Overfishing Vs. Underfishing

[fishinpox]

West side just has more "trophy" fishermen , east side has meat fishermen. There are plenty big trout in all areas of the east side. Just have to get off the beaten path . I'm a strong believer that the majority of bigger trout ( except lake p) don't move inside for the winter . They stay inthe rigs and barrier islands. I catch good trout at the islands year round

[LPfishnTIM]

Originally Posted by fishinpox

West side just has more "trophy" fishermen , east side has meat fishermen. There are plenty big trout in all areas of the east side. Just have to get off the beaten path . I'm a strong believer that the majority of bigger trout ( except lake p) don't move inside for the winter . They stay inthe rigs and barrier islands. I catch good trout at the islands year round

I can agree with this, the reason people fish on the inside during winter is because a lot of the trash fish move out and they don't have to go so far out to catch, were catchin for meat not trophies. plus the effort to catch inshore is very little in winter and fall, were catching in shallow water with plastics, it takes more skill to go out and fish the rigs that can be twice as deep or even three times as deep as fishing inshore.

[Sightwindow]

People can't wait to NOT spend 150 bucks a trip on gas to the deep rigs. That and NOT beating the crap out of their boat getting to the deep rigs. And NOT riding an hour to the deep rigs in the (relative) cold. It goes on and on.

But mainly it's because most people don't think they're there.

[Duck Butter]

Steve Shook catches 'trophies' every year at Grand Isle/Fourchon, he caught a 10 lb. this summer. They are there, but they are not hanging around the 11 3/4 in school trout that are eating live shrimp under a popping cork, so not going to be caught by the average weekend fisherman that is wanting to just fill the box

We used to fish with him and he had lots of big trout on the walls of his cabins, I don't think the cabins are there any more? He was a tournament fisherman (might still be?) and he would try certain areas and when we caught a couple nice trout, he would move to another spot and put us on the school trout to fill the box. Took us a while to figure it out, but he was scouting with us, which didn't matter because we just wanted to catch fish to bring home. He liked to use live pogies rather than shrimp. That was part of the fun was going out in the bay to find the pogies and catch them.