the Redfish Bill redfish didn’t disappear from restaurants.  Farming has boosted supply, and if anything table redfish are more popular now than ever.  My favorite way to cook redfish is on the half shell. Filet the fish but leave the scales so the skin and scales hold the filet together. Season and then throw the filets on a medium grill for 12 minutes or so.  The scales aren’t much fun if you accidentally eat one, but at their best it’s like eating the ocean, better even than oysters.

The Commerce Department finally imposed a gill net ban in federal Gulf waters in 1986 after the annual redfish harvest had risen 800% in five years. States in addition to Texas imposed reasonable size and take limits on sport fishers. Water quality and habitat also improved. It’s now a healthy fish population, and in 2015 redfish were rated of least concern on the IUCN Red List.

Redfish live inshore and near-shore, in both brackish and saltwater, and range in largish numbers south from the Chesapeake, around Florida, through the Gulf, and south into Mexico. Redfish get romantic when the water temperature hits about 65°. They spawn in deeper water, 50 to 100 feet, on incoming tides, and it’s the bulls, at least +30-inches, that move offshore to spawn. They spawn off and on for months, with a female dropping millions of eggs in a season.

Good guides won’t target spawning redfish. Bringing the fish up from deep water causes problems, they’re shallow water fish, and for meat fishers the big reds are poor quality.

Bulls, as in Bull Reds, is a generic term that covers any redfish, male or female, that’s reached 30+ inches. Apparently the lady redfish are also bulls, so I guess that makes them transgender, so the Texas Legislature should take note. After release, fertilized eggs hatch in a day or so and like tarpon the larvae are carried inshore, The fry feed first on plankton, then move on to crab and shrimp and baitfish.  Their first year they reach 14 inches.  By year four or five they’re mature. They can live longer than 30 years, and reach 70 pounds and 50 inches.

I can think of few things lovelier than a slot-sized juvenile red sitting in seagrass in clear bay water.  I must think they’re pretty because I spend so much time looking for them. I also think their elders are kinda ugly, but that’s also a problem for me as I age.

The most important thing I was ever told about redfish, other than strip-set, was don’t grab them in the mouth like bass. Reds eat crabs. Fish that eat crabs crush fingers. It’s probably wise not to stick fingers in their mouths.