Flow from Bonnet Carré Spillway could push specks eastward

Speckled trout anglers have a lot to look forward to this spring, especially in the western areas of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, in part because the Bonnet Carré Spillway on the Mississippi River continues to pour out the remnants of a long, west winter.

That freshwater runoff from Bonnet Carré pushes so much freshwater and silt into the Gulf that after wet winters, plenty of speckled trout have been pushed east into Mississippi waters.

“Last time, it pushed all the speckled trout around in the western Mississippi Sound and everybody was catching speckled trout,” said Richard Gollott, a member of Mississippi’s Commission on Marine Resources,  which was recently granted authority to close down fishing for trout based on how many specks were caught the last time Bonnet Carré’s gates were open during March. “We really want to protect the species.”

That doesn’t sit well with Mississippi anglers like Jerod Doucet of Diamondhead.

“As long as we’re not keeping more than our limit, what difference does it make? It’s like saying the limit is XYZ, unless you’re catching that many, and then we’ll just close the fishing down if that happens,” he said.

Flow from the Bonnet Carré Spillway on the Mississippi River could be heavy enough to push more speckled trout eastward into Mississippi waters this spring.
Flow from the Bonnet Carré Spillway on the Mississippi River could be heavy enough to push more speckled trout eastward into Mississippi waters this spring.