After each of the Southcentral Fishing Association’s five regular-season tournaments in 2022, as fishermen talked about their day, many agreed publicly and privately something was wrong.

Redfish fishing was slow, the redfish were scattered and most of the time were absent from their usual haunts. Those complaints from some of Acadiana’s top redfish fishermen raised a red flag in and around Vermilion Bay.

Apparently, the talk was widespread elsewhere along Louisiana’s Gulf Coast. Todd Masson, former editor of the Louisiana Sportsman who’s known as Marsh Man Masson, a highly respected saltwater angler, posted a video Aug. 19 and wrote a story published the same day in The Hayride declaring a problem within the redfish population across coastal Louisiana. He also called for a lower daily creel limit on redfish, a gamefish.

It isn’t just him, Masson emphasized. He has a network of anglers amassed over the course of three decades who share information with him daily and weekly and they, too, are aghast at what they say is the sorry shape of the popular fisheries.

Masson said he noticed a dropoff two years ago, particularly one two-month period over the winter when he fished hard twice a week without catching a single redfish. Usually, he wrote, it’s a slam dunk to catch them then.

Responses from his buddies were mixed, he reported. That was then and this is now: One year later nearly every angler he knows is in agreement: Redfish are either disappearing or gone.

For example, he wrote, one angler runs a lodge with multiple fishing guides who target redfish almost exclusively and very competently. On one day the week before he wrote the story, three of them returned from trips without catching a redfish.

He challenged the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries to do something about it before the redfish stock goes down the toilet. LDWF has responded and, to no one’s surprise, beaucoup recreational redfish fishermen are unhappy with the response.

Jason Adriance, the state agency’s marine fisheries biologist, spoke at the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting Dec. 1. He warned the redfish stock is being depleted and blamed overfishing.

While Adriance didn’t address other reasons, such as unhindered pogie fishing along out state’s beaches, disappearing habitat and, as some recreationals blame, nighttime bowfishing for redfish, he did say the problem “requires management,” i.e. a change in harvest regulations.

Many recreational redfish fishermen are aligned against another user group, bowfishermen, particularly in St. Bernard Parish. Just as many point the finger at menhaden nets and, perhaps, deservedly so.

Others who just don’t trust the science say marine biologists don’t account for habitat change and sample the same area decade after decade. One angler in this group has said the state department is more concerned about managing people than fish.

Masson wrote Sept. 9 in Saltwater Sportsman: “Obviously, any activity that takes redfish, or their forage base, out of the system is a contributing factor, and Louisiana certainly needs better data on impacts from the menhaden and bowfishing industries, but an easy change to begin addressing the problem is a reduction in the recreational harvest. …

“In the local culture, eating fish is as significant a part of the fun as catching them. That means most anglers put every single legal redfish they catch in the box. … So, an angler who catches five reds is going home with five reds.

“That was all fine when a redfish removed today simply made room in the ecosystem for the next one. Louisiana’s abundant marsh was literally that productive. But those days are gone, and they’re never coming back. It’s time for the state’s fisheries managers to acknowledge the decline that has become so obvious to anglers, and tighten the harvest limits.”

Where do you stand on the issue?

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.