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scroll to page 10 - reopening of red drum to commercial harvest.

Last I heard they were considered a gamefish, and could not be commercially harvested from public waters. (Meaning they have redfish ponds they grow them in for commerical selling)

Harvest of Red Drum in the Gulf of Mexico Under Consideration

The Gulf Council in February requested NOAA Fisheries to review and verify the methodology used in a draft report titled “Recommended Age Composition and Mark-Recapture Study Sample Sizes for Gulf of Mexico Red Drum.” The report was handed out during the Council meeting by Council member Harlon Pearce as part of his efforts to determine if there is enough science to support reopening the red drum fishery in federal waters.
If the methodology is deemed appropriate, the Council will ask its Scientific and Statistical Committee to review it, along with the last Red Drum Stock Assessment published in 2000, the red drum fishery management plan from 1986, and the latest Gulf state landings data in an effort to determine an acceptable biological catch and maximum sustainable yield for red drum.

Depending on the recommendations of the Scientific and Statistical Committee, the Council will set an annual catch limit for red drum as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Act - annual catch limits must be set for all managed species by 2011.

Additionally, staff is securing and reviewing information from the five Gulf states on red drum escapement. Escapement is the percentage of fish in a particular fishery that escape from an inshore habitat and move offshore, where they eventually spawn.

Using the updated escapement information, analyzing the impacts that harvest in federal waters may have on current state water harvests, and reviewing the SSC recommendations on Acceptable Biological Catch
and Maximum Sustainable Yield for red drum, staff in conjunction with NOAA Fisheries will prepare a discussion paper and analysis on how red drum harvest in federal waters would meet the research needs outlined by the Ad Hoc Red Drum Review Panel.
If a determination is made that some sort of harvest would be beneficial, Council staff may begin developing a scoping document to amend the Red Drum Fishery Management Plan to allow for its harvest in federal waters.

I though W. gave them game fish status.

If they open it back up to commercial fishing you had better get a red while you can.
Otherwise the stocks will be back to depletion in no time and the recreational fisherman will get the blame.

I heard last Monday the Feds are going to open the Magnuson/Stevens closed zone off Apalachicola to commercial boats.

DOG GONE IT!! JT51 Finally went and said something I have to agree with!

Yea, I don't know where they think the young reds are coming from, but its those big breeders in the federal waters.

If Reds are so prolific to allow commercial harvest then why are we only allowed one?!! Get serious Council its a protected GAME fish! I'll go to that fishing rights demonstration!!! FWC has battled nettters and violators and spent how many dollars doing it, just to have the law changed back that's so smart!

The link you posted does not work, and I would like to review the document. I can't find it on the web site.

Where is it listed?

Thanks,

EJ

Try it now.

Thanks for the link to the Newsletter. The confusion I experienced was that I could read that article, but I did not follow how one could assume a commercial harvest was being considered. Right now, ALL harvest of Red Drum is closed in federal waters, which a lot of anglers do not realize, even though it's a one fish bag in Florida State Waters.

The assessment, as I read it, is to determine if the feds would open harvest in federal waters, at all, and I would expect that to be rec. only. No mention is made of commercial, so I wouldn't go nuts just yet.

EJ

Hope you guys are all enjoying the change!

MudDucker wrote:Hope you guys are all enjoying the change!

Not sure what you mean, but at least in Florida waters, there is pretty good evidence that Red Drum are fully recovered, and the harvest could be expanded. Feds closed their harvest totally, and that was good at the time. However, people gripe that once closed fisheries "never open". In this case, perhaps a small recreational harvest should be considered in federal waters. The data should be helpful when available. Since there is no directed harvest, data will have to come from independent fisheries monitoring and sampling. If the truth be known, I know a fair number of anglers that have, by mistake, taken one red in federal waters already thinking the bag was the same as inshore.

EJ

EddieJoe wrote:

MudDucker wrote:Hope you guys are all enjoying the change!

Not sure what you mean, but at least in Florida waters, there is pretty good evidence that Red Drum are fully recovered, and the harvest could be expanded. Feds closed their harvest totally, and that was good at the time. However, people gripe that once closed fisheries "never open". In this case, perhaps a small recreational harvest should be considered in federal waters. The data should be helpful when available. Since there is no directed harvest, data will have to come from independent fisheries monitoring and sampling. If the truth be known, I know a fair number of anglers that have, by mistake, taken one red in federal waters already thinking the bag was the same as inshore.

EJ

The stocks are NOT fully recovered. Anyone who fished for them back prior to the "blackened redfish" craze and now knows that. The stocks are much better and could easily stand an increase in limits, but they are not where they once were at all.

My reference to hope and change was to the slogan of our new comrade ... err President who now wants to bringing our fishing under this heavy thumb.

MudDucker wrote:

EddieJoe wrote:

MudDucker wrote:Hope you guys are all enjoying the change!

Not sure what you mean, but at least in Florida waters, there is pretty good evidence that Red Drum are fully recovered, and the harvest could be expanded. Feds closed their harvest totally, and that was good at the time. However, people gripe that once closed fisheries "never open". In this case, perhaps a small recreational harvest should be considered in federal waters. The data should be helpful when available. Since there is no directed harvest, data will have to come from independent fisheries monitoring and sampling. If the truth be known, I know a fair number of anglers that have, by mistake, taken one red in federal waters already thinking the bag was the same as inshore.

EJ

The stocks are NOT fully recovered. Anyone who fished for them back prior to the "blackened redfish" craze and now knows that. The stocks are much better and could easily stand an increase in limits, but they are not where they once were at all.

My reference to hope and change was to the slogan of our new comrade ... err President who now wants to bringing our fishing under this heavy thumb.

There may never be as many reds as there were in the old days, and I did fish for them here over the last 40 years. By the way, the problem in the fishery was not just commercial boys taking the big breeders offshore, it was the overharvest of small fish inshore by both commercial and rec. guys. Many, many, many coolers filled to the brim with inshore reds headed back to the hill in those days, and not just to the fish house. But that is all in the past, thankfully.
As far as what "recovery" means, in the fisheries biology sense recovery means that some goal is reached, which not necessarily is the same population as what it was 30 years ago. The biggest problem with reds was that entire age classes were "missing" from the fishery, because no fish of that year lived to reproductive age by "escaping" offshore. At least ten years ago under the new, more protective management regulations things were getting pretty close, so I expect that now they are much better. I haven't seen the latest stock assessment so I don't know for sure, but like you I suspect good things based on my own fishing experience.
EJ

This doesn't surprise me, everything they do now doesn't surprise me!!! Guys, before you know it the only thing we will be permitted to fish for and with will be bonefish, with a d*** blade of grass and a shoe string that can be no longer than 18"!!!! Oh and not to mention one bonefish per person, per shoe string, per boat, per day!!!!
Mike

EddieJoe wrote:There may never be as many reds as there were in the old days, and I did fish for them here over the last 40 years. By the way, the problem in the fishery was not just commercial boys taking the big breeders offshore, it was the overharvest of small fish inshore by both commercial and rec. guys. Many, many, many coolers filled to the brim with inshore reds headed back to the hill in those days, and not just to the fish house. But that is all in the past, thankfully.

Who told you that it was recreational fishing that depleted the stocks? I call BullShite on that one. Back when the fishery started to decline, I talked with SEVERAL fish biologist who were on the gulf coast studying the problem and they agreed to a man that the problem WAS the loss of the offshore breeders. The fishery showed NO signs of depletion from YEARS AND YEARS of recreational fishing. The fishery dropped within 3 years of the netting of the big reds offshore. Only one biologist even said that a creel limit for recreational fisherman might have made any difference at all due to the big difference in the age of the breeding fish caught offshore versus the age of the immature fish caught inshore. This was the reason why Texas decided to have redfish hatcheries for release. A few breeders delivery a huge amount of eggs.