-
I’d put blame on the dead shrimp charter guides, bow fishermen and the rise of sight fishing.
Used to, as a fishing guide east of the river, you never solely targeted redfish. If you did, you were seen as being a pussy. Speckled trout came first, redfish second. Even in July, you had better be making the run to Breton Sound at butt o’clock to catch them trout and, if you didn’t, it was because the wind was blowing 20mph and you had to stay “inside” to catch reds.
Redfish were always a Plan B to speckled trout.
Then some wiseguy figured out how he could take charters out just to catch redfish. No more early wakeups, no more cleaning 100 trout, no more keeping shrimp alive. The argument: iT’s bUsiNesS sMaRt.
I’m sure this guy thought he was so slick. This happened the same time the explosion of “fishing guides” occurred, when the masses realized you really only need a room-temperature IQ and clean piss test to become a “captain”. Literally the same people who use heading-up on their graphs and have no idea where north is, have a second job doing something else or guide as a “lifestyle”, change their Facebook name to “captain” and are never to be found at LWF Commission meetings: they’re a drain on the resource.
Then about 15 years ago sight fishing became popular. When I was a kid, the idea of seeing a redfish and casting to it was virtually unheard of. You pretty much only threw shrimp under a cork or gold spoons to them. Today you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a boat with a stand on it. So now there’s another way redfish are being solely targeted (and not released). I don’t need to explain bow fishing.
Anyway. Slot reds don’t leave the marsh. They are there year-round to get hammered on by these troglodyte simpletons. They did this for years and cannot put two and two together to figure out why there were so many fish under 16 inches (now 18) and over 27 inches, but nothing in between.
Is it because “porpoises” only eat redfish in the slot?
Is it because pogey boats only net bycatch redfish in the slot?
Is it because land loss only kills redfish in the slot?
Is it because river water only kills redfish in the slot?
What exclusively kills redfish in the slot? Hmmmmm.
On top of being in the marsh year round, it takes redfish some 4-5 years to reach maturity. This is very different from speckled trout, that only need a year, maybe less. So, that’s why I put slots back in the water. I do not keep slot redfish.
We did not drop the redfish limit enough.
