Flood year? Still too early to tell
January 31, 2012Alice Pinell Usie
February 2, 2012The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has announced that non-sandbar commercial coastal shark season will open on Feb. 15.
During shark season fishermen are permitted to harvest great hammerhead, scalloped hammerhead, smooth hammerhead, nurse shark, blacktip shark, bull shark, lemon shark, silky shark, spinner shark and tiger shark. Federal permits are required to catch sandbar sharks.
Commercial fishing for non-blacknose small coastal sharks will remain open in Louisiana waters until a federal quota is met. The non-blacknose small coastal shark group is composed of bonnethead shark, Atlantic sharpnose shark, blacknose shark and finetooth. The commercial fishing season for non-blacknose small coastal sharks remained open for all of 2011, because the quota was not met.
There is no allowable harvest at any time for prohibited varieties, which include basking shark, white shark, bigeye sand tiger, sand tiger, whale shark, smalltooth sawfish, largetooth sawfish, Atlantic angel shark, Caribbean sharpnose shark, smalltail shark, bignose shark, Caribbean reef shark, dusky shark, Galapagos shark, narrowtooth shark, night shark, bigeye sixgill shark, bigeye thresher shark, longfin mako, sevengill shark and sixgill shark.
The harvest of all sharks will close between April 1 and July 1 because of an existing fixed closure period that allows for shark pupping.
