TOGA Party 5/16/09 w/pics

[Jet Ski Brian]

Today my neighbor Julian and I went to the Tidewater Oyster Gardeners Assoc.
Peninsula Oyster Fair at Christ Church in Saluda, Va. This is an annual event in
which we were able to pick up a couple thousand Diploid oyster spat that we had
ordered for our reef project. We will grow these oysters along with the thousands
of others already in place in hopes of creating a sustainable oyster colony that
will help clean the local waters and reproduce. Oyster reefs are excellent habitat
for fish and many other bay critters, so by doing this we also create great
fishing opurtunities for ourselves and others.
The fair also had several venders that sold suplies for getting started and contin-
uing oyster gardening, either with floats, cages or reefs. If anyone is interested in
growing oysters look at this website Tidewater Oyster Gardeners Association

[Ware Fisher]

Oh no - caught on film!

It was nice meeting you there Brian. That was a good meeting for my first year as an oyster gardener. Hope to put most of mine on the local VMRC reef.

Bob

[tonydivefish]

Toga, toga, toga!

[BIG BIRD]

S0 how many bags did you get your ole buddy???
just got into Oahu from Guam this afternoon.....slowly working our way east.
next stop the "Big Island" hopefully get to drag a lure thru the area....tired of this working for a living gig.
latter...........i see Trav Man has been snagging reds in the Lynhaven area in his kayak @ night.

[classicrockfish]

Not being a native to the area and still learning how many opportunities truly do exist here in this area to give back and preserve and enhance our natural environment. I find this post quite exceptional. Thanks for sharing it!!

[Drwhale]

Brian,

I have a friend who lives on the Lafayette River.....Long pier, floating dock etc......He has been raising oysters for years.......I'm interested also...

My problem......The only water I have are the puddles around my house after a rain storm

My question......How do those of us that do not live on the water get involved????

Can we just take a bag of spit.....ahhhh I mean spat and place them somewhere in the river system??????? AND.....how do we find out where the choice breeding grounds might be.....

Thanks,


Doug Whalen

Whalen's Marine

Suzuki Sales & Service 24/7/365 (sometimes 366)

757-718-3539

[fishhooktoo]

Brian,
I live in Poquoson on a canal off of Roberts Creek, The Creek used to be full of Oysters but since the city has started dumping storm
water in to it, it has muddied up a bit. Do you think I could grow oyster from my dock?

[Jet Ski Brian]

Drwhale, admittedly most of the TOGA memebers are waterfront property
owners, but there are far more waterfront property owners who are not.
I know of several members that use friend's docks or put a stake of off
thier property and tie an oyster float to it. Some people put a lot of effort
into it and others just flip the float once week a week. Some oyster gardeners
are on open bodies of water and they eat their oysters and others do not. The
two main reasons most people raise them are so they can filter the water as
they grow( one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day) and because
as they grow they also spawn and hopefully attach to some structure and start
another generation. Another but not as common reason is to create three
dimensional reef structures in which the oysters can thrive and resist natural
predators such as they cow nose rays, it does no good to raise them and dump
the oysters on a reef. The Army Corps fed a couple million dollars to the rays
in recent years.
We use disease resistant Diploid spat that grow slower but are able to reproduce.
That to me is the key, they can reproduce. Commercial aquaculture is nice but
they raise Triploid oysters that grow faster so they can harvest them faster and
triploids do not reproduce. In my mind how can a severely threatened species
that is at 1 % of it's historic level come back by raising a sterile stock.
I would suggest looking at the Tidewater Oyster Gardeners Association site. I try to help
by informing people that such groups as Toga exist, I did not know of them until
my neighbor told me several years ago. I was skeptical but after having raised
them and created a great shoreline reef I am glad I did it.

[Jet Ski Brian]

Bob, based on this map http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/Environm...ond053-137.pdf Roberts creek is a closed body
of water for harvesting shellfish. You can still raise them you just can't eat them. Most likely they will live, if you get enough people around you doing it maybe some
day it will help improve the water conditions.
BigBird, I have a thousand for you if you want them. Hope the rest of your trip home goes well.

[mroskam]

why waste time and resources on trying to grow oysters that are just going to get harvested depleting the population more.....once the commercial season is closed your efforts might prove some good but doing now is nothing more than a dog and pony show