Assistant chief Pugh named replacement
Ron Garavelli, Mississippi’s chief of fisheries since 1985, has announced his retirement effective June 30, the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks confirmed today.
Garavelli, 62, has been with the agency since 1977.
Larry Pugh, Garavelli’s assistant chief since 2008, has been named his successor. Pugh has been with the agency 15 years, the first 10 as the regional fish biologist for Northeast Mississippi.
Garavelli retires with many accomplishments, including surviving 28 years in the director’s chair.
“I am very proud of our state of art North Mississippi Fish Hatchery at Enid,” he said. “That hatchery will continue to serve the state for decades to come.”
Under Garavelli, the state also guaranteed future fishing on two of its most cherished oxbow lakes in the Delta, securing access ramps at Eagle Lake and the combined Chotard/Albermarle lakes.
“That was a goal as we saw access fading,” he said. “We are still working on that now, and are close to securing access to another major Delta oxbow. I think they will continue to see that as a priority.”
Asked to list a few of his favorite accomplishments, Garavelli pointed to the building of trophy crappie fishing at Grenada, Enid and Sardis lakes, creation of the nation’s first license sale by phone — Mississippi’s 1-800-ASK-Fish — in the early 90s, and the continuing renovation efforts of the MDWFP’s state lake system that included construction of Calling Panther Lake.
Pugh said his initial plan includes many of those that Garavelli mentioned, especially the state lakes and Delta lake access.
“The Delta oxbow situation will certainly continue to be a bureau priority, and we’ve got to continue to find creative ways to secure access,” Pugh said. “We have to identify the priority waters and find ways to keep them accessible.
“The state lakes are very important. One of my main goals will be to go back and re-evaluate not only the program but each lake. We need to do what we have to do to make them top destinations not only for our residents but also our neighbors. These are lakes that we own. We can do what we want to do and need to do, and that’s something we are going to spend a lot of time doing.”
Pugh said Garavelli did a great job building technical assistant and outreach programs for kids, two areas he will continue to expand.
“Things like our pond management workshops where we can help landowners manage their private lakes, those have been popular and successful,” he said. “And our youth outreach … I don’t know how you can have anything more important. I want to take that and expand it with things like our fishing rodeos and our fishing camps. We need to open the door to fishing for as many youngsters as we can reach.”
Pugh, a native of Vicksburg with B.S. and M.S. degrees in fisheries biology from Mississippi State, joined the agency in 1998 as the Northeast regional biologist. That included overseeing the Tenn-Tom Waterway as well as a variety of state lakes and stare park lakes.
An avid bass fisherman, Pugh initiated the agency’s Bass Tournament Program, which tracks the catch on the state’s most popular event destinations, and the MS Fish Index, which ranks the state’s top fishing holes for all popular species.
“One of the things I did was start making up brochures for our state lakes in Northeast Mississippi, which soon spread to all of the agency’s state lakes,” Pugh said. “The MS Fish Index was something I felt we needed, and I used the TVA’s index as a starting point and sat down with (former assistant chief) Bubba Hubbard and we designed a format we would use for our lakes. That is an invaluable but overlooked tool.”
Making sure people realize the excellent fishing resources available in Mississippi is one of Pugh’s main goals.
“We’ve done a good job letting people know how good the fishing is in Mississippi, and we can get better,” he said. “We need to look at innovative ways to use internet-based marketing, including Facebook and Twitter, but at the same time we have the challenge of reaching a huge client body that does not use the web at all. How do we keep them in the loop?”
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