Gulf Council
This past week CCA sent out an alert to members regarding nominations by Governor John Bel Edwards to NOAA for representation on the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council. The governor's nominations are expected to be made this coming week. CCA sent a list of recommended persons to the governor for consideration.
At the top of the list was Camp Matens. Camp is currently seated on the Council and has done an outstanding job. If appointed, this would be his third and final term. Incidently, Camp is a longtime avid flyfisher and member of the Red Stick Fly Fishers.
Another longtime fly angler is on the CCA list. Jerome Zeringue of Houma, who is also currently a state representative. Other names include George Huye of Baton Rouge, Patrick Fitzmorris of Madisonville, Robert Allain of Jeanerette, Ed Landgraf of Hammond, John Dugas of Lafayette, Charles Caplinger of Slidell, Marc Mouton of Lafayette, and Billy Broussard of Pecan Island.
Banquets
CCA Louisiana has 29 chapters across the state. Each one has a banquet during the year to raise money for the state and local chapters, as well as conservation projects. The banquets usually kick off this month and continue through June, sometimes later.
In the past, we listed each of the banquets on our Calendar page. But with the number of fly fishing and kayak fishing activities across the state and region growing each year, it is getting tougher to maintain our Calendar. And besides, a congested calendar is counter productive to each activity.
Realizing that CCA Louisiana has a calendar similiar to ours, with all the banquet dates and details listed, we just decided to defer to their calendar at www.ccalouisiana.com.
CCA STAR
We're also no longer having a STAR forum on our community board. We used that forum to show weekly standings in the Fly and Kayak Divisions. The problem here is a little different. Since we now use a free hosted forum, we need to keep to the limits of "free". Besides, we'll have a direct link to the STAR standings page.
Pre-registration for STAR has begun. On Friday, CCA gave out the first of 12 weekly prizes for early registered participants. So it can pay to register now. There's much concern about what happened to the speckled trout during this unusually cold winter. Only a few fish kills were reported, so that means the fish went somewhere. The results of the STAR tournament may provide answers at a time when specks are at the peak of spawning.