Cameron fishing festival set for Aug. 3-4; freshwater division added

Published 6:00 pm Sunday, June 17, 2018

<p>A bass tournament has been added to the list of events for the 2018 Cameron Lion’s Club annual fishing festival.</p>Stock photo

<p class="p1">The Cameron Lion’s Club recently announced that its annual fishing festival will be held August 3-4 and that this year it will also have a division for freshwater fishermen.

<p class="p1">Tom Barrett, the festival chairman, said that a bass tournament has been added, also noting that both a bay division and an offshore division will take place and there will be top angler and junior angler (15 years or younger) awards presented in each division.

<p class="p1">Captain’s Night is scheduled for July 26 and that event as well as the weigh-in station for both days of fishing will be the Cameron Jetty Pier Pavilion.

<p class="p1">A breakdown of eligible fish in the bay division is:  speckle trout, redfish, black drum, flounder, croaker, gafftop catfish, white trout, lady fish and gar.  The offshore  division features yellowfin tuna, blackfin tuna, wahoo, dolphin, barracuda, jack crevalle, red snapper, mangrove snapper, cobia/ling, grouoper, king mackerel, Spanish mackerel and tripletail.

<p class="p1">The bass tournament is a team stringer event, the team featuring either one person or two.  The total two day weight of fish (limit of five bass per team per day) will be scored for division title.  An award for the event’s largest bass will also be given.

<p class="p1">The tournament committee stresses that those in the bass division can fish any waters opened to the public south of I-10.  There is no fishing allowed in private ponds, marshes or lakes and all rules and regulations by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries must be followed.

<p class="p1">Fishing time for bass will be 30 minutes before sunrise until 3 p.m. each day.

<p class="p1">For the offshore and bay divisions, fishing can begin at 12:01 a.m. on August 3 and continue until 5 p.m. on August 4. The weigh-in time will be 3 p.m. until 7 p.m. on the first day and from noon until 5 p.m. the final day.

<p class="p1">Fishermen can go to cameronlionsclub.com to register online.

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<p class="p2">Earlier this summer the annual Southwest Louisiana Fishing Club’s deep sea fourth of July rodeo was canceled for the year due to anticipated boat launching problems at the I-210 park. Re-construction of the Prien Park launch area is underway forcing overflow crowds at the I-210 launch, especially on the weekend.

<p class="p1">The fourth of July event had always been the first fishing rodeo of the summer.

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<p class="p3" style="text-align: left;">In a recent release the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries reported that state anglers are making good use of the red snapper season that opened May 25.

<p class="p1">The latest catch statistics of the fish as recorded by LA Creel (Louisiana Recreational Creel Survey) was an estimated 159,969 pounds, or about 22 percent of the state’s annual recreational allotment of 743,000 pounds.

<p class="p1">According to the LDWF, LA Creel uses a combination of data gathered through interviews at public fishing areas and weekly phone and email surveys to get the estimates.

<p class="p1">State red snapper anglers can fish Gulf of Mexico waters  from shore to 200 nautical miles.