Do Speckled Trout Die When They’re Released?

A big question inshore anglers have is "do speckled trout die when they're released?" Or, more accurately, "does catch and release work for speckled trout? The reason this comes up is because in November of last year Louisiana lowered the speckled trout creel limit from our familiar twenty-five to a paltry fifteen.

This happened after years of trout population studies, anglers speaking their mind at Louisiana Wildlife & Fisheries Commission meetings and tons of merciless back-and-forth in the cesspit of social media.

This occurred mostly between advocates for keeping the speckled trout population from imploding and people who wanted to maintain their ability to keep 25 speckled trout on each fishing trip.

One argument we all heard from the latter was the one of speckled trout discard mortality rate, or that speckled trout die easily after being caught so there is no point in releasing them.

This was easily dismissed because there's no evidence to back this up. Nor had I seen this in person after tagging and releasing over 1,000 speckled trout.

I figured this would go away after the limit changed, but to my shock there are still people who believe this nonsense.

To be clear, it's not like I'm some kind of tree-hugging fruitcake. Absolutely not. I keep speckled trout and eat them every week, if not everyday.

But I have spent a long time fishing across Louisiana's coast for speckled trout, and that experience has fostered an immense amount of respect, love and admiration for this animal.

You could say that inshore fishing is something I take pretty seriously, and have always advocated that conservation begins with Louisiana's inshore anglers, rather than having the government tell us what to do.

So, in this blog post, I'd like to dismantle the idea that lowering the limit and catch & release is anything but bad for speckled trout by pointing you to excellent resources that prove catch & release to be perfectly ethical.

Do Speckled Trout Die After Being Released?

Mostly "no", but sometimes "yes".

I can tell you from experience that as long as you're not ripping a treble hook out of their stomach they are more likely than not going to make it.

This comes from my experience of catching, tagging and releasing speckled trout. After landing a fish, I'd tag her then put her in a big livewell where I'd keep an eye on her. There's no point in releasing a tagged speckled trout that's just going to die, right?

That and it was just easier to catch fish first, load up the livewell, then tag 'em and release 'em.

So these speckled trout would spend a good chunk of the day with me!

I am telling you that — as long as you changed out their water and kept them aerated — they did just fine, especially in water temps ranging in the 60s and 70s.

And this worked for over one thousand of them.

Don't you think that if speckled trout were so sensitive that they would die while in the livewell?

The Various Studies Proving How Tough Speckled Trout Really Are

So, that short tagging anecdote is just one of many personal experiences of speckled trout not dying as often as the anti-limit people would have you believe.

With that out of the way, let's go ahead and take a look at other resources you will find interesting.

Dr. Greg Stunz & the Harte Research Institute

While there are many people doing great things in the realm of speckled trout conservation, one that has really stood out to me is Dr. Greg Stunz at the Harte Research Institute in Corpus Christi, Texas.

He's conducted a 10-year study detailing the impact of speckled trout conservation, showing just how hardy they are and how well they survive catch and release, that number being over 90% of speckled trout caught and released.

I wonder how that number compares to when they're thrown on ice?

Anyway, my favorite part of his research is when they kept speckled trout in a tank and pulled them out periodically to remove their slime coat with a towel, and those speckled trout survived just fine.

The research he has to talk about is pretty interesting and worth further highlighting here, but I'd rather not steal thunder from where I heard it in the first place: Chris Bush's The Speckled Truth.

Specifically, you can find that episode at this link on PodBean.

You can also enjoy a Truth on Tap livestream that Speckled Truth did with Dr. Greg Stunz in this YouTube video.

Speckled Trout Release Mortality Rate Study Done By Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Yes, speckled trout swim in places other than the Gulf Coast, and Virginia is one of them.

This study conducted by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science aimed to reveal the number of speckled trout that die after being caught and released.

To this end, they caught and released nearly 400 speckled trout ranging from 10 to 22 inches in length, and found that roughly 3-4% of fish would die after release.

That's a much better number than the 100% that die when ran through with a fillet knife.

However, what makes this study so interesting is that they constructed holding pens in open water to keep the speckled trout for observation after being released.

So they didn't just unhook these fish, toss them in the water and mark it as a survival. No, they kept them for observation for an additional three to seven days.

And the release mortality rate they got off that is 3-4%. Mind boggling.

If you really love speckled trout and learning more about them, then you will love reading this study.

There's a slew of other cool things they did with speckled trout (like tethering one to a GPS).

You can read it all here at this link on Scholar Works.

Louisiana Sea Grant Speckled Trout Study

Next up is a resource I've used extensively over the years, and it's been something of a mainstay whenever referencing speckled trout facts.

That resource is this 2003 fact sheet from Louisiana Sea Grant. Here's an excerpt:

What's interesting about that is how much better speckled trout survive catch & release when anglers use artificial lures.

To fall from 97% to 74% sure is a radical drop.

I'd also say that it's my observation that the majority of people who advocate for catch and release (as well as dropping the creel limit) are avid users of "artificial" lures such as jigs, suspending baits, jerkbaits, Corkies, topwater lures and more.

Look, at the end of the day there are many of these studies for you to enjoy. You really don't have to look far on the Internet to find them and, when you do, you won't find a single study reporting the inverse of what I've shown you thus far.

With that in mind, you may be thinking of the following question:

Where did the argument of "speckled trout die after being released" come from?

It was nowhere to be found until the whole "lowering the limits" controversy started in the first place.

In my opinion, a handful of Louisiana anglers who are scared of change reacted in the wrong way: instead of accepting what the Freshening did to Louisiana's coast and then taking responsibility for that change, they instead did the intellectually cheap thing and moved the goal post instead.

The only argument they could come up with is: "there's no point to releasing fish because they're just going to die anyway."

At first glance you'd think that this is a very serious matter and that we should be more delicate with how we fish for speckled trout, especially when trying to catch a limit.

But if you stop and think about it, you'll see that this argument does not hold up to scrutiny at all. It's so poorly thought out that it's hilarious. Let me explain:

Why the "trout will die anyway" argument is total garbage

If speckled trout are more likely than not to die after being released, then there's no point in catching them unless you are going to keep them and eat them, right?

Well, that's the moral high ground that anti-limit proponents have taken up. So virtuous.

This idea would work only if you caught keeper speckled trout.

But what if you're in a mixed bite of throwbacks and keepers? What if it's one of those days where there's just more dinks than keepers?

Should you clutch your bleeding heart and go home? No.

Would the anti-limit folks do that? Ha ha ha! No. Not at all.

These are the same folks arguing that Louisiana's inshore fishing economy would be hurt if anglers cannot keep 25 twelve-inch speckled trout.

Boy, if they think that's tough, wait until you have to go home because you already caught too many throwbacks!

So it's clear they didn't think that argument through at all, but I'm not quite done.

After that, this sham of an argument completely misses the point that lowering the limit literally means fewer fish being thrown on ice and, as an extension, fewer fish being caught and released overall.

If you are in a fishing scenario where throwbacks are mixed in with keepers, then by the time you get to 15 you would have caught and released fewer throwbacks than if you had to go to 25.

Furthermore, their argument isn't practical to enforce. How can a wildlife agent possibly know how many speckled trout you caught and released?

He cannot. Their life is already hard enough as it is, it's even harder when you can't read people's minds.

That and this make-believe policy counts on people to have the kind of altruism few of them have ever displayed in the first place.

It is, at best, wishful thinking. Especially considering that Louisiana has a "release in grease" culture.

Which is fine. We know how to cook speckled trout! They're delicious, why wouldn't we? But I'm not going to pretend like that culture doesn't exist, either.

Last, but not least, these same people (whom I am gracefully not identifying here) never brought this up before the creel limit change.

In fact, they hardly (or ever) practiced conservation or mentioned it.

Take a look at their posts on social media (or, if you're really old school, you remember the RodnReel fishing reports) and all you'll see are dock shots of dead speckled trout, the literal oxymoron of dead trout swirling in a livewell or — if you're really lucky — the occasional bragging post of "we caught our limit, returned to the dock for a fresh cooler, then went back and caught another limit".

Yeah, those are the people saying catch and release is detrimental to Louisiana's speckled trout fishery.

Those are the people who somehow think a 3-4% mortality rate from catch & release is somehow more than the 100% mortality rate when a fish arrives at the cleaning tables.

Is it okay to have fun catching and releasing speckled trout?

Yes it is. It's perfectly fine.

Go have fun, enjoy yourself, spend some money at the marina and tackle store, contribute to the economy and watch how the world continues to spin on its axis.

What We Need To Do If We Really Want To Have More Speckled Trout To Catch & Keep (or release) In Louisiana

We already knocked out the nuclear option, and that was lower the limit. That was done last year in November, it's done. It's here to stay. It is what it is.

The twenty inch slot is interesting, because there were more than one fishing trip I've had to Breton Sound where all we caught was mostly speckled trout over twenty inches in length. This was pre-Freshening.

After that, I think the speckled trout will make a comeback of some sort since the Mississippi River is behaving itself and a Saltening is upon us.

How big that comeback will be, I do not know. I have not previously lived through flooding of the magnitude we saw from 2011 to 2020.

So, those are two things that are out of our power, but there are things we can do at the individual level:

• use artificial lures
• handle specks more delicately
• practice more catch & release

Fish are less likely to swallow artificial lures as much as they do live bait. Plus, when you fish with soft plastics (or suspending baits or whatever), you become more skilled at fishing and much better at setting the hook, so the fish doesn't have an opportunity to swallow it. This greatly increases their survival rate.

After that, keeping fish wet, using a soft landing net and getting them back in the water as soon as possible all help to increase their longevity.

You don't have to be a tree-hugging sissy about it, just avoid using something like a catfish grip, keep your fingers out of their gills and use pliers if necessary.

After that, if you've never had a "catch and release" trip, then I encourage you to have an open mind and just try it anyway.

It's really nice to get back to the dock and not have any fish to clean. It's so much nicer to spend that extra time fishing and not have the additional cleanup to do.

And this is something you can do when and if you feel up for it. It doesn't have to be forced upon you (and shouldn't be).

What Do You Think About Speckled Trout Release Mortality?

At the end of the day I believe that we have more fun catching speckled trout than we do eating them. Kids never talk about the fish they ate, it was always the experience of catching them that they recall.

It's arguable that speckled trout are too valuable to only be caught once.

So I'm interested to know what it is you think about this hot-button issue. It's great to see people's passion and I'm always happy when people take time to visit my website.

Thank you very much for doing so :D

If you have an opinion that you would like to share, or maybe I missed something, then please post it in the comments below.

Should it be the case that you enjoyed this blog post, then please share it with your friends. I would really appreciate that.