Would You Like Fries With That?

“Man! I can’t wait for our fishing trip. I need to restock my freezer. Do you think we can go get some reds after we catch our limits of trout? How many flounder can we keep?” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; I don’t have MacDonald’s tattooed across my forehead, so please don’t expect me to be able to simply take your order. 

I can remember a time when fishing here along the Upper Texas Coast was pretty close to being able to choose from a list of menu items at our favorite restaurant… unfortunately that restaurant is temporarily closed for remodeling.  Furthermore, our main objective should never be to load the cooler. My cousins over at Hillman’s Seafood and Fish House have a fantastic supply of fresh fish and other seafood. A trip down to their market at Dickinson Bayou is a lot cheaper than a trip on my boat – I promise. I love to eat fresh fish too, but I read somewhere that our “hunter-gatherer” culture supposedly faded away about 12,000 years ago.   

I truly believe that going into a trip with the right attitude is a game changer and usually leads to more successful days on the water. I often poke fun at tired old cliché’s: That’s why they call it fishing and not catching. And, A bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. While there is possibly some amount of truth in both, especially if your job entails driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic every day or sitting in an office cubical for long, stressful hours. 

I have a client who started fishing with me a few years ago. He is ecstatic to go fishing and always eager to learn. His love and appreciation for being on the water rubs off on everyone on the boat, including me. In the beginning he could use a spinning reel but after several trips learned to throw a baitcaster. He has developed into quite the angler and our trips always seem to be above average in the catching department, even when he brings newbies. The laid-back atmosphere makes for fun and productive days on the water. Being in the right place mentally with a strong desire to hone your skills is about the best combination you could ask for in the relationship between fishing guides and their clients. And, that pendulum definitely swings both ways.

So getting back to what actually is on the menu these days…There was a time when our three most sought after inshore saltwater species were fairly easy to come by on most days. Trout and redfish were regularly featured while flounder were a popular “Catch of the Day” item. For various reasons the menu choices have changed. Some items have been taken away while others have been added.    

In my opinion, loss of habitat, erosion, and natural predation are the top three factors contributing to the overall decline in our legal-sized game fish populations in the Galveston Bay Complex. I’m somewhat reluctant to include fishing pressure on this list because it wouldn’t necessarily be an issue if not for the other three factors. I’ve written many articles in this fine magazine touching on these topics and citing some of the reasons, but a brief list would include silting of oyster beds during Hurricane Ike along with channel dredging, erosion from natural and ship-induced wave/current activity, and natural predators.  There are habitat predators (ex. Dermocystidium, oyster drills and sponges) which can devastate live oyster reefs and there are apex predators such as the dolphin and other species that prey upon speckled trout. As an aside, there are ongoing projects to rebuild reefs and help reduce erosion. Unfortunately, there’re also channel dredging projects going on. It’s a tug-of-war match it seems. 

Bottlenose dolphin, often mistakenly called porpoise, could possibly be overlooked as significant contributors to the reduction in our speckled trout populations. Most data that I’ve found say that common bottlenose dolphins eat anywhere from 25 to 50 pounds of fish per day (4-9% of their body mass) with some estimates going as high as 80 pounds. But how many speckled trout do dolphins actually consume?

There was a study referenced in a December 2, 2008 article in Louisiana Sportsman magazine (by Jerald Horst) that was conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s in which stomachs from 234 stranded bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf and from Florida’s East Coast were collected. According to the study, 108 of the stomachs contained food and 76 were analyzed for contents. Finfish comprised 99% of the contents while 37% of the stomachs contained squid and 15% had shrimp. 20% of the stomachs contained silver perch, Atlantic croaker, sand trout, mullet and spots (similar to croaker).

Fishes of the drum family were found in 60.5% of the stomachs and represented 78.4% of all identified fish. Drum, croakers, seatrout, toadfishes, and midshipmen rounded out the list of bottom-dwellers consumed but surface dwellers such as mullet and herring were also found. In addition, open-water species including jackfish, bluefish, and cutlassfish (ribbonfish) were also eaten by dolphins. The more I read the more I started realizing that dolphins don’t seem to be very picky eaters.

There were totals of thirty-seven speckled trout and fifteen redfish found in the 76 stomach contents analyzed. The study also mentions that since the dolphins were stranded, some were likely to be sick.  Therefore, it’s possible that healthy dolphins could feed upon somewhat different forage. The article also says that dolphins in the northern Gulf of Mexico tend to eat less finfish and more shrimp and squid compared to those on either Florida coast noting scientists speculate that this is because shrimp trawling is more common in Texas. In other words, dolphins can easily scavenge on shrimp boat bycatch rather than having to hunt for food in areas where there is less trawling (“What’s for supper, Flipper?” Louisiana Sportsman, Dec. 2, 2008, Horst, Jerald).  

Taking into consideration the timing of the study referenced above (late 80s – early 90s) there were far more licensed shrimpers during those years than there are today. Is it possible that with fewer shrimpers dolphin have resorted to their inherent predator instincts as opposed to simply scavenging dead or wounded bycatch? Additionally, bycatch reduction devices (BRDs) have greatly reduced the amount of bycatch going back into the water which lends even more credibility to their need to revert to more hunting and fewer easy buffet-style meals. We have over a thousand dolphins roaming the Galveston Bay Complex and I believe that they’re consuming large numbers of speckled trout. We catch hundreds of trout on my boat alone each year that have teeth marks down their sides, evidence of a narrow escape. Quite frequently I hear about dolphin eating released trout in areas like West Matagorda Bay and other areas further south.

There are currently between 846 and 1417 dolphins using the Galveston Bay estuary (Ronje, E., H. Whitehead, K. Barry, S. Piwetz, J. Struve, V. Lecours, L. Garrison, R.S. Wells and K.D. Mullin.  2020. Abundance and Occurrence of Common Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops truncates) in Three Estuaries of the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico). 

My clients and I were fortunate to have located several areas holding above average numbers of specks so far this year. Because of the numbers of trout in those areas dolphins were observed almost every day. Sometimes they would completely relocate our school by corralling them and forcing them off the reef or other structure we were fishing. Other times dolphins would actually push more trout toward us, thus improving our catch rates. This happened on several occasions while wading shallow sand bars and shoreline reefs.

So how many times have we gone to our favorite restaurant and repeatedly ordered the same entrée because we know it’s good and we’re reluctant to try something new?  Well, I can tell you that as a professional fishing guide trying to make a living in a bay system that seems to be in a rebuilding mode, I have to try something new sometimes. Those days of being a trout snob are over. Sometimes a bite is a bite and the species isn’t as important. That being said, I draw the line at gafftop. 

While trout will be our primary target most days, redfish can definitely bail us out when the trout don’t want to cooperate. Our open water schools of reds tend to be mainly over the slot these days but they’re still fun to catch. The majority of the ones we find along shorelines and in the back lakes are in the slot. Those are the ones that seem to save us on the windy days. Mud boils, slicks and hopping shrimp usually lead us to backwater success when it comes to reds. Flounder and the occasional black drum are almost always mixed in with the reds as they seem to frequent shorelines and bayou drains with similar characteristics. We’ve even had some days in recent years where we were able to catch a few tripletail. There’s no better tasting fish on the planet in my opinion than a tripletail.

So if and when the going gets tough for catching our beloved speckled trout, let’s not just throw in the towel. There’s plenty of other items on the menu from which to choose. Some require learning new strategies and offer a much-needed change of scenery, both of which are good things. Furthermore, it’s never a bad thing to take a little pressure off of those trout once in a while. We never know what the “Catch of the Day” is going to be these days, but rest assured I’ll be happy that there is one.