BigBendFishing.Net

SOUTHEAST FISHERY BULLETIN
(Gulf of Mexico)

FB14-034
Cynthia Meyer
727-824-5305

May 14, 2014


NOAA Fisheries Announces the Revised 2014 Red Snapper Recreational Season in the Gulf of Mexico


The 2014 Gulf of Mexico red snapper recreational season in federal waters is 9 days, opening at 12:01 a.m., June 1, 2014, and closing at 12:01 a.m., on June 10, 2014. The red snapper bag limit is 2 fish with a 16-inch minimum total length size limit.

At its April 2014 meeting, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council requested an emergency rule to revise the recreational accountability measures for red snapper by applying a 20-percent buffer to the recreational quota, which results in a recreational annual catch target of 4.312 million pounds whole weight. This emergency rule will not affect the commercial harvest of red snapper in the reef fish fishery.

The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council's decision to request an emergency rule was made following the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in Guindon v. Pritzker, (Mar. 26, 2014). After recalculating the season length based on the annual catch target and including the 2013 Marine Recreational Information Program data, NOAA Fisheries is setting a 9-day red snapper fishing season.

The purpose of this rulemaking is to better ensure red snapper recreational landings do not exceed the recreational quota established in the rebuilding plan, in accordance with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and the Court's ruling.
The method for calculating the dates for the federal season for each state are available in the Environmental Assessment in Appendix B. Electronic copies of the documents are available.
• Final Rule and Environmental Assessment: Federal eRulemaking Portal search "NOAA-NMFS-2014-0055" http://www.regulations.gov and NOAA Fisheries http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/.
This summary is not a substitute for the actual regulations. We encourage you to read the full text of the regulations, available at
http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/.

NOAA. What a joke.

And I was griping about an eleven day season

The State one is still May 24 to July 14 right?

RayMalloy wrote:The State one is still May 24 to July 14 right?

http://www.myfwc.com/fishing/saltwater/ ... d-snapper/

Yep

Add in a few windy or stormy days and there might realistically only be 2 or 3 fishable days. Why even bother? Friggin government!!!

Edit- Just heard from a reliable source it's likely to be reduced to 7 days before the season gets here.

That's what they want. No fishing. No fish keeping.

Lets See!
4.312 million pounds Divided by 7 lbs ( that's what say is the average weight for a red snapper)=616000 fish

616000 divided by 9 days= 68444 fish per day ( if every day was fish-able)

68444 divided by 2 fish limit. Means it will take 34222 anglers catching 2 fish per day for 9 whole days to reach their limit.

Does anybody here think there will be 34222 recreational (Gulf!) anglers catching 2 fish per day for the whole 9 day season, or even anywhere close to that?

Ybnormal

RayMalloy wrote:The State one is still May 24 to July 14 right?

With a 9 day season, those state water spots west of us are going to be packed. Be careful in your yak

Again Commercial fisherman will not be affected!

Hmmmm...That means if I go fishing for enjoyment, that I have to throw back the majority of the fish I catch. Then if I want a fish dinner I can buy all the Snapper I want from the local seafood market. I won't know when it was caught. How fresh it is. What method was used to harvest the fish(hook and line or nets or long line). What is the by-catch impact from the commercial fisher etc. etc...
It kinda makes me wonder.

I don't know what the hubub is all about. We get one whole Saturday and two whole Sundays to harvest snapper.

Succession from the union is the only choice they leave us. I finally just about quit going offshore several years ago. Quotos/weather/cost all add up to it not making sense. If the government is involved you can bet it will not make sense.

So sad..... and it only encourages the poachers.

Welcome to the new collective comrades. Y'all can think those who elected Obummer for emboldening the idiots who run these federal agencies. Search the old threads, there were warnings that this was on the whitehouse agenda.


Oh and send your protest to Obummer via hashtag diplomacy. I am sure it will scare the crap out of him like he did Putin!