CCA Louisiana, RFRI and LDWF released more than 150,000 hatchery-raised red drum into Calcasieu Lake, the Rigolets and Grand Isle, with funding support from Cameron LNG and Sempra Infrastructure.
A red drum egg is about a millimeter across. Inside is a single droplet of oil that keeps it buoyant, riding near the surface where currents can carry it toward the estuary. It hatches in roughly a day.
What comes out is smaller than a grain of rice and cannot feed itself. For two to three days it lives entirely off its yolk sac. By 48 to 72 hours it has eyes and mouth parts, but no scales, no developed fins, and a digestive tract that is not yet finished. By day three the yolk is gone and it has to find food on its own, in open water, while currents carry it toward nursery habitat it has never seen.
The vast majority never make it.
That is not a flaw in the system. That IS the system. A single female red drum can release more than a million eggs in one spawning event, and spawn repeatedly across a season, precisely because the odds against any individual egg are so long.
For years, CCA Louisiana and the Recreational Fisheries Research Institute have been working on a question that follows from all of that. What if we could change the odds?
A first for Louisiana
More than 150,000 hatchery-raised red drum have now been released into Louisiana waters, in the first redfish restocking effort in state history.
Texas has been stocking redfish since the 1980s. Louisiana never has. The releases were conducted by CCA Louisiana, RFRI and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, with funding support from Cameron LNG and Sempra Infrastructure, under the first permitted marine finfish stock enhancement program in the state.
“Our members have been working toward this for years, and it took the right science, the right partners and the right place to make it happen,” said Rad Trascher, executive director/CEO of CCA Louisiana. “Cameron LNG and Sempra Infrastructure stepped up to fund it, LDWF and RFRI helped us get it right, and Louisiana anglers are the ones who benefit.”
Louisiana fish, Louisiana water
These are not redfish from somewhere else.
Adult red drum from Louisiana waters are collected as brood stock, and spawned in a hatchery where light and temperature can be controlled to recreate the seasonal conditions that trigger spawning in the wild. Those brood stock are genetically characterized, and their offspring can be linked back to their parents. That allows researchers to know where the fish came from, follow individual families, and identify hatchery-produced fish years after they are released.
The brood stock behind this program was collected at Grand Isle, during CCA Louisiana’s own Ride the Bull Kayak Fishing Tournament in Grand Isle. The fingerlings were raised at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory at The University of Southern Mississippi. Southeastern Louisiana University is also a research partner in the program, helping with the genetic identification.
These young fish get a significant head start. Instead of facing the heavy mortality of the egg and earliest larval stages in open water, they spend those weeks in a protected hatchery environment and are released only after reaching the juvenile stage, bigger and better equipped to survive on their own.
They still have to survive predators, weather and everything else a wild redfish faces. But they do not start at one millimeter.
“This program is about more than simply releasing redfish,” said Randy Pausina of the Recreational Fisheries Research Institute. “Using Louisiana broodstock, genetic identification, strategic release sites and long-term monitoring, we will be able to measure how these fish survive, move and contribute to the wild population, helping determine the role stock enhancement can play in Louisiana fisheries management.”
Three sites, one summer
On Aug. 21, the program sent its first fingerlings into the Rigolets near Fort Pike, carried in by boat and released from land as well. On Aug. 28, the Friday before Ride the Bull, roughly 50,000 more went in at LDWF’s Grand Isle facility, carried by boat to release points around the back side of the island, with many going in near the LDWF oyster hatchery.
West Cove Release
The flagship release took place Friday, Sept. 11, at the West Cove Boat Ramp on Sabine National Wildlife Refuge, where more than 50,000 fingerlings went into Calcasieu Lake.
The site was selected in coordination with LDWF and hatchery staff because it provides suitable estuarine nursery habitat for young red drum. The hatchery crew arrived at midday and spent time matching water temperature and salinity so the fish could handle the transition before going in.
Then it was buckets. Volunteers, partners and elected officials moved the fish from the hatchery transport trailer to boats waiting at the dock. The boats carried them into the surrounding canal system for release. The rest went in directly off the end of the dock, in front of everyone standing on it.
“Calcasieu Lake is part of the fabric of this community, and redfish are an important part of what makes Southwest Louisiana such a special place to live and work,” said Stevie Trahan, public relations manager for Cameron LNG. “Cameron LNG is proud to support an effort that is happening right here in our backyard and could help strengthen this fishery for generations to come.”
“As someone who calls Southwest Louisiana home, I know how much our waterways and fisheries mean to this community,” said Jeanne Willson, community outreach advisor at Sempra Infrastructure. “For our company, doing the right thing includes supporting biodiversity and protecting the natural resources our communities value, and we’re proud to partner with CCA Louisiana on an effort that can make a difference in the communities where we operate.”
What happens next
The work does not end when the fish go in the water. Because every fish released was genetically characterized, researchers can identify hatchery-produced redfish long after release and track how they survive, move and contribute to the wild population.
That data is the point. It will determine what role stock enhancement can play in managing one of Louisiana’s most important inshore fisheries, and it is the reason this was built as a permitted, monitored scientific program rather than simply putting fish in the water.
Red drum are among Louisiana’s most important recreational species and a cornerstone of the state’s coastal fishing economy. For the first time, Louisiana is putting them back.
Thank you to RFRI, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory at The University of Southern Mississippi, Southeastern Louisiana University, CCA Louisiana members, and Cameron LNG and Sempra Infrastructure for funding this effort.
Photos by Ryan Page (CCA Louisiana) and Cam Easler (Open Road Visuals).
