A native son plus beaucoup other saltwater fishermen across the state could get an early Easter present later this week when the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meets in Baton Rouge.

Dr. Eric Elias of Lafayette, who was born and raised in New Iberia, can’t wait for those late afternoons when the sun sets on the Gulf of Mexico while he enjoys the company of family and friends aboard the family’s Megalodon, a 45-foot long Hatteras, on a red snapper fishing trip out of Cypremort Point.

Those outings might be even more special if commissioners decide in favor of a larger creel limit and three- or four-day weekends-only for the red snapper season in 2024.

LWFC members are scheduled to review a summary of the 2023 recreational red snapper harvest, then consider setting season dates for the 2024 season, during its regular meeting March 7 at 9:30 a.m. at Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries headquarters in Baton Rouge. Jason Adriance, LDWF’s marine fisheries biologist, is submitting the summary.

Contact CCA-Louisiana members and LWFC commissioners this week and urge them to raise the recreational red snapper creel limit from three fish to four fish and to set the season with three-day weekends with the exception of four-day weekends on the big holidays still to come, Memorial Day Weekend, Fourth of July Weekend and Labor Day Weekend.

According to a reliable source, Patrick Banks, a respected veteran marine biologist and longtime LDWF official, recently indicated the state department will recommend a four-snapper per person daily creel limit as well as open the season in mid-April. It has opened on Memorial Day Weekend the past few years after opening May 24 in 2019, May 22 in 2020 and May 29 in 2021.

Cue that popular Snoopy dancing happily meme if this state’s many ardent offshore fishermen and skippers, including those who hail from Acadiana, get the chance to enjoy a four-fish limit.

Elias certainly would relish the opportunity for him and everyone aboard the Megalodon to each keeper four red snapper. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago there was a two-fish creel limit when the red snapper season opened in ’21.

The 46-year-old New Iberia native and Catholic High School graduate would be in heaven on earth if that four-fish red snapper limit happens.

“If people can get a few more fish … I think it’s a wonderful idea. Four fish per person makes it a little sweeter,” Elias said March 3 while taking a break from mowing and weed-eating his lawn.

He welcomes the three-day and four-day weekends idea as opposed to being open seven days a week. He emphasized most offshore anglers must work weekdays.

“I think weekends would be very nice,” he said.

Elias and other proponents of the weekends-only season note the state’s recreational harvest quota hasn’t been reached before the end of the season the past few years. They also realize many offshore boats cease targeting red snapper before September, perhaps going for the last time on Labor Day Weekend, because of college football games, high school and other youth sports as well as dove seasons and the special teal seasons each September, which kick off the hunting mode before small game, big game and duck hunting seasons get underway in October and/or November.

An obstetrics and gynecologist specialist 14 years, Elias also said starting the red snapper season in mid-April would be lagniappe because offshore fishermen also could tap the wahoo when those fantastic tasting fish are shallower in the cooler water during early spring. Weather and water conditions permitting, the all-around outdoorsman envisions bringing back a load of fish.

He caught his first red snapper while he was in the first grade while fishing aboard his father’s 35-foot long Bertram, aptly named Snapper Tapper, at Vermilion Block 149. After catching three or four of the tasty fish, however, the young boy succumbed to seasickness but he never lost his passion for red snapper fishing.

Elias still recalls the exact rod and reel combination that helped him land his first red snapper. It was an Ambassadeur 7000 seated on a yellow Bell’s Sporting Goods fishing rod.

“I still remember it like yesterday,” he said.

Now he and his brother, Dr. Darryl Elias Jr. of Lafayette, formerly of New Iberia, are the veteran skippers who love to take their father, Dr. Darryl Elias Sr. of New Iberia, who’s equally passionate about offshore fishing, sac-a-lait fishing and duck hunting, and their friends out on the high seas to target the red snapper population.

He graded last season’s red snapper haul on the Megalodon as “very good.”

However, red snapper fishing success did get “tougher and tougher as the summer went on” because most of the closer structures were fished pretty hard by then.

Still, he said, there is and never has been a shortage of red snapper” in this region of the Gulf of Mexico.

“I’ve never had a bad year red snapper fishing in my life,” he said.

Red snapper, grouper and amberjack are plentiful still but there are fewer king mackerel and lemonfish (also known as ling and cobia) in the Gulf, according to Elias.

The Eliases, et al, are crossing their fingers they can get that extra red snapper in their creel limit. Stay tuned.

DON SHOOPMAN is outdoors editor of The Daily Iberian.