Gentlemen. I read an article in the Morning Advocate this morning about the legislature going after dedicated funds to solve the Louisiana budget problem.
http://theadvocate.com/news/14957126-123/lawmakers-eye-efforts-to-free-up-statutory-dedications
Here is a quote from that article:
'Statutory dedications include money for marketing and tourism efforts, improvements to state parks, agriculture research in specialized areas and wildlife conservation efforts, among other special interests.'
If you don't feel like you are a 'special interest' group and don't want to see your hunting, fishing and boat registration fees going to the general budget to pay for things that have nothing to do with conserving the fish and wildlife of the 'Sportsman's Paradise', you better write your Senators and Representatives and tell them.
It took many years to get the legislature to protect hunting and fishing license fees from past governors that raided those funds to pay for free programs for useless eaters and, if that protection is removed now, your hunting or fishing license money may go to pay for free medical treatment, free food and free housing for useless eaters. If you want the giant salvinia killed in your lakes and bayous, Florida largemouth bass stocked in your lakes, game and fishing laws enforced or other things like that then you need to write your legislators.
If you don't care about having any of this done and want your fishing license money going to the general fund then don't do anything about it.
See this video about lifting bass by the jaw for pictures and whatever.
News article from the Daily Iberian on possible bass tournament cheating.
http://www.iberianet.com/opinion/columnists/apparent-cheating-scandal-averted-in-fishing-contest/article_cea9be82-a74b-11e3-88de-0019bb2963f4.html
I think there is a problem with typing reports on here. Some reports have ummmmm in them a lot. At the beginning of paragraphs and sometimes at random in the report body. Is this a website problem?
bsalyers@wlf.la.gov
Learn how to use this website.
http://sonris-www.dnr.state.la.us/gis/agsweb/IE/JSViewer/index.html?TemplateID=381
This is probably the closest thing to bathymetry in the basin that you will find.
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/Missions/Engineering/GeospatialSection/ARHB_2006/ARHB_2006_PDF.aspx
Or, you can go to the DNR Atchafalaya Basin site and learn to use the interactive map there. It allows you to fill the basin with water at different levels and gives a perspective of what floods as the water rises.
http://sonris-www.dnr.state.la.us/Basin/bsindex.html
DNR used to have an interactive map that had lidar images of the elevation of the land in the Basin and a tool that showed where the water would be at different elevations. It was called NRIAS. I don't see it anymore on the website.
Right after spawn bass, and other fish, begin using energy to develop the egg mass for the next spawn. It takes a lot of energy to develop an egg mass of a few thousand ripe eggs and that takes more than a few months to happen. Near to spawning time the egg mass is apparent externally as it is becoming quite large and extends the belly of the fish as the eggs grow larger and larger.
Bass spawn is temperature dependent and occurs somewhere between 68 and 75 degrees F. It is also dependent on the daylength. In a hatchery, you can manipulate the water temperature to induce a bass to spawn earlier than bass in natural waters but only to a certain extent. If the daylength is too short they will not spawn. So a bass in a hatchery can be induced to spawn earlier than a bass in a natural body of water but they cannot be induced to spawn months earlier.
Bass in natural bodies of water will spawn in stages of temperature in the early spring and spring depending on what type of water they live in. That's why you will normally see bass in the marsh spawning very early, followed by bass in ponds, then rivers and the swamps of rivers, then natural lakes that have shallow water and last in reservoirs with deep, cold water that takes a long time to warm up.
Even in large reservoirs the spawn can be different between the north end of the reservoir where there is more shallow water and the south end of the reservoir where there is more deep water. In this case the time spawn can be different by as much as two weeks.
http://www.americansportfish.com/
That's a great buck. Congratulations. You're going to have to swipe your debit card again to get it mounted.
Deer dogs trespassing on my lease.
Spotted bass (Micropterus punctulatus). They exist in good numbers in the Atchafalaya Basin in flowing turbid water.
It is illegal to spear choupique.
The only fish that can be legally taken with a spear is a gar.
Bumper crop last year where I hunt. None this year. Usually they produce every other year. Seeing many water oak and red oak acorns.
http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/wildlife-reporting/mountain-lion-reports/mountain-lion-signs
Thanks for sharing that information. I appreciate it.
Great catch.
If you don't mind sharing, what was the best bait and how deep did you find them?
Try here:
http://southwesternparts.com/
Was going to say a goby but, unless you are holding it out away from you, it looks too big for most goby sizes.
Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like an oyster toadfish.
Could be a Silver perch ( Bairdiella chrysoura ). Not positive about that though.
Back when LDWF changed the deer dates in Area 3 to move Archery into September, primitive to first week in October and rifles to mid-October to give rifle hunters the benefit of the mid-October hunt, I looked at the rut data they were using and asked the biologist in Opelousas why they couldn't change the dates in Area 6 to coincide with the rut. Move the archery to November 1, primitive arms to December 1 and rifle to mid December until mid January and let Archery last until Feb. 28.
He said 'We've never done that before.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymothoa_exigua
See link.
Not a baby snake. It is a full grown brown snake.
http://www.wlf.louisiana.gov/resource/snakes-louisiana