Rodeo weigh-in today

Published 8:12 pm Sunday, July 2, 2017

Today fishermen will be weighing in their catch from three days fishing in the Gulf and inshore as the annual Southwest Louisiana Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo comes to a close.

Weigh-in will run from noon to 6 p.m. and spectators are invited to attend the activities at the Southwest Louisiana Fishing Club headquarters, located off Interstate 210, just east of the bridge.

Opening day Friday wasn’t what some fishermen were expecting. Wind was strong in the Gulf and it forced some of those in smaller inshore.

Tournament director Louis Vallee was one of those.

He said he trailered his boat to Grand Isle where he embarked Friday morning.

“It was just too rough for us to get out there today,” he said. “The waves were high — I’m guessing 4 to 5 feet — so we turned around and spent time just working around the small islands in Barataria Bay.”

Weather reports for Saturday and Sunday were better, calling for calmer seas, but that wasn’t all day long.

Fishermen were expected to scatter throughout the Gulf, some taking off from area ports and others from those on the east side of the state.

Of interest when the weigh-in begins will be the size and number of red snapper brought to the scales. The federal government granted the state an extra number of days to fish the specie in federal waters and the tournament returned the fish to competition.

As for inland fishing, it appeared that fishermen were going to have to really look for the fish.

Longtime inland fisherman Mike Soileau had little good news about the upper part of the Calcasieu fishing grounds, mainly due to the runoff of the recent rains we have had.

“Just (Friday) the salinity chart was very low in the north end of Big Lake, in Prien Lake and up in Lake Charles,” he said. “And there is so much current now moving the rain water out. Most people are probably going to be trying around the weirs and down in the south end of Big Lake.”