Speaker 1: Welcome to Backwoods University, a place where we focus on wildlife,
Speaker 1: wild places and the people who dedicate their lives to
Speaker 1: conserving both. Big shout out to ONEX Hunt for their
Speaker 1: support of this podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Lake Pickle.
Speaker 1: On this episode, we're headed back down to the brackish
Speaker 1: waters of America's Amazon. That's the Gulf for any of
Speaker 1: you who may have missed that episode. Only this time
Speaker 1: we're setting sail from the Louisiana coast to take a
Speaker 1: good look into the minhaden fishing industry, or pogy boats
Speaker 1: as they're commonly known, along with the questions surrounding the
Speaker 1: amount of byecatch they bring in and the frequent conflicts
Speaker 1: they have with recreational fishermen.
Speaker 2: Let's dive into it now.
Speaker 1: I'm an Inlander, born and raised where I grew up
Speaker 1: and where I currently live. I'm anywhere from three to
Speaker 1: four hours to the missis or Louisiana coast, but still
Speaker 1: during the summer or early fall months, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things to do is head down there to catch
Speaker 1: speckled trout and redfish. Myself and often three to four
Speaker 1: friends will load up and make a long weekend out
Speaker 1: of it. Which is what you're hearing in the background here.
Speaker 1: This clip is from a trip around terry O, Louisiana
Speaker 1: with my good friends Jordan Blissit, Jimmy Primo's, my father,
Speaker 1: Bobby Pickle, and Travis Lovel with really good charters speckle trout.
Speaker 1: Fun to catch, excellent to eat. But me personally, man,
Speaker 1: I love hooking into those big bull redfish. These things
Speaker 1: will pull and fight you to the point where you'll
Speaker 1: be thinking that you have somehow managed to set your
Speaker 1: hook into a diesel truck. It's a fight and thrill
Speaker 1: that's impossible to forget. But that is just one of
Speaker 1: the many crown jewels that make the Louisiana Gulf Coast
Speaker 1: what it is. It's the people, it's the scenery, it's
Speaker 1: the smell of the air down there, and the bull
Speaker 1: trump if you're lucky. There's a reason, or really a
Speaker 1: whole lot of reasons that this place has been a
Speaker 1: sot out destination for thousands upon thousands of anglers. And
Speaker 1: the short clip that I've shared with y'all here is
Speaker 1: one of many incredible memories that I've gotten to make
Speaker 1: down there. Man, it's such a special place and an
Speaker 1: incredible resource. But now I'm gonna share with you a
Speaker 1: clip from another fishing trip. I wasn't on this one.
Speaker 1: A man named Chris Mcaluso was. And Chris had a
Speaker 1: much different experience on his fishing trip than I did.
Speaker 3: Here's Chris, Well, we got the Pogy boats out here
Speaker 3: right up against the beach.
Speaker 4: They just strung the.
Speaker 5: Per sane net which catches everything that swims, and now
Speaker 5: they're pumping the whatever they caught. Pogy's you know, men, aiden, mullet, croakers,
Speaker 5: speckled trout, white trout, redfish, whatever got caught in that
Speaker 5: net they're pumping. It'll go in the hold, into the hold,
Speaker 5: and then the big fish you're gonna get kicked off
Speaker 5: to the side, pretty much dead sharks, bull, redfish.
Speaker 4: Or jacks.
Speaker 3: And right now they're pumping the water out of the
Speaker 3: hole to make room for more men haden. And all
Speaker 3: that water that's coming out of the boat right now
Speaker 3: is just no oxygen in it at all.
Speaker 4: They're pumping it here.
Speaker 5: This water's hot, it's shallow, they're pumping it in here,
Speaker 5: and when that no oxygen water comes out in here,
Speaker 5: it's gonna kill everything there too. So just absolutely no
Speaker 5: reason for those boats to be this close to this
Speaker 5: beach well and about four feet of water at the most,
Speaker 5: and we are, I mean, they're less than one hundred
Speaker 5: yards from us right now, about the length of a
Speaker 5: football field, and we're twenty five yards off this beach,
Speaker 5: so they're less than two hundred yards from this beach,
Speaker 5: a beach that, by the way, just got restored, just
Speaker 5: got one hundred and twenty million dollars invested in it
Speaker 5: to restore it. And you can clearly see this big
Speaker 5: boat when he's under power, it's chewing up these sandbars
Speaker 5: and chewing up the surf very clearly.
Speaker 4: See that.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hear from Chris later. But before we go
Speaker 1: any further, the stage has to be set. Two different
Speaker 1: fishing trips off the Louisiana coast that they were conveying
Speaker 1: very different experiences. The biggest difference was the presence of
Speaker 1: the poggy boat operating close proximity to where Chris was
Speaker 1: trying to fish. And we're going to dive off into
Speaker 1: that subject, but before we all need to understand just
Speaker 1: exactly what these poggy boats or the min haden fishing industry,
Speaker 1: as it's more formally known actually is and heads up.
Speaker 1: If you're a visual learner like I am, you can
Speaker 1: see the video of everything I'm about to describe on
Speaker 1: the YouTube version of this episode. Let's dive in the Golf.
Speaker 1: Min Hayden perse Sane fishery has existed since the late
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds and is the largest commercial fishing in the
Speaker 1: Gulf and the second largest in the United States in
Speaker 1: terms of total landings. Landings peaked around one million metric.
Speaker 2: Tons in the nineteen eighties and has.
Speaker 1: Averaged around half a million metric tons over the last decade.
Speaker 1: Over ninety percent of that occurs off the coast of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: A Minhagen or a pogi, as the more locally called,
Speaker 1: is a small, oily fleshed fish. They're bright silver in
Speaker 1: color and have a distinct black spot right behind their
Speaker 1: gill opening. They are a flat fish with a deeply
Speaker 1: forked tail, and at full maturity they can weigh around
Speaker 1: a pound and be about fifteen inches in length, So
Speaker 1: a relatively small fish is what we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: They can be found in coastal and estuary waters and
Speaker 1: they're filter feeders, feeding primarily on plankton. They're also a
Speaker 1: very important forage fish to several other predator fish species
Speaker 1: such as redfish, kobia, dolphins.
Speaker 4: And many others.
Speaker 1: As far as the role they play for the menhaden
Speaker 1: fishing industry, well, they're the life blood of it and
Speaker 1: they're harvested for the production of fertilizers, animal feed, fish bait,
Speaker 1: fish food, and since they're a huge source of Omega
Speaker 1: three fatty acid, menhaden are also used in several human
Speaker 1: and animal supplements like fishhole pills for example. And for
Speaker 1: the record, I want to put this out early on
Speaker 1: at the front of this episode. I fully believe in
Speaker 1: telling both sides of every story, regardless of how controversial
Speaker 1: or my own personal beliefs or biases. You've reached Abram
Speaker 1: Fisheries to the operator, Please press zero.
Speaker 4: Thank you for calling it, Blue Empire. You're callings now
Speaker 4: being forwarded. Please hold good hearty.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I need to speak to the operator.
Speaker 4: Please, no one's there today as the plants off today.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: So, just for the record, I have tried to get
Speaker 1: a representative from the Menhaden fishing industry to talk to me.
Speaker 1: I've called, I've sent emails. I even sent Facebook messages
Speaker 1: and I was not told no, but I was never
Speaker 1: responded to. So if anyone from the men Haden industry
Speaker 1: is out there and wants to speak their truth on
Speaker 1: this issue.
Speaker 2: I am all ears.
Speaker 4: Get back to me.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Let's get into it. To kick this off, I'm
Speaker 1: driving straight to the source. I made a day trip
Speaker 1: out of it, and now I'm driving into grandew Louisiana,
Speaker 1: a tourist destination for Anglish.
Speaker 2: Far and wide.
Speaker 1: Wanted to come down here and experience some of the
Speaker 1: world renowned inshore fishing that this place offers. The marshy
Speaker 1: waters hug up to both sides of the road and
Speaker 1: looking out into the distance, I can see several charter
Speaker 1: fishing boats. Now to mention, driving past several folks that
Speaker 1: are trying their luck fishing off the bank. As I
Speaker 1: get into town, the roads are lined with stilt elevated
Speaker 1: buildings whose height protects them from high water incidents. This
Speaker 1: is a recreational fishing town through and through, and I'm
Speaker 1: here to meet a man who has spent his whole
Speaker 1: life not only appreciating this place, but has made his
Speaker 1: living as a charter fishing guide.
Speaker 6: My name is Keith Bergeron. I've been chartering out of
Speaker 6: Grandell for since two thousand and four, twenty one years
Speaker 6: going on twenty two. I won't be long. I've been
Speaker 6: fishing all my life. There's no white saying like Florida
Speaker 6: and Gulf Shores. It's brown saying. It's all natural beaches.
Speaker 6: The wildlife is just abundant, and the fishing is extraordinary.
Speaker 6: Anybody who's an outdoors person would come here and just
Speaker 6: fall in love with this place.
Speaker 2: So it was a passion for you, something that you
Speaker 2: love to do long before it turned into.
Speaker 6: Well, even as like a kid, I was always amazed
Speaker 6: at how somebody could fish for a living, and I
Speaker 6: always dreamed about it, I guess you could say, but
Speaker 6: never thought I could do it. And I started out
Speaker 6: hoping I could do maybe thirty trips a year, ended
Speaker 6: up doing like sixty. So the first year was just crazy.
Speaker 6: Ever since then, it just it's been booming. I got
Speaker 6: more business than I want. I gave a lot of
Speaker 6: trips away to other guides because I just wanted to
Speaker 6: builds to come here, right even if I'm not fishing them.
Speaker 6: You just want to keep the area perpetuated. Yeah, that's
Speaker 6: just if they can come here and enjoy theirselves. They'll
Speaker 6: come back and hopefully they'll call me again, and if
Speaker 6: I'm available, take them.
Speaker 1: Keith has a story and perspective that's rooted in love
Speaker 1: and appreciation for this place that he calls home, as
Speaker 1: well as countless hours spent on the water. I really
Speaker 1: think you're going to enjoy hearing it. But before we do,
Speaker 1: there's someone else y'all need to meet that shares some
Speaker 1: strong similarities with Keith.
Speaker 7: Shane Mayfield and I basically operate from portsalthat of Venice, Louisiana.
Speaker 7: I haven't been doing it full time now since ninety six,
Speaker 7: so I guess I'm coming up on thirty years. But
Speaker 7: I did it before that too, all through college, and
Speaker 7: you even a little bit when I was in high
Speaker 7: school guiding.
Speaker 2: God, yeah, how'd you get into that?
Speaker 7: Long story short? My dad, he still does, run a
Speaker 7: lodge for corporation down in Port Selfur, So that's kind
Speaker 7: of how I got into it.
Speaker 4: In high school. You know, I was working.
Speaker 7: I'd worked there in the summers and my off time,
Speaker 7: and then i'd take some of their customers help with
Speaker 7: when they had groups coming in to go fishing. And
Speaker 7: then I did that, you know. And then when I
Speaker 7: went to college, I you know, I'd come home on
Speaker 7: the weekends and fish and you know, put a little
Speaker 7: money in my pocket.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 7: And then I got out of college and I went
Speaker 7: to work for a consulting firm. I have an environmental.
Speaker 4: Degree, and I just like to fish better.
Speaker 7: So I only worked about a year and a half
Speaker 7: and then I quit my job. And I always tell
Speaker 7: my customers. When I told my mother I was gonna quit,
Speaker 7: she said, you're gonna do what I said. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 7: a guide full time. And I say, I wish you'd
Speaker 7: taken that blackground skillet and beat me upside the head
Speaker 7: with it, because I don't know what I was thinking.
Speaker 7: But all joking aside, it's been it's been good to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, see you still like it.
Speaker 7: Like I love taking people fishing. I mean, I done
Speaker 7: caught my share. If I never catch another red fish
Speaker 7: again in my life, I done caught way more than
Speaker 7: most people ever will. So you know, I just like
Speaker 7: taking people fishing. It's what I do, and I've been
Speaker 7: doing a long time.
Speaker 1: Both Keith and Shane are Louisiana natives. If their accents
Speaker 1: don't immediately give that away as well as veteran charter
Speaker 1: fishing guides, which is a valuable perspective seeing is one
Speaker 1: of the big topics in question is the significant amount
Speaker 1: of conflicts that seems to be happening between the pogy
Speaker 1: boats and charter and recreational fishermen. I want to hear
Speaker 1: some of their personal experiences with these pogy boats as
Speaker 1: well as their thoughts on them.
Speaker 6: They've always been in this area and it's only certain
Speaker 6: times of a year where the pogy really get abundant
Speaker 6: on the beach. They start schooling and they might be
Speaker 6: laying eggs. I don't know their process of polgi itself,
Speaker 6: but I know late summer, when it's hot, we see
Speaker 6: a lot more polgy boat action. They're not scared to
Speaker 6: get in there and get on the beach and disrupt
Speaker 6: the fishermen. They yeah, the pogi boats itself, they're all
Speaker 6: about catching them pogies. You know, it don't matter what
Speaker 6: it takes who they're going to mess up your fishing spot.
Speaker 6: They gone after them pogis. So it got to where
Speaker 6: they were catching so many pogies in a drag that
Speaker 6: they had a net busted on the beach right here
Speaker 6: in front of grand Isle. I don't think they were
Speaker 6: very far out, and the net when it ripped, all
Speaker 6: those dead pogies were just floating and they all washed
Speaker 6: up on the beach in grand Isle. And this is
Speaker 6: a tourist place, so the town had to deal with
Speaker 6: the stench. And I'm talking about three four feet wide,
Speaker 6: six st eight inches deep, just dead fish. So we
Speaker 6: had a bad issue here, and grand Isle ended up
Speaker 6: creating a buffer zone which was passed by law, where
Speaker 6: they had to stay away from Grandal for three at
Speaker 6: least three miles away.
Speaker 2: Gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So before that there was no buffers on. They could
Speaker 1: come in wherever they wanted to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that was pretty much free rains.
Speaker 2: How long ago did they pass their buffers on?
Speaker 6: You know, it's been about two years now, so.
Speaker 4: Not that long.
Speaker 1: No, Wow, I would have thought it had been. I
Speaker 1: was expecting to say, ten to fifteen years ago, something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 6: Now, before this, two or three years ago, they were
Speaker 6: able to come in as close as they wanted. I mean,
Speaker 6: the boats are kicking up sand. That's how shallow they get.
Speaker 6: These nets are. I'm gonna just guess and say they
Speaker 6: probably fished fifteen feet of water easy. That's how long
Speaker 6: they stretched down from the bottom to the surface. So
Speaker 6: if you're in eight six eight feet of water or less,
Speaker 6: they're catching everything in sight. Everything in that circle is
Speaker 6: being trapped in that net.
Speaker 2: It's not just pogies in and up in.
Speaker 6: No, they got speckled trout, they got flounders, redfish in order,
Speaker 6: even the bull reds, jack Reville dolphin, and they catching torporen.
Speaker 1: The first talks about making some areas restricted to menhaden
Speaker 1: fishing started up in twenty twenty three, However, there was
Speaker 1: no formal law put in place until the early part
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four. These laws established a coast wide
Speaker 1: buffer zone of one half mile and a one mile
Speaker 1: buffer zone at Grand Terry, Elmers Island and Holly Beach,
Speaker 1: as well as a three mile buffer zone at Grand Isle.
Speaker 1: These buffer zones were put in place due to several factors,
Speaker 1: most notably after eighteen separate fish spills accounting for over
Speaker 1: two point five million waist in min Hayden and at
Speaker 1: least several hundred dead breeding sized redfish. This all occurred
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three alone. Some of these filed up
Speaker 1: popular beaches and seemingly increased the number of conflicts between
Speaker 1: recreational anglers and boaters with the menhaden boats.
Speaker 2: There was also a.
Speaker 1: Significant amount of public outcry from local citizens and sportsmen
Speaker 1: about the potential damage that this method of fishing could
Speaker 1: be causing to the shallow waters, the fishery, and the habitat.
Speaker 1: I want to get Shane's take on this as well.
Speaker 6: I'll say this.
Speaker 7: So, for the first time in thirty years or thirty something,
Speaker 7: whatever it was, the LDWF they had done a stock assessment,
Speaker 7: the first they had done in a long, long, long time.
Speaker 7: And then they got the results and they said, we
Speaker 7: got a redfish problem. In other words, we don't have
Speaker 7: the numbers we'd like to see. We got to do
Speaker 7: something about it. Well, they had meetings and meetings, and
Speaker 7: it's always a slow process when you're going through that,
Speaker 7: and finally they came up and they recommended, Okay, we're
Speaker 7: going to drop it from five reds to four reds.
Speaker 7: We're going to go from sixteen to eighteen inch minimum,
Speaker 7: nothing over twenty seven inches. So that's what they did
Speaker 7: because there was a problem, right, I mean, they've taken
Speaker 7: that twenty seven inch fish like used to be. We
Speaker 7: could keep one, you know, a recreational anglers and will look,
Speaker 7: we never really did keep them. They're not good to eat,
Speaker 7: you know. If people want a trophy, I mean, back
Speaker 7: in the day, somebody might want to keep one to
Speaker 7: mount it. But now you can get a replica. You know,
Speaker 7: you measure and girth and take a picture and you
Speaker 7: can get a replica that'll last forever. Well, they cut
Speaker 7: that out, they said, okay, you can't keep anything over
Speaker 7: twenty seven inches, no more for recreational charter anglers, what
Speaker 7: have you. Well, yet the poge industry they catch I
Speaker 7: don't know. I can't say a definite number. I mean,
Speaker 7: I don't know. I'm not on those boats.
Speaker 6: I don't see.
Speaker 7: But it's incomprehensible to say that when I'm drifting through
Speaker 7: schools of men Hayden, and on a good day with
Speaker 7: three angles on the boat, we'll catch say forty to
Speaker 7: fifty of those things or more, you know, And I'm
Speaker 7: drifting in a bay boat with popping corks. But when
Speaker 7: a boat pulls up with a big persing and that's
Speaker 7: a huge school of Hayden that I know bull reds
Speaker 7: are in, there's no possible way they can't be catching
Speaker 7: them and killing them. I mean, it's just a nature
Speaker 7: of that, the way they fish. And if the recreational
Speaker 7: angler can't keep any mature redfish because it's supposed to
Speaker 7: be bad because of the chaines in the fishery, well,
Speaker 7: if they're killing as many as I know they're killing,
Speaker 7: it can't be good.
Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff from Keith and shame and believe me, we're
Speaker 1: not through hearing from these guys. I feel like we're
Speaker 1: just getting into the meat of their stories. But I
Speaker 1: feel like now is also a crucial time to kick
Speaker 1: it back over to Chris Mcaluso. You remember him from
Speaker 1: his fishing clip early in the episode with the pogy
Speaker 1: boat operating close to him. Chris is the director of
Speaker 1: the Center for Marine Fisheries and Mississippi River Program director
Speaker 1: for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. He works on conservation
Speaker 1: as well as advancing habitat restoration efforts across the Gulf
Speaker 1: and improving federal fisheries management law and policy. Chris is
Speaker 1: going to give us a more detailed view around the
Speaker 1: Menhaden fishing industry and why it's such a cause for concern,
Speaker 1: and he's going to accomplish this by telling us about
Speaker 1: a first of its kind, comprehensive study on the minhaden
Speaker 1: industry that was just published earlier this year. Quick heads up,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear the term by catch. By catch is
Speaker 1: unwanted fish or other marine creatures that get caught during
Speaker 1: commercial fishing for a different species. So, for example, a
Speaker 1: bull of redfish caught in a pogy boat net is
Speaker 1: by catch.
Speaker 2: Here's Chris.
Speaker 3: There have been studies in the past, they were not
Speaker 3: nearly as thorough as the study that was released earlier
Speaker 3: this year and was conducted in the twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: fishing season. And I think that was part of the
Speaker 3: problem is that when fishermen and I know and charterboat
Speaker 3: captains you know, were starting to call me, you know,
Speaker 3: eight ten years ago in complaining about what they were
Speaker 3: seeing from the pogy boats, and it really ramped up
Speaker 3: in the last five to six years. We just had
Speaker 3: a number of big spill. The boats were just getting
Speaker 3: closer and closer to some of these very popular fishing areas,
Speaker 3: and people were starting to shoot a lot of video
Speaker 3: of it, you know. When we would talk about it
Speaker 3: with fisheries regulators, so we would go to Wildlife Fisheries
Speaker 3: Commission or talk about it with lawmakers. The data had
Speaker 3: big gaps in it, you know, and so you could
Speaker 3: draw a lot of different conclusions about just how many
Speaker 3: fish from a by catch perspective were being killed, you know.
Speaker 3: And the number I would use was, Okay, well, they're
Speaker 3: allowed up to five percent of their total volume to
Speaker 3: be bycatch, and if they're harvesting a billion pounds of
Speaker 3: men hate in a year, well five percent of that's
Speaker 3: fifty million pounds of additional dead fish.
Speaker 4: But we didn't know those.
Speaker 3: Things for certain, Like we were just putting out the
Speaker 3: numbers that were in the previous by catch study, which
Speaker 3: had pretty big gaps in it, Like nobody had ever
Speaker 3: really estimated how many bull redfish, for instance, were being killed,
Speaker 3: how many croaker were being killed, because it was just
Speaker 3: it's too difficult for researchers or you know, biologists or
Speaker 3: fisheries managers to get down into those nets. They just
Speaker 3: didn't have the technology that it took to count all
Speaker 3: of the things that were coming onto that boat and
Speaker 3: going into the boat and the things that were being
Speaker 3: kicked back off. Nobody had taken a nearly as close
Speaker 3: a look as was taken last year during that study.
Speaker 1: Before Chris dives into the details of this study, allow
Speaker 1: me to read to you some of the numbers that
Speaker 1: came back as a result. The twenty twenty four bycatch
Speaker 1: study of the Industrial Gulf men Haden Fishery indicates the
Speaker 1: following approximately twenty two thousand breeding sized redfish, eighty one
Speaker 1: million croker, twenty five million sand trout or white trout
Speaker 1: as they're commonly known, in forty or more other species,
Speaker 1: including black drum, sea trout, cownos rays were all observed
Speaker 1: and counted in those poggy nets.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's just extraordinary when you look at some
Speaker 3: of the other numbers they I mean, you know, the
Speaker 3: redfish part is what jumps off the page because it's
Speaker 3: a game fish. Louisiana recently took action to make it
Speaker 3: illegal for recreational fishermen to harvest a bull redfish, Like
Speaker 3: you can't kill a twenty seven inch plus redfish anymore.
Speaker 3: But twenty two thousand of them were killed according to
Speaker 3: the estimate from that study by the min Eiden industry
Speaker 3: last year. You know, when I've talked to reporters about
Speaker 3: this or I've talked to lawmakers or others about it,
Speaker 3: and they say things like, well, but it's just twenty
Speaker 3: two thousand. I mean, come on, you guys thought it
Speaker 3: was a lot more than that, or the industry is
Speaker 3: downplaying that number, and you have to remind them that
Speaker 3: it is illegal for anyone else to kill those fish.
Speaker 3: It's illegal. What they're doing is illegal for everybody else,
Speaker 3: you know. And that's the point that I think can't
Speaker 3: be lost here. And the reason it's illegal is because
Speaker 3: those fish are important, because the redfish dock in Louisiana
Speaker 3: is not nearly as hell healthy as it once was,
Speaker 3: and those are the fish that are out there that
Speaker 3: have escaped our marshes, escaped the wetlands, get out into
Speaker 3: the gulf to lay eggs and make more redfish. And
Speaker 3: so that's why those fish were protected. That's why recreational
Speaker 3: fishermen in this state for the most part, said we
Speaker 3: don't want to kill those fish anymore, because we know
Speaker 3: that the recovery time to bring that species that bring
Speaker 3: that population back up to a healthy level gets cut
Speaker 3: down significantly if we stop killing the ones that are
Speaker 3: making the babies. And so what those guys are doing
Speaker 3: killing twenty two thousand buwl redfish. That's illegal for everybody else.
Speaker 3: And so that's point number one. The other thing is, though,
Speaker 3: you got to look at some of the other species
Speaker 3: that are being killed, you know, eighty one million crokers.
Speaker 3: I mean, the estimate is that literally every time those
Speaker 3: guys set a net, they're killing six thousand plus crokers.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Not only is that an important forage pace, an important
Speaker 3: part of the ecosystem, but crokers are also a fish
Speaker 3: that recreational and commercial fishermen like to catch because they're
Speaker 3: very good to eat, you know, and that could be
Speaker 3: a viable commercial target off of Louisiana's coast for commercial
Speaker 3: fishermen that don't have snapper quota or other things.
Speaker 4: They could be catching those crokers.
Speaker 3: And there has been a just a stark lack of
Speaker 3: bull crokers that folks talk about all the time now.
Speaker 3: In the sixties and seventies, when they would go offshore
Speaker 3: or they would fish lake, ponch train, et cetera, they'd
Speaker 3: catch these two pound crokers.
Speaker 4: They don't really catch them anymore, like it's a huge deal.
Speaker 3: It's almost as big a deal to catch a two
Speaker 3: and a half pound croker as it is a twenty
Speaker 3: five pound.
Speaker 4: Red snapper two and a half pound. Croakers just aren't
Speaker 4: there anymore.
Speaker 3: And maybe one of the reasons they're not there is
Speaker 3: because the poke boats are killing eighty one million of
Speaker 3: those crokers every single.
Speaker 4: Year, you know. So it was just those kind of
Speaker 4: numbers that really jump off the page.
Speaker 3: To twenty five million white trout, five and a half
Speaker 3: million white shrimp, you know, millions and millions of mullet
Speaker 3: harrying and other things that are out there. You know,
Speaker 3: that's all an important part of the ecosystem, and these
Speaker 3: things are supposedly being killed by accident, you know. And
Speaker 3: another number that not a lot of folks have talked
Speaker 3: about are made a big deal of is a two
Speaker 3: hundred and forty thousand speckl trout. Well, you know, speckel
Speaker 3: trout is one of those fish that generally doesn't get
Speaker 3: captured in nets unless it's a gild net. I mean,
Speaker 3: they're they're pretty good at getting out of trolls. They're
Speaker 3: you know, pretty good at escape and capture, you know,
Speaker 3: in these persones. But again, two hundred and forty thousand
Speaker 3: speckled trout, I would be willing to bet you that
Speaker 3: that if you took ten charter boat captains from Grand Isle,
Speaker 3: those ten charter boat captains combined in their careers may
Speaker 3: not take customers to kill two hundred and forty thousand
Speaker 3: combined speckl trout. If a charter boat captain was taking
Speaker 3: four customers to catch a limit of speckl trout, and
Speaker 3: again a limit of trout now.
Speaker 4: Per person in Louisiana's fifteen per day, it's still a
Speaker 4: lot of fish.
Speaker 3: You'd have to do that four thousand times to equal
Speaker 3: to one hundred and forty thousand spec wul trial. There's
Speaker 3: just not a lot of charter boat captains who are
Speaker 3: going to do that. I mean, that's the kind of
Speaker 3: numbers we're talking about, because that's the volume at which
Speaker 3: this vicuery operates.
Speaker 1: We know the Menhaden industry has been around for over
Speaker 1: a century, the late eighteen hundreds to be more specific.
Speaker 1: So why has the conflict around this operation seemed to
Speaker 1: have such a significant spike in these recent years.
Speaker 3: I think what has stood out to people in the
Speaker 3: last decade or so in terms of the change that
Speaker 3: people have seen in terms of their interactions with the boats,
Speaker 3: is that they went from being domestically owned companies to
Speaker 3: foreign controlled companies that didn't really take the same perspective
Speaker 3: when it came to how they approach the fishery that
Speaker 3: they had when they were domestically owned fisheries.
Speaker 4: And that's not me making this up.
Speaker 3: I mean that's reflected in some of the data that
Speaker 3: we see that in the last ten years a lot
Speaker 3: more of the harvest has come closer to shore than
Speaker 3: it used to. And then you know, hearing from fisheries
Speaker 3: regulators in Louisiana who've told me off the record on
Speaker 3: the side, you know, there was a time where if
Speaker 3: we were getting a lot of conflicts and people were
Speaker 3: complaining about dead fish or bycatch. You know, if they
Speaker 3: complained to say the Department of Wildlife Fisheries, the department
Speaker 3: would call the pokey companies and say, hey, y'all might
Speaker 3: need to back off a little bit. But those things
Speaker 3: stop happening. You know, if you're a lawmaker who's from
Speaker 3: North Louisiana, or you're you know, a member of Congress
Speaker 3: or whatever, you know, you look at commercial fisheries and
Speaker 3: you say, well, you know, these guys are operating very
Speaker 3: close to the margins and this is a small operation.
Speaker 3: That's not the case. These are not mom and pop crabbers.
Speaker 3: This is not a sole proprietor shrimp or anything like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a large industrial activity and they
Speaker 3: harvest and kill things on an industrial scale, and so you.
Speaker 4: Got to look at it like that. It's not a
Speaker 4: mom and pop shripping operation.
Speaker 3: It's a very large, internationally owned, industrial scale fishing operation.
Speaker 6: They got spot or planes that are telling these pogy
Speaker 6: boats where to go. They got planes in the air
Speaker 6: flying and they give them coordinaces. The boat goes straight
Speaker 6: to that spot. They encompass that whole area with that
Speaker 6: net and whatever's in that net. When they pulling that
Speaker 6: net in, the pogies regurgitate and they put off the
Speaker 6: slime off their skin. That's just it makes the water
Speaker 6: like a slurry. It's real thick and it's nasty. So
Speaker 6: all of these fish that are in that net with
Speaker 6: the pogies are breathing that stuff in and it's clogging
Speaker 6: up their gills and they can't get oxident and that's
Speaker 6: why they're dying. So they they have the hose with
Speaker 6: the big cage on the end that only allows smaller
Speaker 6: fish in. So when they released all the rest of
Speaker 6: the fish that are in there, they dead. This last
Speaker 6: instance we had was about two or three weeks ago.
Speaker 6: I got a call on a Monday. It said they
Speaker 6: were right there on the beach, right here in front
Speaker 6: of grand Isle. And I got another phone call from
Speaker 6: a guy on Wednesday morning because I went. I went
Speaker 6: out Wednesday morning in my boat. We went to fish
Speaker 6: Tripletail out towards the mouth of the river, and on
Speaker 6: the way back, I got a call from a guide
Speaker 6: that said grand Ale Beach has hundreds of bullreds dead
Speaker 6: on the beach. So we were coming back from the
Speaker 6: mouth of the river and I saw at least fourteen
Speaker 6: poge boats in for a baya, which is just easter
Speaker 6: here over. They were all together in this one area,
Speaker 6: so we went straight over there. So I got some
Speaker 6: pictures of some dead redfish floating. And then the Wednesday
Speaker 6: is when all of redfish were on the beach. I
Speaker 6: got pictures all that Wednesday afternoon Thursday, I got in
Speaker 6: my boat and I went to the islands east of
Speaker 6: grand Isle, which is only accessible by a boat, and
Speaker 6: I have forty pictures over there of dead bullreds. So
Speaker 6: all of those bull reds they captured in the nets
Speaker 6: on Monday were all dead and floated against the beach,
Speaker 6: and that's the only ones I could find. There was
Speaker 6: probably more than that. Redfish don't have babies until they
Speaker 6: over twenty seven inches the ones that they're killing. There
Speaker 6: wasn't one dead red fish out of the one hundred
Speaker 6: forty pictures I got that was under twenty seven inches.
Speaker 2: So they're killing all breeding SIZEA.
Speaker 6: Yes, killing all the ones having the babies, but yet
Speaker 6: they've stopped the recreational guy from keeping our catching them
Speaker 6: at all.
Speaker 8: Thank you for calling day Brook Fishery.
Speaker 3: If you know your party's extension, you may vale with
Speaker 3: at any time.
Speaker 8: Tell me the voicemail that's one after good Chown. Hey,
Speaker 8: my name is Lake. I produce a podcast called Backwoods
Speaker 8: University for the media or podcast network. I'm calling to
Speaker 8: inquire and see if someone from your organization would be
Speaker 8: open to doing a quick interview. I have a flexible
Speaker 8: schedule and I could do these interviews digitally, so please
Speaker 8: let me know if anyone from your organization be willing
Speaker 8: to talk with me, and I would love to talk
Speaker 8: with you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I'm going to put this out there again if anyone
Speaker 1: from the men hay and fishing industry is willing to
Speaker 1: share their side of this story by all means get
Speaker 1: back with me. However, I think we can all agree
Speaker 1: that everything we have heard so far is some moving information.
Speaker 1: What I'm curious about now is what do we do
Speaker 1: with it? Where do we go from here.
Speaker 7: I'll preface this by saying I don't want anybody to
Speaker 7: lose their jobs. You know, there's a lot of things
Speaker 7: we've done in wildlife and fisheries over the years that
Speaker 7: we used to do that we can't do anymore because
Speaker 7: they realize they ain't good for the environment. It ain't
Speaker 7: good for the fisheries, ain't good for the wildlight, what
Speaker 7: have you. So, I think that's kind of where we're
Speaker 7: going with this. I mean, they've outlawed it pretty much
Speaker 7: everywhere else in the country except for small way. It's
Speaker 7: not nowhere near the large scale, industrial scale they have
Speaker 7: here in Louisiana. They have a I think it's a
Speaker 7: half mile buffer zone off of Placamus Parish, which look
Speaker 7: half mile is not that far. No, let me tell
Speaker 7: you if it was three miles, we would never have conflicts.
Speaker 1: See, that's what's interesting is so, I mean I was interviewed.
Speaker 1: I interviewed a guy in grandal to day and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was just trying to get honest answers.
Speaker 1: And I said, man, if you could have a magic
Speaker 1: wand and you can, you can make the laws, you
Speaker 1: can wave magic wand what would you do. I thought
Speaker 1: he was going to say, I'd make the whole thing
Speaker 1: go away. Yeah, And he said, I just wish they'd
Speaker 1: stay at their three miles buffers on.
Speaker 6: Three miles in front of grand Isle is great. I
Speaker 6: don't know why it's not three miles all along the coasts.
Speaker 1: So you think they're there, there could potentially be a
Speaker 1: way for them to find a way for everybody can work.
Speaker 2: Like, you don't.
Speaker 1: Necessarily have to shut the poge boats down, they just
Speaker 1: need to move out further.
Speaker 2: Is that what you're saying.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't have a problem when the pogie boats
Speaker 6: work and just not killing everything inside, right, and they
Speaker 6: and they're probably still going to have have some by
Speaker 6: catch being that for out, but at least it's not
Speaker 6: on the beach where they're killing all the spectacled trout,
Speaker 6: the croakers, all the smaller fish that can't go out
Speaker 6: in that deep water because they're gonna get eaten. They
Speaker 6: on that beach because that's their protection and that's where
Speaker 6: they thrive at. So yeah, if the pogi boats were
Speaker 6: further out, and I know what they're gonna say, the
Speaker 6: polgive industry is gonna say, they can't catch nothing out
Speaker 6: that far. I don't know what else to tell you.
Speaker 6: We're the only state that allows this practice to continue.
Speaker 7: If you push them out further, you would never have
Speaker 7: that conflict because I'm gonna tell you, we don't never
Speaker 7: drift out three miles, right, never, never, never, never. Now
Speaker 7: how it impacts their fishery, I mean, I can't say that.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know, but I do know if they were
Speaker 7: outside of three miles, they are off a grand isle,
Speaker 7: this would be a moot point. Now they ain't gonna
Speaker 7: be good enough for some people, But you know what,
Speaker 7: I'm willing to give something, yeah, or they willing to
Speaker 7: give something.
Speaker 4: Compromise, Yeah, compromise.
Speaker 1: I just man, I feel like and this is I
Speaker 1: haven't been able to talk to anybody on the men
Speaker 1: Haden fishery side. I honestly just for the just for
Speaker 1: the sake of having a balanced journalism, I would try
Speaker 1: to talk to one of them, but I haven't been
Speaker 1: able to do that. But everything that I'm pointing to
Speaker 1: that that I can gather it points to this needs
Speaker 1: to be looked at just from a ecological standpoint and
Speaker 1: for the health of the fishery. It's like it seems
Speaker 1: to be folks need to take a closer look at this.
Speaker 1: And two, understand the men and haden industry. I understand
Speaker 1: there's jobs there. Understand that. Yeah, also understand how much
Speaker 1: tourism dollars and big the businesses for charter guide service.
Speaker 7: Well okay, and not to cut you off, but that
Speaker 7: is therein lies a big problem because look, you know,
Speaker 7: the commercial fishing has always butted heads with recreational that
Speaker 7: is wherever you go, you know, and look, there's there's
Speaker 7: sometimes as a disconnect. You know, people don't don't realize that,
Speaker 7: you know that what's what's going on out there is
Speaker 7: that they don't see it. Most of my people from
Speaker 7: out of town, so not only did they pay my
Speaker 7: rate that I charge, but they're staying at a bed
Speaker 7: and breakfast and right the import selfer, you know, they're
Speaker 7: traveling through. We stopped at the local grocery store because
Speaker 7: they needed to get something. We came back from fishing.
Speaker 7: They went, they lunch yesterday when they got in earliest
Speaker 7: that when they lunch at the small restaurant, right the
Speaker 7: import selfer. So it's not only my fee, my rate
Speaker 7: I'm charging per day, but it's the lodges, it's the stores,
Speaker 7: and we're bringing all these people in. What how much
Speaker 7: are the men Hagen boats? How many people are coming
Speaker 7: in on the men Who's day? None of those guys
Speaker 7: are coming in and stay ain't at lodges and all that. Yeah,
Speaker 7: you know, the boats are buying food maybe from a
Speaker 7: local vendor. But as far as people actually come in
Speaker 7: and going down those guys going to Venice Marina or
Speaker 7: going to Cypruss Cove or going to the you know
Speaker 7: this lodge or that lord, they ain't doing that. And
Speaker 7: our guys are that. You know, we're a small parish.
Speaker 7: We don't have the oil industry like we used to have,
Speaker 7: commercial fishing, edting like it used to be. So you know,
Speaker 7: they pay property taxes and I mean so you know
Speaker 7: they've been around, They've been around a long time, so
Speaker 7: people want to protect it.
Speaker 4: And I get that. I get that, Like I said, I.
Speaker 7: Don't want anybody to lose their job, But I say,
Speaker 7: what about me? I mean, what about what I do?
Speaker 7: What about people coming from all over the country. I'd
Speaker 7: say ninety percent of my people are coming from the
Speaker 7: way out. It's an economic impact that I'm going to
Speaker 7: tell you. If you didn't have that for a lot
Speaker 7: of these small coastal communities, they wouldn't be It'd be
Speaker 7: a ghost.
Speaker 8: Have that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's a lot about the character of
Speaker 1: these men that the solution that they're seeking here is
Speaker 1: really just an even playing field for both sides. I
Speaker 1: mean really, after the stories that they share, and honestly,
Speaker 1: some of them didn't even make it endo the episode
Speaker 1: due to time constraints, I thought for sure that they
Speaker 1: would be wanting to put an end to menhaden fishing outright,
Speaker 1: But they didn't. They recognized that this industry is how
Speaker 1: some folks make their living and support their families. They
Speaker 1: realize that this industry has an economic impact. I'm going
Speaker 1: to share my own opinion here, but based off of
Speaker 1: the information that I have right now, I think that
Speaker 1: what these guys are asking for is reasonable. They want
Speaker 1: to take a closer look at the fishing industry, the methods,
Speaker 1: the bycatch, the conflict between recreational and charter fishermen. Is
Speaker 1: there a way that they can find more common ground.
Speaker 1: Is there ways to continue harvesting men haden and it
Speaker 1: be more sustainable with less bycatch and less harm done
Speaker 1: to the habitat. These questions are not outlandish, and I
Speaker 1: think worth being asked, and more importantly, I think they're
Speaker 1: worth finding an answer to.
Speaker 3: We really weren't ever pushing or haven't ever been pushing
Speaker 3: to eliminate the men hate in the industry. But what
Speaker 3: we wanted to do was find a way that they
Speaker 3: can continue to operate, but to protect some of those
Speaker 3: more sensitive habitats that we knew were being damaged by
Speaker 3: those nets and by those boats making contact with the
Speaker 3: water bottom and getting, you know, very very close to
Speaker 3: our beaches. I mean, I've seen pokey boats setting nets
Speaker 3: in water that was four and a half to five
Speaker 3: feet deep. You know, these boats draft ten feet at
Speaker 3: least nine feet maybe at a minimum when they're empty,
Speaker 3: which means I have watched them plow through the water bottom.
Speaker 3: You know, I've watched them dig up the sand and
Speaker 3: dig up the sandbars to get the boat into where
Speaker 3: they were harvesting the fish. And I know that that
Speaker 3: persane is making an enormous amount of contact on that
Speaker 3: water bottom. I see the amount of sediment that's being
Speaker 3: stirred up. And the fact is there's not a biologist
Speaker 3: who would argue against this, but that you know, the
Speaker 3: majority of your biomass, you know, in a coastal situation,
Speaker 3: happens in that area that's within a mile or two
Speaker 3: of the beach. That's just where most of your species
Speaker 3: are going to be. You know, there was a conservation
Speaker 3: element to moving the boats into a little bit deeper water,
Speaker 3: and it was that by not having those nets all
Speaker 3: over the bottom of the water, you were going to
Speaker 3: reduce potentially the volume of bycatch, but also reduce the
Speaker 3: number of species that were being impacted, and you were
Speaker 3: going to keep that water bottom more intact. And this
Speaker 3: is something I think we've seen born out in that
Speaker 3: by catch study. You know, as you move into deeper water,
Speaker 3: the number of species impacted go down, the volume of
Speaker 3: bycatch goes down, and so there is a conservation value
Speaker 3: to moving those boats into deeper water. You know, it'd
Speaker 3: be nice for them to make some concessions here and there,
Speaker 3: that a little bit of conservation goes a long way,
Speaker 3: not just from a public relations perspective, but just from
Speaker 3: the value of our resource. You know, Let's say you
Speaker 3: went to the Prairie Pothole region, right and you told
Speaker 3: the duck hunters up there that there was this industry
Speaker 3: that was going to employ a few hundred people. It
Speaker 3: was going to have some economic impact on the communities,
Speaker 3: it was going.
Speaker 4: To provide some jobs.
Speaker 3: The trade off there is going to be we're going
Speaker 3: to have to kill thirty thousand specklebelly geese, about two
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand blueing teal and mallards, and about
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand mourning doves or a hundred million mourning doves.
Speaker 3: You guys cool with that? Nobody would be cool with that.
Speaker 3: Nobody would be cool with that, and no politician would
Speaker 3: back that, you know, nobody would put their name to that.
Speaker 3: And yet that's in essence what's happening here. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's sort of the level that we're dealing with. I mean,
Speaker 3: red fish in Louisiana or a game fish.
Speaker 4: And the bottom.
Speaker 3: Line is it's not okay for those guys to be
Speaker 3: killing those fish. It's not because it's not okay for
Speaker 3: anybody else to be killing them.
Speaker 7: I wish I had more education on the actual industry itself,
Speaker 7: as far as you know why going out deeper would
Speaker 7: affect their profit margin or.
Speaker 4: What would it? What would it? What would it?
Speaker 7: What would them being out three miles statewide due to
Speaker 7: their bottom line or their business? And I'm sure when
Speaker 7: people on the other side are listening to this, they're
Speaker 7: gonna be saying, yeah, you don't know, you don't know. No,
Speaker 7: I don't, but tell me and let me know. But still,
Speaker 7: can we meet? Can you know, let's let's find a
Speaker 7: let's find a meeting place. I would say, hey, if
Speaker 7: you see boats over there, just don't go buy them.
Speaker 7: What I'm doing is sustainable, yeah, because I ain't keeping nothing.
Speaker 7: I'm throwing them all back. Does a fish die and
Speaker 7: every now and then maybe, but I mean we we
Speaker 7: fight them, we unhook them, you know, every now and
Speaker 7: then you might have one that's hooked.
Speaker 4: Deep it bleeds a little bit, but that is like
Speaker 4: very rare, rare, you know.
Speaker 7: So I can say without a shadow doubt that what
Speaker 7: I'm doing is sustainable and it can and if you
Speaker 7: protect the fishery, what I'm doing. You can do this forever.
Speaker 7: You know, if you keep on keeping on the way,
Speaker 7: we're losing habitat. Eventually all that large scale industrial fishing
Speaker 7: that's gonna be done.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing. For my separate conversations with Keith,
Speaker 1: Shane and Chris, all of them have an undeniable appreciation
Speaker 1: for the Louisiana coast. It comes from a place of
Speaker 1: authenticity and I respect it.
Speaker 2: It's impossible not to.
Speaker 1: Before we wrap this up, I want to hear some
Speaker 1: final thoughts from both Chris and Keith about what they
Speaker 1: think and hope for the future of the Menhaden fishing industry.
Speaker 3: You know, my primary focus at TRCP has always been habitat,
Speaker 3: habitat restoration and the Mississippi River basin, especially focused in Louisiana,
Speaker 3: and it's a top two to three priority for our
Speaker 3: center in particular, and it's a priority for our board
Speaker 3: and for the organization, and it will continue to be
Speaker 3: because I think there is a path. It's difficult to
Speaker 3: see it right now, but there is a path to
Speaker 3: not only better conservation in the Atlantic Basin when it
Speaker 3: comes to men Ain't fishing, but also in the Gulf.
Speaker 6: I'm opening as many eyes as I can to this
Speaker 6: right now. I'm hoping that something gets done. I mean,
Speaker 6: that's all I can do is try. If I don't
Speaker 6: succeed doing this, I'm just gonna throw my hands up
Speaker 6: and say we can't do nothing about it. You know,
Speaker 6: that's all you can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I hope something does change.
Speaker 6: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 2: For every probably I'll say.
Speaker 6: It's not me. It's not about me. It's about the
Speaker 6: kids coming up, you know, families coming down here to
Speaker 6: enjoy ourselves and catch fish. In the future, I'll be
Speaker 6: long gone. People will still be fishing. Yeah, and if
Speaker 6: you keep wiping them out, then I will be here.
Speaker 1: Regardless of where you fall on this issue, Hopefully we
Speaker 1: can all agree on wanting a healthy and sustainable fishery
Speaker 1: and coastal habitat in the future. The question is how
Speaker 1: do we get there? What do y'all think. If there's
Speaker 1: one thing I am confident in, it's that we should
Speaker 1: never be afraid to ask questions. I want to thank
Speaker 1: all of you for listening to Backwoods University as well
Speaker 1: as Bear Grease and this country life. I mean, really,
Speaker 1: the warm welcome that all of you have given me
Speaker 1: to this bear grease podcast. Feed means a whole lot
Speaker 1: and I appreciate it. And hey, if you liked this episode,
Speaker 1: share it with either the worst or best angler you
Speaker 1: have in your contact list. Only don't tell them what
Speaker 1: you that's one they are.
Speaker 2: Leave them guessing.
Speaker 1: And also be sure to check out Blood Trails, the
Speaker 1: newest podcast addition to the Meat Eater Network. This is
Speaker 1: the true crime genre and hunting and fishing world Colliding,
Speaker 1: hosted by writer and journalist Jordan Sillers. You will hear
Speaker 1: everything from missing hunters, poachers turned killers, and fishing trips
Speaker 1: gone fatally wrong. It is a fascinating podcast that you
Speaker 1: will not want to miss in the first episode premiere's Thursday,
Speaker 1: October thirtieth. Be sure to check that out and subscribe
Speaker 1: to it so that you'll be notified when the first
Speaker 1: episode drops. I'm telling you this is gonna be good.
Speaker 1: And stick around here because if this podcast was an
Speaker 1: inshore fishing trip, we haven't even made it out of
Speaker 1: the no wake zone yet. We're just getting started. There's
Speaker 1: a whole lot more on the way.