Louisiana's redfish limits changing for first time in decades. Here are the new rules.

Louisiana's first change to recreational catch limits on redfish since the 1980s will take effect in a couple weeks, Wildlife and Fisheries officials announced Friday, as the state seeks to address a sharp decline in numbers in the highly sought after species.

The change is another sign of the state’s land loss crisis, with the disappearance of marsh habitat along Louisiana’s coast one of the main causes for the decline of both redfish and speckled trout. Limits were also recently decreased for trout after an arduous, four-year debate over what is by far the state’s most popular saltwater fish.

Proposals to change redfish regulations drew heated arguments as well, stretching back a couple years. A comprehensive assessment released in December 2022 found that redfish, officially known as red drum, were on their way to being overfished.

The data showed that the number of 1-year-old redfish inshore had dropped to the lowest level ever seen by the state’s biologists. It also found that the percentage of redfish making it offshore to spawn -- known as the escapement rate -- was only 20% percent, well below the 30% federal standard, said Chris Schieble, director of marine fisheries for the state.

Numbers of redfish caught in 2021 were at the lowest since the 1980s, state data shows.

'Nothing like it used to be'

The regulations taking effect on June 20 are the first such changes since 1988. There is no longer commercial fishing for redfish in Louisiana – a result of plummeting numbers in the 1980s, when the Paul Prudhomme blackened redfish craze took off, though the decline then is said to have begun even prior to that.

The changes include:

• A limit of four fish per day per angler, compared to the current five
• Minimum size of 18 inches, compared to 16 inches currently
• Maximum size of 27 inches. That remains the same, but the current allowance of one over that size will be eliminated
• Charter captains and crews on for-hire trips will not be allowed to keep redfish

The proposed changes had brought intense debate among anglers, scientists and conservationists. The decline is the result of myriad factors, ranging from disappearing habitat to too many redfish being caught, among others.

Todd Masson, who has fished southeast Louisiana for nearly 50 years and hosts the popular Marsh Man Masson YouTube channel, has long sounded the alarm over plummeting redfish numbers. He said he felt the reductions should go even further, but that he understood the careful balance the state had to achieve in changing limits.

“Fisheries management obviously is as political as it is biological, and by that I mean you've got to bring the constituency along in steps,” said Masson. “If we did what was biologically prudent, it may not be politically popular. In fact, certainly in this case, it would not be.”

Masson, rebutting comments from charter captains who say no change is needed, said both anecdotal and scientific data show the problem: “The fishery is nothing, nothing, nothing like it used to be. It's a pale shadow of its former self.”

Ron Price, a fishing guide out of Venice, is among those who dispute the changes. He and others point to their experience on the water and warn that new limits on both trout and redfish will badly hurt their charter businesses.

Louisiana has had looser limits than other Gulf Coast states on both species, a draw for out-of-state anglers.

“Every guide down there right now in Venice, for example, will tell you: ‘We're catching as many redfish that I’ve caught my entire career’,” said Price, who runs Fish Intimidator guide service. “That's a pretty good indicator, when you have 100 guides go out, and every fishing guide will tell you they're not seeing a reduction in catches.”

'Wild fluctuations'

The stark difference in opinion was evident throughout the process of changing the rules.

When the 2022 assessment was presented to the state’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, biologists said a 35% reduction in catch was needed. They presented various options, and the changes now taking effect were eventually approved by the commission after a number of fits and starts.

The redfish population has been on a roller coaster ride in Louisiana. Numbers began to climb again with the ban on commercial fishing in 1988, but in recent years redfish have been in sharp decline, state data shows.

Anglers and scientists say several years of high rivers, which included record openings of the Bonnet Carre Spillway in 2019, likely had some effect on the redfish population. But assessments must go beyond those short-term effects since high rivers will come and go, Schieble and others note.

That is especially the case with redfish since they live long lives, potentially up to around 40 years old. The state is moving to ban fish over 27 inches from being kept because those are the ones that have reached spawning age. Such bull reds are often released anyway since they are not as tasty to eat as smaller redfish.

“That's why we do stock assessments at a minimum of five years,” said Schieble. “You don't want to do them annually because it's just going to show those wild fluctuations. You need more of a timespan to get a better assessment of what the stock is doing.”

Schieble notes that the limits could potentially be put back to the way they were if stocks rebound in the future.