|
|
LCBA NEWSLETTER, November 2016
|
|
LCBA meets with Lieutenant Governor's Office
LCBA representatives met with Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser and members of his staff last week and had very productive talks on how the Louisiana charter fleet fits into their plans to promote Louisiana's world class outdoor opportunities.
The Lieutenant Governor is the former President of Plaquemines Parish, where he advocated strongly for our industry and similar sectors by fighting tirelessly after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Lieutenant Governor Nungesser knows the value of recreational and outdoor activities and is a true friend to those endeavors.
We thank Lieutenant Governor Nungesser for taking the time to meet with us, and we look forward to continuing to work with our elected officials to ensure that Louisiana charter fishing prospers long into the future.
Reminder, captains, we need your help to complete our Basin Reports features
LCBA Communications Manager Richard Fischer is still looking for commitments from member captains in some regions to be featured in our Basin Reports, which will not only be posted prominently on the Region pages of our website,
lasaltwater.com, but will also be spread online through our partnership with
Bill Dance Outdoors.
This is an awesome promotional opportunity for our captains. You'll get your face and boat featured and shared across the Web by Bill Dance Outdoors' social media platforms to their 725,000 likes on Facebook, 15,200 follows on Twitter and 57,600 follows on Instagram – something that could only increase exposure for your charter business.
We are looking for captains out of the Vermillion-Lake Charles-Sabine Lake Region, the Grand Isle-Leeville-Fourchon Region and the Buras-Empire-Boothville-Venice Region to volunteer to be featured in our Basin Reports. If you are interested, please contact LCBA Communications Manager Richard Fischer at
[email protected] and let him know.
A captain from the New Orleans West Basin which includes the Barataria-Lafitte Region has already committed to participating.
|
|
|
LCBA holds Captain's Dinner in Venice
The Louisiana Charter Boat Association held a very productive Captain's Dinner in Venice Friday night.
LCBA Executive Director Ben Weber and Communications Manager Richard Fischer discussed policy issues that matter to our captains as well as things we're doing to promote them.
We fielded and answered several questions from the captains in attendance, and there were lively debates among captains on the policy stances LCBA should take.
We will survey captains through email in the coming weeks on this, so keep an eye out for that in your inbox.
Thanks to all of the Captains who attended the meeting, and thanks to LDWF Biologist Myron Fischer for representing the Department at the meeting.
Thanks to our new members who signed up at Friday's dinner also.
LCBA will hold dinners in other areas. Dates and locations have not been finalized, but we will let you know when and where these dinners will be held as soon as we can.
You can still participate in our content sharing partnership with Guy Harvey's theonlinefisherman.com
Not only does participating create another avenue for our captains to brag about their trips online
(on a site that boasts more than 118,000 unique visitors and 1 million impressions per month, by the way), but it also creates another place for potential customers to find your contact and business information on the Web.
You're really missing out if you don't participate. It can take you five minutes per week – doing something many of you already do – and can give you a chance at receiving more exposure for your business.
If you are interested in participating, please email LCBA Communications Manager Richard Fischer at [email protected], and he'll give you simple and easy to understand instructions on how to participate.
|
|
We're partnering with Guy Harvey's theonlinefisherman.com to give away a Louisiana offshore fishing trip!
In an effort to help launch our partnership with Guy Harvey's theonlinefisherman.com, LCBA is proud to announce that we're teaming up to give away a Louisiana offshore fishing trip to one lucky winner and three of his or her friends.
The winner will have the opportunity to choose any LCBA captain they'd like for the trip of a lifetime. The winner will have one year from the date the prize is awarded to redeem the trip. LCBA will facilitate initial communications between the winner and the selected captain. LCBA will cover the cost of the trip and pay the selected captain the deposit upon booking and the balance immediately following completion of the trip.
LCBA staff, board members, member captains, immediate family members and those living in the same household are not eligible to win.
If you're eligible and interested in entering the sweepstakes, click here to enter. You have until Dec. 17 at 11 p.m. CST to enter.
We also request that our captains spread the word about this sweepstakes through email, social media or word of mouth. Our social media likes and follows spike as a direct result of people entering the contest, which,of course, means more exposure for LCBA and our member captains. Promote this opportunity to your customers and they could be fishing with you for free, and you still get paid!
|
|
|
We're upping our efforts to increase membership numbers
The Louisiana Charter Boat Association has seen its membership double in the past year, and we thank you so much for that.
But we aren't satisfied yet!
It's our goal to double it again in the next year, and that's why we've done so much to entice new members to join the club.
Recently, we reached out to almost 300 unaffiliated Louisiana charter captains, and we plan to reach out to more than 200 additional unaffiliated captains in the coming weeks.
Hopefully, many of these captains will learn what our current members already know, that there's no downside to being an LCBA member and tons of upside.
We'd also like to ask our current members to advocate for LCBA to their colleagues at marinas across south Louisiana. Our best sales pitches for membership come from the mouths of our happy members themselves. We want the word to get out that if you aren't an LCBA member captain, you're missing out!
Our efforts in the past two weeks alone have netted more than 30 new member captains.
We are proud of these efforts, but they will not slow us from continuing to push for more.
|
|
|
What we've been up to....
|
|
Gulf Council Meeting in Biloxi
The biggest news out of the October Gulf Council Meeting that affects our charter fleet is that the Council narrowly passed a motion 9-7 with one abstention to change its preferred alternative on electronic logbooks for federally permitted charter vessels to one that would require minimum archived GPS and would not require the device to be fixed to the vessel.
LCBA Communications Manager Richard Fischer voiced our concerns during the Public Comment portion of the meeting. The momentum appears such that logbooks will go through at the next Gulf Council Meeting Jan. 30 through Feb. 2, 2017, in New Orleans. This preferred alternative switch is a potential win for our charter fleet because the previous preferred alternative required real-time GPS and for the device to be fixed to the vessel.
It cannot be stressed enough, though, that preferred alternatives can change at any time, even right before the final action vote, and word is that there is some serious lobbying going on behind the scenes to revert back to the original preferred alternative.That makes it absolutely imperative that if you don't want to be tracked real time and don't want the device fixed to your vessel, you need to show up and speak during the next Gulf Council Meeting in New Orleans.
The Council also decided without a vote to slow down Amendments 41 and 42, and it released preliminary statistics that showed that state supplemental red snapper seasons will likely cause red snapper to have been over harvested in 2016. The extent to which is not yet known as the year is not over and Texas has not submitted its data yet.
Click the links below for more details on what the Council decided and discussed last month in Biloxi.
|
|
LWF Commission holds November meeting
A very brief LWF Commission Meeting was held earlier this month at LDWF Headquarters in Baton Rouge.
The Commission did not vote on anything of consequence to our charter fleet.
Biologist and LDWF Council Designee Myron Fischer gave a presentation on the proceedings of the October Gulf Council Meeting, much of which you can read in the links above. Fischer revealed that LDWF will look to hold meetings with Louisiana federally-permitted charter captains in January, 2017, so keep an eye out for those and we will as well.
The next LWF Commission Meeting will be held in Ruston Dec. 1.
|
|
|
Louisiana Charter Boat Association | 225-421-9130 | lasaltwater.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
