Page 60 - South Mississippi Living - December, 2019

SPORTS & OUTDOORS sh on
story by Frank Wilem photos by David Kuehn and courtesy of Frank Wilem
ver the past spring and summer, the news has been buzzing with the effect of freshwater intrusion caused by
the opening of the Bonnet Carré Spillway. The spillway can dump as much as a quarter-million cubic feet of
freshwater per second into Lake Pontchartrain! That’s nearly two million gallons per second or over 100 million
gallons per minute.
And as that water flows out to sea, it decreases salinity as low as two parts per thousand. As
a result, the Mississippi oyster population was decimated,
crabs were scarce, and reports of dead dolphins and turtles were numerous. But this past year was also tough on those people along the Gulf involved in either recreational or charter fishing.
On one trip we made this past summer fishing on the east side of the Mississippi River down near Venice, we caught lots of redfish but nothing else. No white trout, no speckled trout, no other species – quite unusual in my experience.
“People would call and instead of spending five minutes discussing the details of booking a trip, I found myself spending
a half-hour assuring them that
it was safe to fish in South Mississippi waters,” said David Kuehn, a Find Your Outdoors (FYO) charter team member. “While the trout fishing off the barrier islands was the best I’ve seen in years, my business was down an average of 30 percent. Many were scared off by stories they had read about people contracting bacterial infections from our waters.”
Britt Ordes, another charter fishing team member with FYO had a similar experience. “Trout fishing bookings starting in March were way down. People called and were concerned about the safety of eating fish or seafood with the algae blooms, as well as concern over the drop in catches. I would estimate that we were down 30 to 40 percent this summer.”
60 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • December 2019 FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net
< Marcus McDavid with his catch: two tripletail.
< Marcus McDavid with a red sh.