Amendment 16 is Law: Grouper Fishing to Close in South Atlantic on January 1

Other new regulations affect recreational vermilion snapper catches and commercial fisheries

New federal regulations will drastically alter grouper fishing and vermilion snapper fishing in South Atlantic waters. Among the most serious changes, Amendment 16 will impose a closed season for shallow-water grouper fishing from January 1 through April. The prohibition on recreational and commercial fishing for grouper covers 11 species in total. They are gag, black, red, scamp, rock hind, coney, misty, graysby, yellowfin, yellowmouth and tiger grouper.

Amendment 16 also institutes a November through March prohibition on recreational catches of vermilion snapper, a partyboat favorite across much of the Florida Atlantic coast.

For the rest of the year, catch limits on grouper and vermilions have also changed. The new grouper aggregate bag is a limit of 3 fish, with one gag or one black per person contained in the aggregate. The grouper aggregate includes: misty grouper, red grouper, scamp, tiger grouper, yellowedge grouper, yellowfin grouper, blueline tilefish, sand tilefish, coney, graysby, red hind, and rock hind. Snowy grouper and golden tilefish are also in the grouper aggregate with a maximum of 1 fish per person, for each species.

The new vermilion snapper bag limit is 5 fish, down from 10 fish.

The commercial sector will also see changes to their fishery. The closed shallow-water grouper season will apply to the commercial sector as well as recreational anglers. New commercial catch quotas top gag grouper at 352,940 pounds gutted weight. From January to June, the commercial quota of vermilion snapper will be 315,523 pounds gutted weight, and from July to December, 302,523 pounds. Thus Florida anglers will be closed out while on the same days commercial fishers take hundreds of pounds of snapper right next to them.

For holders of federal commercial or for-hire (charter vessel/headboat) licenses, these new provisions will apply regardless of whether the fish are taken in state or federal waters—meaning that headboats, charter operators and commercial operators cannot possess these species during the closed season. Additionally, captain and crew on for-hire vessels will be prohibited from retaining vermilion snapper or any species in the grouper aggregate. Also, commercial and recreational anglers will be required to carry on board and, when necessary, to use dehooking tools on release fish while fishing in these waters.

With the passage of Amendment 16, Florida Atlantic fishing begins a new phase of restrictions which will drastically change the sport as we know it. Many people attribute the current rash of fishery closures to the stipulations of the re-authorized Magnuson-Stevens Act, which impose strict deadlines on fishery managers to end overfishing of species that are designated to be in peril of decline.

“There’s obviously no care or concern for the people involved,” said Capt. Ralph Delph, of Key West. Delph has been on the scene for five decades and can never recall a time so rife with controversy over fishery closures as today. “This is going to drive a lot of people out of business, and really for no good reason. The provisions of it are a total fallacy. We don’t catch many gags in the Keys anyway, and so many species of grouper are being closed off to us. To top it off, this won’t protect the gags anyway, because people will still hook them when they fish for snapper.

“The Keys differ so greatly from Central Florida, and from the Carolinas, to make rules that apply to all regions equally is ludicrous. It’s going to be a great disaster economically for all Florida. Even today, I don’t really think that most recreational anglers are even aware of these closures.”

When asked what he believed stood behind these recent drastic changes to the popular fishery, and other coming closures, Delph said, “Poor management in the past is a big part of it. Now they’re trying to make up for it without fully understanding what’s going on. They can’t conduct science over a short period of time and make decisions based on the insufficient data they produce. There is no concern for the people. There should be some recourse to this. We’re in a position where people will be driven out of business. We don’t know how we’re going to cope with this.

“If a hurricane had hit, you’d have the governor and possibly the president down here. Well, we have a hurricane that’s hit us and no one has even taken notice of us. The governor is nowhere on this, and the Florida economy is about to show what a disaster this has caused. What else can we do but speak up to our elected officials and try to get an injunction to stop these closures.”

For more on the closures, see the Conservation Thread on the FS Forum, and the June and July issues of Florida Sportsman.

--David Conway, Managing Editor