By Dianne Poston:
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (SAC) recently issued a news release stating that they have approved a request to NOAA Fisheries that would allow fishermen access to red snapper in federal waters off the coast of the Carolinas, Georgia, and the east coast of Florida.
The Council is requesting that NOAA Fisheries allow an interim annual catch limit (recreational and commercial) of 42,510 fish for 2017 via an emergency rule. The annual catch limit would allow for a recreational mini-season with six to 12 days of fishing over a few weekends beginning in late October.
The recreational bag limit would be 1 fish per person/day with no minimum size limit. The recreational sector is allocated 71.93 percent of the total catch limit of 42,510 fish for 2017. The Council also approved measures in Amendment 43 to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan with the intent to have a red snapper season in 2018. If allowed, the recreational fishery would open the second Friday in July (July 13, 2018) and the commercial fishery the second Monday in July (July 9, 2018).
SEDAR 41 is 805 pages and contains all the information on how the South Atlantic Council arrives at the numbers of fish that fishermen are allowed to catch. During the last season in 2014, biology tables were set up at the boat ramps to assess the red snapper stock. We fished in this last season and believed that the council was interested in how many older, breeding red snapper were available. We noted that the only fish that were making it to the biology table were the older, large fish and no one brought in the smaller red snapper to be assessed. As a result of this, there was a spike in the number of older fish being included in the council’s data.
They assumed that fishermen had been discarding the smaller red snapper, allowing them to become dead discards, to catch the larger snapper. The council believed that the dead discards were greater than the allocated number of red snapper to be caught and therefore closed red snapper harvest for 2015 and 2016.
During the 2017 season there will also be biology tables to assess our catch. Please be responsible fishermen and report all your catches, large and small, and also the ones you released. Private recreational fishermen will also have an opportunity to report their catch information as part of a voluntary pilot project using the mobile iAngler tournament app. Dr. Duval, of the SAC, is recommending practices such as moving off areas when you have caught your limit and if you need to release fish to use a descending device.
Washington state, Oregon, and California recently mandated fish descending devices for all bottom fishing. California reopened rock fish harvest after a study using descending devices showed that mortality was significantly reduced when using a descending device. There are several other states currently looking at mandating fish descending devices.
There are many fish descending devices on the market. A good one, for example, is the Fish Saver by Roy’s Electric Reels. For more information, go to fishsaverdevice.com.