Louisiana’s redfish population is in sharp decline, prompting the state to call for tighter catch restrictions on the highly sought-after species. Officials are now also opening the door to an additional tool that may or may not help: growing them.

The state is in the early days of allowing a small pilot program that will stock hatchery-raised redfish in one area of the coast. The program will be the first of its kind in Louisiana, though it has long been done in other states.

The aim is not to solve the population declines plaguing redfish, officially known as red drum, since stocking alone will not come close to doing the trick, state officials say. But the pilot, being conducted at no cost to the state, will help determine if a larger program can help.

If experience elsewhere is any guide, an added benefit may come in the insights stocking can provide on redfish behavior and survivability through the use of genetic testing, which will be employed in the pilot.

A first step will be determining if any of the stocked fish survive and if they can be detected in the overall population, said Patrick Banks, assistant secretary at the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.

“It’s not an effort that we think is going to rebuild the redfish population,” Banks said, stressing that reductions in catch limits are needed. “But this has been a request in front of us for quite some time, and we just felt like it was the appropriate time to at least test the method.”

The plan is to start with 10,000 fish raised in a hatchery, then stocked in Calcasieu Lake in southwest Louisiana, near Lake Charles. It will likely be next year before the fish hit the open water, with the program’s managers in the process of lining up logistics, including which hatchery they will use.

The parent fish, or brood stock, must come from the same area where the fish will be stocked to ensure the genetics match. Testing will also be required for diseases before the fish are transferred to the wild.

Calcasieu Lake was selected because it is relatively more confined than the mazes of marsh, canals and bayous that define other parts of coastal Louisiana, hopefully improving the chances that more of the fish will be located later, said Banks.

‘A big event’

The program will be run by the Recreational Fisheries Research Institute, a Covington-based nonprofit directed by Randy Pausina, who formerly held Banks’ job as the state’s head of fisheries. It is also partnering with the conservation group CCA Louisiana.

Pausina will be seeking sponsorships and grants to pay for the effort, though he said it’s too early to say what the total cost will be.

To start, four female and two male adult redfish will be needed as parents. They’ll likely be caught with rod and reel during the spawning season in the fall, said Pausina, then brought to the hatchery, likely in Texas.

That will lead to a first group of fingerling fish, possibly in the range of 4 to 6 inches when they are stocked, he said. Pausina described an effective stocking program as insurance in case of sudden and dramatic declines in a species’ population.

“Louisiana has a long history of freshwater stocking but has never stocked a marine sportfish species,” Pausina said. “This is a big event.”

The program does not require federal approval, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted that a range of states use saltwater stocking as a tool that “can help supplement and rebuild wild stocks depleted by overfishing, habitat loss or other factors.”

There hadn’t seemed to be much need for such a program in recent years, said Banks. Louisiana’s delta has traditionally provided extraordinary habitat for all sorts of marine life, redfish included, though much of those fertile coastal wetlands are in the process of disappearing.

The wild and crazy days of the 1980s, when stocks plummeted and Paul Prudhomme’s blackened redfish recipes caused a nationwide sensation, were addressed with a ban on commercial fishing and tighter recreational restrictions.

But experienced anglers along Louisiana’s coast again began seeing troubling signs more recently. Redfish, so plentiful for so long, were simply becoming much harder to catch. Research by state biologists released in December backed up those anecdotal impressions, documenting a worrying slide in the redfish population.

In response, the state’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission has proposed tighter catch limits. The proposal is undergoing a public comment period, and if state legislators do not block it, the changes could take effect as early as December. Louisiana’s limits are significantly looser than those of other Gulf Coast states.

Stocked fish could potentially supplement the native population, while keeping in place safeguards and oversight to ensure genetic changes do not occur — one concern that will have to be continually monitored. Its potential is limited, state officials say.

‘Helped us learn’

The new program will use genetic sampling to trace the fish, rather than the older method of applying a physical tag to each one. A portion of a fin could be clipped, then tested to determine if it is one of the stocked fish or a descendant, said Kyle Piller, a biologist at Southeastern Louisiana University who will be handling testing for the program.

The samples could be taken on a volunteer basis by recreational anglers or by state biologists during their sampling efforts. Pausina’s organization already runs fish-tagging programs.

Piller said a return rate of anywhere from between 15% to 25% of hatchery fish in the samples would constitute a success.

Rebecca Triche, who directs the Louisiana Wildlife Federation, said her organization would have to look more closely at the program, but she agrees that stocking cannot replace the use of other tools, like tighter catch limits.

South Carolina has stocked redfish since the 1980s, said Aaron Watson, a scientist with that state’s Department of Natural Resources. The amount of stocked fish released varies each year, but the number has averaged around one million, he said.

Recent sampling there showed about 1.9% of the sampled adult redfish population were hatchery fish, he said. The numbers are much higher among 1-year-old redfish, though they tend to range widely. A typical percentage for larger estuaries has been between 10% and 20% of the sampled 1-year-old redfish being from hatcheries in those areas, said Watson.

Redfish live long lives. They become adults at around 4 or 5 years old, but can survive until they are 45 to 50, said Watson.

South Carolina has considered the program a success, not only because of its ability to supplement the population, but also because of the scientific research it provides, he said. Using genetic sampling, biologists can trace fish movements and survival through varying conditions, including from hurricanes.

“We’ve been able to use unique genetic families in our stocking designs to help us answer questions about the life history of red drum, or about different ecosystems, different environments, different estuaries within the state,” Watson said. “So it’s helped us learn not only a lot about how to continue a stocking program to help support the recreational fishery, but also about the natural population and our natural ecosystems here.”