Fishing Seasons

Fishing

Louisiana fishing seasons, as regulated by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, are divided into three categories that sound like the makings of a tasty po-boy: Shrimp, oyster and finfish. If you're planning a fishing trip to New Orleans, or trying to decide the best time to come for some salty and perfect Louisiana oysters, knowing what's available when is the best place to start!

The shrimp season is divided into spring and fall, as well as being further divided by inshore and outshore and also by zones. Each zone of water has a different spring opening date, ranging from the middle of May to the beginning of June. The fall season begins sometime in mid-August. In 2008, fall shrimping opened at noon on August 11. The official dates are announced each year in a press release on the WLF website about a month before the seasons open.

See a map of the Louisiana shrimp management zones mid-way through the page here.

The oyster seasons vary greatly depending on where you are oystering, but as a general rule, there are two separate seasons each year. At most public oyster seed grounds, there is a short season that runs for a few weeks in September and then another longer season that begins in mid-November and can end anywhere from mid-December through the end of April. The 2008-2009 oyster season has not yet been announced, but the best way to find the dates is to keep up with the Wildlife & Fisheries website.

Finfish seasons are divvied up by species: coastal sharks, deepwater groupers, red snapper, tilefish and king mackerel. Shark, grouper and tilefish seasons all begin in January and run through spring and summer. Snapper season runs only for a week or two in the springtime, and mackerel seasons begin in the summer and ends when the quota has been met. For more details, visit the Wildlife & Fisheries website.