By
DAVID RAINER
Alabama
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
The
old axiom that the more things change, the more they stay the same is certainly
true when it comes to the fiasco that has become the red snapper season in the
Gulf of Mexico.
NOAA
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Fisheries announced last week
that the private recreational red snapper season in federal waters would last a
whopping 72 HOURS. That’s right three whole days from June 1 through June 3.
Because of sector separation, which withstood a court challenge earlier this
year, the charter industry will be able to fish 49 days, starting June 1.
One of the most extensive artificial
reef systems in the world, about 1,030 square miles, sits just off the Alabama Coast.
Those reefs produce unparalleled fishing for species like red snapper. Alabama
Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) Commissioner N. Gunter
Guy Jr. made a particularly salient point in a news release recently about the
season.
“Alabama has built a great fishery and
has worked diligently to rebuild this once overfished species,” Commissioner
Guy said. “Now that the fishery is rebuilding, we are catching larger fish, and
they are so plentiful that we are being penalized for our success.”
Orange
Beach City Councilman Jeff Boyd has been very active on the red snapper issue,
and he considered joining a group of irate anglers in another protest. Some are
calling for civil disobedience by catching and keeping red snapper while the
federal season is closed.
Boyd
said a talk with ADCNR Deputy Commissioner Chris Blankenship changed his mind
about the protest.
“Chris
and I were in Washington recently to meet with Congressmen and NOAA,” Boyd
said. “After talking with Chris about the protest, I decided to take a
different path. I’ve already asked the Orange Beach City Council, and I feel
sure Gulf Shores will do the same, to send a letter to our members of Congress,
a letter to NOAA and a letter to the White House that (NOAA’s red snapper)
count is wrong and to give us the benefit of the doubt so that we can fish.”
Boyd
said NOAA is not factoring the economic impact on the region in setting the
seasons and bag limits.
“They
are not considering the people who come down here to buy condos and expensive
boats to go catch fish,” he said. “A ton of people are coming to Orange Beach
just for that reason. Then you’ve got restaurants, tackle shops, fuel docks,
all of that. That’s going to affect people like David Walter (Reefmaker). The
days of private fishermen building reefs in federal waters is over.
“I
feel like what they are doing now is they are forcing people to not fish and
get completely out of it and leave the area. Or, they’re going to force them to
fish illegally. I’ve never seen regulations be as unfair as this. We can’t
catch triggerfish. We can’t catch amberjack. You just about can’t keep
anything.”
Blankenship,
who was Alabama Marine Resources Division Director before becoming Deputy
Commissioner recently, said he understands Boyd’s frustration.
“It
is disappointing with all the work we’ve been doing to try to change red
snapper management to end up with three days,” Blankenship said. “That doesn’t
mean it’s all been for nothing. It just has not translated into more days of
fishing for this year. As we’ve been saying for the last several years, changes
need to be made in Congress to give us the flexibility to make this fishery
better.”
Blankenship
said the hard quotas that dictate fisheries closures in the Magnuson-Stevens
Act have been the largest obstacles. He has been working with Alabama’s
congressional delegation to get that section of the law amended during the
reauthorization process.
There
was a bit of good news coming from Washington recently. The recently passed
budget included language that would permanently extend Alabama’s state waters
to 9 nautical miles.
“The
9-mile state boundary will be for reef fish, not just for red snapper,”
Blankenship said. “And Senator (Richard) Shelby added a provision in the
appropriations bill that would require NOAA to implement a pilot program for
management in designated artificial reef areas. That’s something we’ll be
negotiating with NOAA over the next 60 days to find a pilot program for 2018
that will give us the ability to manage the reef zones farther than 9 miles
from shore.
“That
would be a significant change. That’s something we’ve needed to show that we’re
able to manage those fish out there.”
That,
however, still leaves anglers stuck with a three-day season for 2017, and
Blankenship has been getting plenty of feedback from the public.
“People
are obviously outraged,” he said. “They know the resource we have out there.
They think it’s totally ridiculous that we only have three days to access that
resource, as do we at Conservation.
“NOAA
uses a very conservative and subtractive system to determine the seasons. Then
they add in a 20-percent buffer. And, they’re also still using the MRIP (Marine
Recreational Information Program) numbers to set the seasons. Alabama Snapper
Check will be certified this year so that our landings numbers, which we
believe are much more accurate, will be used instead of MRIP for 2018 and
beyond. It’s more important than ever for people to participate in Snapper
Check.”
Of
course, Snapper Check is already online for 2017 because some Alabama anglers are
taking advantage of state seasons in Florida and Louisiana.
Plus,
Alabama’s state red snapper season is set to open on May 26 and run through
July 31.
“We’re
excited that we’re opening state waters for Memorial Day Weekend,” Blankenship
said. “I think that will make for some good fishing opportunities for families.
There are a lot of red snapper of legal size (16 inches total length) on the
close rigs and other reefs within 9 miles.”
Dauphin Island Mayor Jeff Collier is certainly glad to have
a state snapper season for the fishing-centric barrier island south of Mobile,
but he is obviously disappointed with the federal season.
“This will have a very negative impact on our local
fishermen but also our local economy and tourism,” Collier said. “Our island
offers easy access to the Gulf, so there’s no doubt we have a high volume of
recreational fishermen. And the fishermen don’t mince words. They’re seeing it
as rather ridiculous.
“We all know there are loads of fish out there. We know that
NOAA’s methodology of calculating the fish population is not in sync with
reality. We keep hoping that common sense will prevail. If not, we’re going to
get to the point of why have a boat or a fishing rod.”
Renowned angler Marcus Kennedy of Mobile hopes the three-day
season will finally motivate recreational anglers to get involved in the
process. He is so frustrated with the regulations in the Gulf that he has
turned to freshwater to have something for the dinner table.
“We’ve been crappie fishing on Big Creek Lake because
there’s nothing we can keep from the Gulf to eat,” Kennedy said. “I never
thought I’d see the day when the federal government would come in and tell us
we couldn’t keep snapper, grouper, triggerfish and amberjack right when the
fishing season traditionally starts. It’s very aggravating.”
Because of his equipment, Kennedy and his crew can fish in
places where others rarely dare to go, and he is finding red snapper in places
where they haven’t been before.
“There is an overabundance of red snapper from 3 miles to
100 miles,” he said. “We were doing some deep drops on the bottom in 400 feet
of water, and we were reeling up big red snapper. We’ve never done that before.
They’ve overpopulated everything that’s hard bottom or structure. They’re
crowding out the other fish and having a negative impact on the other reef
species.”
Kennedy has been named to a Gulf of Mexico Fishery
Management Council’s advisory panel that deals with red snapper. That panel
meets this week in New Orleans, but Kennedy is not optimistic.
“NOAA Fisheries is overestimating the recreational catch and
underestimating overall population of red snapper in the Gulf,” he said. “They
believe there are only three red snapper left in the Gulf. It’s so fouled up I
don’t know how we’re going to undo it.
“I know the recreational fishermen are getting the short end
of the stick.”
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Anglers who regularly fish the Gulf
of Mexico off the Alabama coast know there is an abundant population of red
snapper as shown by this big snapper caught by Chandra Wright on a trip with Capt. Randy Boggs.
Photo by David Rainer
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