# 1 Snapper per person this season?



## TURTLE (May 22, 2008)

*The guy at my seafood market told me yesterday that our rec bag limit this season has been reduced to 1 per angler.I know it's a rumor at this point but if any of you know the truth about this I would like to know.*

*Also , if you leave from a port in Alabama and return to the same port are you subject to Alabamas regs even though you are a Florida resident?*

*And yes I'm trying to see if there is a way around these dumb ass rules.:banghead*


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## Deeplines (Sep 28, 2007)

> *TURTLE (1/13/2010)**The guy at my seafood market told me yesterday that our rec bag limit this season has been reduced to 1 per angler.I know it's a rumor at this point but if any of you know the truth about this I would like to know.*
> 
> *Also , if you leave from a port in Alabama and return to the same port are you subject to Alabamas regs even though you are a Florida resident?*
> 
> *And yes I'm trying to see if there is a way around these dumb ass rules.:banghead*


If not mistaken it doens't matter where you launch but where you land. Land in Bama, Bama regs and need bama Lic. You can transit (sp?) the waters but where you land is where you need your lic. and under thier regs. 

I have HEARD that if you stop in bama just to get gas and have fish on board you are suseptable(sp?) to being boarded by Alabama wildlife and game and fall under Bama regs even though you are only getting gas. This had to do to the fact that you are tied to a structure affixed to land. :banghead


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## LITECATCH (Oct 2, 2007)

You cannot go through Bama waters on your way to Pensacola without a Bama license. (if you have fish). Bama changed the law last year. Jerks!


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## Deeplines (Sep 28, 2007)

> *LITECATCH (1/13/2010)*You cannot go through Bama waters on your way to Pensacola without a Bama license. (if you have fish). Bama changed the law last year. Jerks!


Thanks for the info Scott..... You Jerk.oke


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## cuzmondo (Oct 1, 2007)

> *LITECATCH (1/13/2010)*You cannot go through Bama waters on your way to Pensacola without a Bama license. (if you have fish). Bama changed the law last year. Jerks!


Yeah, it sure was convenient to come back through Alabama when you went S.W. out of P'cola pass and late in the day the S.E. wind kicked up. But not any more; well that is unless you buy an AL license.


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## sealark (Sep 27, 2007)

I can't beleive that's true because they have to see you stopped and fishing in Alabama or tied up to propertyto enforce there fishing regulations. Just like Florida must do. Noone owns the water.:doh


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## Chris V (Oct 18, 2007)

They can stop an Al resident in Florida for the same thing. If you dock in Florida with fish caught in Bama they don't give you the benefit of the doubt, they fine you.

NO, they have not officially set the limits orlength for the 2010 season and thats what makes it aggravating even talking aboutit sometimes because it turns into a game of telephone and before you know it the GOM is closed toall recreational fishing. It is kinda funny though.


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## Jaw Jacker (Jul 29, 2009)

From the FWC wed site, 2010Red Snapper season June 1st to August 14th. Limit is 2 fish per person per day. With a foot note to check with MyFWC for most current regulations.


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## lobsterman (Sep 30, 2007)

> *Jaw Jacker (1/13/2010)*From the FWC wed site, 2010Red Snapper season June 1st to August 14th. Limit is 2 fish per person per day. With a foot note to check with MyFWC for most current regulations.


That is their intent at this point but they have caved into Federal pressure at least the past year. That is also State waters.


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## JoeZ (Sep 30, 2007)

> *sealark (1/13/2010)*I can't beleive that's true because they have to see you stopped and fishing in Alabama or tied up to propertyto enforce there fishing regulations. Just like Florida must do. Noone owns the water.:doh




No, it's a possession law. They can stop you for shits and giggles and if you have fish and you're in Alabama, you better have an Alabama license. Same in Florida.



They don't own the water just enforce the laws that govern them. A state trooper doesn't own the highway, but he'll bust your ass for breaking the law.



It's just their job.


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## sealark (Sep 27, 2007)

Joe, I agree if you are in Alabama they have juristiction. But if you launched in florida and have a legal catch and due to weather or any reason you are transiting in the water without stopping or touching Alabama LAND I still don't think they can inforce Alabama rules on you or require you to have an Alabama License. Now if you launched from Cotton Bayou or somewhere in Alabama yes they can.


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## TURTLE (May 22, 2008)

> *Jaw Jacker (1/13/2010)*From the FWC wed site, 2010Red Snapper season June 1st to August 14th. Limit is 2 fish per person per day. With a foot note to check with MyFWC for most current regulations.


*I saw what the site said but what got me thinking is, the guy who told me about this said it had been in a couple of magazines but they were not going to announce it until just before Snapper season to prevent an uproar.Also they will avoid any legal opposition as it takes longer then the season last just to get a hearing.Makes sence to me after seeing what has happened in just the past few years.*

*In a few more years all of our fish will be sent overseas and the only fish we will be able to catch and eat will be cought at Joe Pattis and flown straight in from Vietnam or thailand.After all it's foreign Countries we care about having a sound economy right?:hoppingmad*


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## JoeZ (Sep 30, 2007)

No sir. They can, they will and they have.



I'm not saying I agree with it but it is what it is.



They made the move for the exact reason you stated. We duck(ed) in there all the time and almost all of the big boats fishing out west would as well coming back from the rigs or what not. Well, I think they saw an opportunity for a revenue stream (either licenses or tickets) and made it happen.


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## markw4321 (Oct 4, 2007)

Not an endorsement by any means, but below is an interesting article on red snapper.
http://www.joincca.org/TIDE/Shipp1.htm

Talking Red Snapper
_Q&A with Dr. Bob Shipp, Chairman of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council_

By Ted Venker
TIDE
Jan/Feb 2010

_Dr. Bob Shipp has taught at the University of South Alabama since 1972, where he is presently chairman of the Department of Marine Sciences, director of the Alabama Center for Estuarine Studies, and heads the Alabama Oyster Restoration program. He was associate director of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab for 10 years and edited the marine journal Northeast Gulf Science (now Gulf of Mexico Science) for 20 years. For four years was editor of Systematic Zoology, a premier international journal devoted to evolutionary theory. _
_He was appointed to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council in 1991, served as its chairman during 1996-97 and again from 1999-2000. He was reappointed to the Council in 2005, elected vice-chairman in 2007, and chairman in 2009. He recently took time out of his busy schedule to discuss the always difficult issue of Gulf red snapper._

Q. How do you explain the discrepancy between Gulf red snapper assessments and what anglers on the water are seeing?

A. I think everyone agrees the populations are stronger now than they have been in decades. My own personal belief is they are the strongest they have ever been in history because of the habitat we have created, both the oil rigs and the artificial reefs. But even those who discount that, everyone agrees the stocks are improving. 
The problem is that the models are dependent on fishery dependent data, and that information comes from recreational and commercial fishermen. There is a built-in bias there. Let me give you an example ? the commercial guys testified at a recent Council meeting that they are targeting the smaller snapper ? 2- to 4-pound snapper ? because they get a higher price for it. Well, when that information goes into the model, it is interpreted to mean there aren?t that many big fish out there. So the model is left with the conclusion that we don?t have a population of big, old, nice fish out there and therefore the stock must be overfished. That is the problem. The modelers know that. They would love to not have to rely on fishery dependent data. They want fishery independent data which sample the entire snapper population; not just the part of it that is being fished. 
An example of fishery independent data are plankton surveys like SEAMAP (Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program) is conducting in the western and central Gulf. Another example would be the longline surveys being conducted by NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service) that began in the last few years. When that information is incorporated into the model, we will get a much more realistic view of the population. As long as we are depending on those fishery dependent inputs, we are going to get a skewed stock assessment.

Q. There have been rumors over the years that snapper on artificial structure like oil rigs were not counted in the assessments ? what is the real story?

A. Indirectly, they do get counted and the way that they are is from the catch information from fishermen who fish natural structure and man-made structure as well. So when MRFSS (Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistical Survey) people are interviewing or the commercial catch is being analyzed, it doesn?t matter if it was taken off natural structure or artificial structure. Where that rumor started was some of the fishery independent video analyses that the State of Alabama did, have not been included in the models, so there is a dataset there from artificial structure that has not been included. But the catches from there are included in the assessment.

Q. If you were the ?Snapper Czar,? what would you do with this fishery?

A. If I were the snapper czar, I?d start by analyzing what the problem is. The problem is we are killing way too many fish. We?re killing them because there are a lot of fish out there. Even if they are targeting something else, the fishermen are catching them and having to throw them back. The commercial guys are killing them off west Florida because they don?t have quota to land those fish. Problem number one is, we are killing way too many fish. Problem number two is we need to protect the stock. Is there a way to address both problems? I think there is. 
The way to do it is an areal closure. Snapper live in depths from 5 to 100 fathoms and they are abundant at all those depths when you have the right kind of structure on the bottom. If we conduct the fishery in, let?s say, 20 fathoms or less, you are protecting a huge percentage of the stock. The portion of the stock that lives from 20 to 100 fathoms would not be fished at all, but if you fish just that portion in 20 fathoms or less, you could get a little more liberal on bag limits, size limits and seasons, like from April 1 to October 30 with a three-fish bag limit and a 16-inch minimum size. All those would be safeguards. Then you would pretty much eliminate the terrible waste of bycatch.
Don?t misinterpret ? this is not a permanent fix. This is not an MPA (marine protected area). This is a temporary, areal closure until NMFS could develop the fishery independent indices we need to come up with a better stock assessment. 
The devil is in the details, though. What do you do about the commercial guys? Exactly what portion of the stock would you be saving? You?d have to go through some analyses and determine what percentage of the stock you were protecting ? you may have to go to 15 fathoms, not 20, I don?t know, but the principle is fish the shallows where there is an abundance of fish. Fishing in shallower water lets you liberalize the season and limits, and your release mortality is much, much lower. If you had a 16-inch size limit you would pretty much guarantee every year there would be a fair amount of stock, and when you throw back those 12- to 14-inch fish in 70 feet of water, you won?t have much bycatch mortality at all.

Q. The idea of splitting the Gulf and managing red snapper as separate stocks in the east and west has been discussed for years. Is there any evidence to support the theory that splitting the Gulf into eastern and western stocks may be a better way to manage this fishery?

A. Two things about that. The initial information that I am getting from the stock assessment, which should be to the Council by February, is that the western Gulf is in better shape than the eastern Gulf. Although the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) says you need, to the extent possible, to manage the stock as a single unit, there is precedent in other fisheries for splitting this up. Now, what is important is where the dividing line is ? a lot of people assume it is the mouth of the river and it?s not. The dividing line is really Mobile Bay. The habitat west of Mobile Bay is predominantly mud bottom with high nutrient levels and to the east it is sand bottom and lower nutrient levels. So that would be the break between east and west Gulf.
This is a tough issue when start talking about breaking the Gulf but it is certainly something that is receiving a lot of attention recently and it is conceivable we could move in that direction.

Q. Just a few years ago it was widely thought that the western Gulf was in worse shape than the eastern. What changed?

A. Part of it is that shrimping effort is way, way down ? down about 80 percent. Although there is a question now as to whether bycatch from shrimping was that terribly harmful because some of the ecosystem people are saying that shrimp bycatch killed a lot of the predators that ate red snapper. It may not have been quite as negative as we once believed.

Q. Is there a need to reallocate this fishery, in your opinion?

A. Russell Nelson (CCA Gulf Fisheries Consultant) provided the Council with the Wade-Griffin study out of Texas A&M University which indicates that about 82 percent of the economic value of the Gulf red snapper fishery is in the recreational sector. However, with the way the Council is balanced right now, it is really, really difficult to change allocations. We have a balance on the Council of commercials and recreationals and a few others and it is a monumental task to reallocate. Every time someone comes up with a study to favor one group, you can find an economist on the other side to favor a different group. We do have a generic reallocation amendment, but it has vacillated back and forth and I don?t see it going anywhere soon.
MSA has to be changed, though ? that?s the problem. The draconian set of regulations and mandates that have come down are just killing the fishery, and not just in the Gulf. The South Atlantic and the East Coast have all been impacted, especially all the bottom fisheries. It is just totally unrealistic to think you can stop overfishing in two years on these stocks that are important to all stakeholders.

Q. There was talk several years ago of physically separating recreational anglers and commercial fishermen in the red snapper fishery ? a position that was promoted by CCA ? in order to prevent the near-shore structure from being fished out by commercial fishers before the recreational season even opened. The Council did not adopt that proposal, but could that be an answer to some of the problems we are seeing in the Gulf?

A. It might. The problem there is, since the commercial guys are targeting the smaller fish because they get a higher price for them, they are probably going to fish in shallower water and would scream bloody murder. I don?t see us going anywhere with that.

Q. When, if ever, do you believe the red snapper season is going to get back to the levels that anglers remember in better days? A six-month season and four-fish bag seems pretty luxurious now. Will we ever see those days again?

A. It is totally dependent on the stock assessment being conducted now, but it seems like the indices are all improving and my gut feeling is in about three years we will start to see some relaxation.
The problem is that quotas are assigned in pounds, not numbers of fish, and so as the fishery improves and the fish get bigger, we?ve got this conundrum. We may not have caught any more snapper in terms of numbers this year than last year, but they are so much bigger that that?s why we exceeded the quota by such a large amount. So even if the quotas get relaxed ? right now it is a total of about 5 million pounds ? and it doubled to 10 million pounds, we are not ever going to see those 10 months seasons and six fish bag limits again because the fish are so big and there are so many of them.
Those old models would have a seven-fish bag and on average a guy was going to catch three or four and not the full seven. Now, you have a seven-fish bag, everyone who goes out there will catch seven fish?for a while.
That is the paradox of this whole thing. That is why my czar solution is the one to go with, although no one will ever buy it. It?s just too radical. It just makes too much sense.

Q. What is your philosophy with regard to the job of a fishery management council? How do you approach this very difficult job?

A. There is a lot of misinformation about it, really. The Council really doesn?t have a whole lot of latitude. The science drives the system, NMFS drives the science and NMFS has developed the guidelines to interpret MSA. About all we on the Council can do is modify seasons and bag limits and that sort of thing within really tight constraints. It is frustrating to be a Council member because we get blamed for a lot of stuff and every once in a while we get a little credit. King mackerel, for example, seem to be really healthy and doing a lot better these days. But the latitude the Council has is really pretty limited.
We have 10 National Standards that guide what we do, but National Standard 1 has to do with the health of the stock and that trumps everything else. Yes, you can talk about fishing communities and socioeconomic impacts and bycatch reductions and all those things that are covered under other National Standards, but that one about building to maximum sustainable yield in all these stocks trumps them all.


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## markw4321 (Oct 4, 2007)

most of the article/interview is positive, butthefollowing text taken from the article "scares" me in terms of the deeper water grouper fishery. Does the below statement mean that all fishing would be closed beyond 20 fathoms(120 Feet) in order to protect red snapper?

_*"Problem number one is, we are killing way too many fish. Problem number two is we need to protect the stock. Is there a way to address both problems? I think there is. 
The way to do it is an areal closure. Snapper live in depths from 5 to 100 fathoms and they are abundant at all those depths when you have the right kind of structure on the bottom. If we conduct the fishery in, let?s say, 20 fathoms or less, you are protecting a huge percentage of the stock. The portion of the stock that lives from 20 to 100 fathoms would not be fished at all, but if you fish just that portion in 20 fathoms or less, you could get a little more liberal on bag limits, size limits and seasons, like from April 1 to October 30 with a three-fish bag limit and a 16-inch minimum size. All those would be safeguards. "*_

Mark W


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## Eastern Tackle (Jul 6, 2009)

The CCA is "conservation" organization (The middle C stands for conservation) that has lulled recreational fishermen into supporting them to fight commercial fishing. Now their target is the recreational fishermen in many instances. MPA's and their support of them is one of those instances.



Here is another example of the CCA support of MPA's http://www.joincca.org/eNewsletter/Feb 2009.htm



They are for fish protection and not fishermen access. Conservation can be a very good thing for us as fishermen ( I know I limit myself a lot ), but MPA's aren't the answer.


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## Airborne (Nov 27, 2007)

Been stop over there many times. If you have your limit of anything, each and everybody on boardbetter have an alabama license, regardless if youare just ducking in to avoid the weather or to just get gas.


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## kahala boy (Oct 1, 2007)

I always thought that if you are in that States water, you must have the applicable license. And abide by their rules. If in Federal waters then federal rules apply. Am I wrong?


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## angus_cow_doctor (Apr 13, 2009)

> *kahala boy (1/13/2010)*I always thought that if you are in that States water, you must have the applicable license. And abide by their rules. If in Federal waters then federal rules apply. Am I wrong?


+1


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## JoeZ (Sep 30, 2007)

> *kahala boy (1/13/2010)*I always thought that if you are in that States water, you must have the applicable license. And abide by their rules. If in Federal waters then federal rules apply. Am I wrong?




Previously, you didn't need an Alabama license to run through Alabama waters. If you were going FISH there or STOP for something, yes. But if you were just passing through, you didn't need one prior to Sept. of 2007 or 2008 -- can't remember which.



Most state laws mirror federal laws these days so as to reduce confusion. As you can see, that's not working out really well.



As for the one snapper limit, I've heard varying reports (rumors). Everything from the same as 09 to adding a few days to the season. All things lead me to believe that we have seen the worst of it but we might not see it get better any time soon.


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## baldona523 (Mar 2, 2008)

Personally, as much as it is frustrating, I would much rather the limit be conservative and go out and catch a ton of fish everytime out, then the opposite and not catch as many but keep more. Honestly, I prefer grouper way more anyway, so the snapper I catch is simply a bonus. But, given that, I understand the by catch and between the dolphins and change of depth killing them, do think that is a serious problem when we are not allowed to keep them, and I can not stand the commercial industry having rights of recreational.



I agree with a lot of that article, and I would support closing say from 5 to 7 miles out or something along those lines, but simple fact is no way I see it every happening.


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## Brandonshobie (Aug 10, 2009)

Same as last year so far http://myfwc.com/docs/RulesRegulations/2010_Jan_RegsSummary_Newsletter.pdfpage 10... 2 per person.


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## REEL STAMAS (Jan 27, 2008)

The final decision for 2010 ARS will be made at the NMFS FEB. MTG. & we'll find out for sure by March 1...


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