Tagged: fishing

Gulf of Mexico fishing boats hauled in far more menhaden last year than in 2010. Catches of some other important species were above pre-spill levels in some Gulf Coast states. But a federal official says it's too early to rule out long-term effects from the spill.

A national report released Wednesday says the Gulf's menhaden catch last year was nearly 66 percent above that in 2010. Other species also showed increases.

Roy Crabtree of NOAA Fisheries says that's guardedly good news. But he says it's probably too soon to tell whether the spill killed eggs and immature fish.

The state fisheries department is hosting a free fishing rodeo to teach people how to catch the Rio Grande cichlid, an invasive species of fish.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is hosting the rodeo on Sept. 29 in City Park in New Orleans.

The cichlid fish out-compete native sport fish for habitat and bedding areas. The fish are from northeast Mexico and southern Texas. They were first reported in Louisiana in 1996 in Lake Pontchartrain and since then have spread throughout the New Orleans area.

Have you noticed how fish collars are working their way onto local restaurant menus? Asian cooks have long featured fish scraps and, with with the snout-to-tail phenomena working its way through the species, we’re beginning to see new offerings.

But what exactly are fish collars? Well, when fillets are cut, you’re left with tail and the skeleton holding up bits of fatty meat. These trickier parts of the fish are cheaper than the highly coveted fillets, but they usually wind up on cutting room floors.

Fishermen in the Henderson area said their hoop nets were falling victim to alligator overpopulation. The gators were finding easy prey in the fishermen's catch.

U.S. Sen. David Vitter says that after Henderson Mayor Sherbin Collette explained the problem at a July town hall meeting in St. Martin Parish, he asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to check.

He says the corps found too many gators on some of its land and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries increased the number that could be killed there next year.