Where Do You Stand: Possible Changes Florida's Redfish Regs

[Bud Man]

Latest and greatest press release on FWC plans for redfish reg changes. The new news is the consideration of a vessel limit in areas expanded to 2 per person...

FWC proposes increase to redfish bag limit in northern Florida
News Release

September 2, 2010
Contact: Lee Schlesinger, 850-487-0554

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) on Thursday proposed a draft rule that would raise the recreational daily redfish bag limit from one fish to two per person in large areas of northern Florida. The FWC also is proposing to create three regional management areas for redfish to better target its management approaches for this popular Florida fish.

"We've come a long way since the early 1990s, when redfish stocks were largely depleted, but the management of redfish in Florida is turning out to be a success story," said FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto. "The fishery is holding its own in southern Florida, and numbers of redfish in northern parts of the state are now at a point where it's safe to give back some fish to anglers."

The FWC has strictly managed redfish (also called red drum, channel bass and red bass) for more than 20 years to help rebuild overfished populations. A 2008 FWC stock assessment now indicates that annual management goals for redfish are consistently being exceeded in areas of northeastern and northwestern Florida.

As a result, the FWC is proposing establishment of three management areas for redfish in Florida (which are the same as established management areas for spotted seatrout). In all waters in the northwest management area (Escambia through Pasco counties) and in the northeast management area (Flagler through Nassau counties), the FWC proposal would raise the daily recreational bag limit for redfish from one fish to two. The Commission also directed staff to develop a possible redfish vessel limit in areas where a two-fish limit would apply. The current one-fish daily limit would still apply in all waters in the south management area (south of Pasco and Flagler counties).

The FWC has scheduled a series of workshops this fall to hear what people think about its redfish proposals. Information regarding these workshops and additional background regarding the FWC's redfish rule proposals is available online at MyFWC.com/Rules (click on "Fishing - Saltwater").

A final public hearing on the FWC's redfish rule proposals is scheduled for the Commission's February public meeting in Apalachicola.

[Good Times]

No matter the changes, I would still practice catch and release and maybe keep one or two per year.

[kneeknocker]

FWC will hold a public hearing tomorrow night to gain information for their final recomendations on Redfish. They will also hold these hearings all over Florida in the upcoming months.

September 9, 2010
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m (EDT)
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 S. Meridian Farris Bryant Building,
2nd Floor Conference Room
Tallahassee, FL 32399

[big bend gyrene]

Voted for keeping it the same for many of the same reasons voiced by others. This said, I'm not against taking it to 2 in the future, nor do I think a 2 fish limit will bring the fishery to it's knees. Just haven't seen such a crazy increase in recent years to advocate upping it yet. Have had some double digit days since moving here in 2002, and just being honest it seems about the same now as it did when I came with some days being quite decent but others days quite slow. They get thicker than fleas I'll absolutely support sane limit increases.

[Jumptrout51]

If you were a better fisherman you would have double digit days everyday.

[big bend gyrene]

Give me a while, JT... I get as old as dirt, maybe I'll have 'em figured out just like you do...

[Jumptrout51]

[Skeeter-Bite]

Increase the limit,if you don't want to keep 2,then don't! Better start looking at re-opening Goliath grouper (Jewfish) or there aren't gonna any other fish on the wrecks. They eat everything....gag grouper included. Just my 2 cents!

[SS-342]

My 2 cents is that we need to listen to the biologist.

What do they say?

Too many Redfish could be as bad as too few.

Science is better than personal opinions!

[Jumptrout51]

My 2 cents is that we need to listen to the biologist.

What do they say?

Too many Redfish could be as bad as too few.

Science is better than personal opinions!

Good science is great.
Problem is that these scientist are telling us there are too few gag and red snapper.
That may be true somewhere,but not in our area of the Gulf.

I went to a redfish assessment meeting at FWC 3 years ago. At that time they were advocating a size reduction to 26 inches down from 27 inches and a closed season because redfish stocks were described as becoming depleted.
Many fishermen at the Tallahassee meeting told of the large quantities of reds in our area.
FWC was also reminded of their measurement procedure change earlier that year.
The measurement change being a "pinched" tail.
With redfish a pinched tail already reduced the actually size of the redfish to 26 inches.

The final result of those workshops was that they left the size alone and did not impose a closed season.
Here we are 3 years later and they are willing to go up in quantity.

So,were the fishermen right 3 years ago and the biologists were wrong.
OR
Has something miraculous happened to redfish in 3 years.

[SS-342]

Good point!

[fishinfool]

I went to the Red Drum workshop held at the FWC headquarters this evening. It was interesting. I learned some things. If you would have told me last year that Red Drum from Apalachee Bay would migrate to the Tampa Bay area, I would have been very suspicious of your facts. But apparently, tags do not lie and Reds are considerably more migratory than previously thought.
The other thing that surprised me was given the number of opinions posted recently concerning this subject, I would have thought more members of BBF.net or NFGFC would have been present to voice those opinions.
There were approximately 8 citizens that attended. One of those was a retired FWC employee. One was a former guide, current journalist, that still holds an active captain's licence. The rest were like me, average fishing joe. The consensus ran from closing the fishery alltogether, allowing 0 Reds to be harvested, to increasing the bag limit to 2 per person/per day. In between there was discussion of a Red Drum stamp, like that for Snook. Also increasing the size limit. One thought was to Increase the bag limit to two and close the season during the prime spawning month. All in all most in attendance were in agreement that this might not be the right year for this, due to the recent environmental impact the Gulf has undergone. My personal opinion was that we continue the current studies and revisit this issue next year to see if anything has changed. If no significant changes are found, it might be OK to increase the bag limit to two per person per day. The fishery just might be strong enough to sustain that kind of impact. I probably would not take two Reds on every trip or even most trips, but it would be nice to be able to if I wanted to feed family AND a friend or two.
I hope to attend more of these workshops as they happen.
FF