Anglers on Florida's Gulf Coast are seeing red because, in a way, they won't be seeing red for quite a while.NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service announced a complete closure of red snapper fishing for recreational anglers starting Aug. 5 that will last almost 10 months - opening again on June 1, 2009. The closure is for federal waters only. On Florida's Gulf side, that's anything past the state's 9-mile jurisdiction.
NOAA says the action is necessary to prevent exceeding recreational quotas for the 2008 fishing year.
There's a bit of history involved here and some federal shenanigans.
In 2007, NOAA Fisheries Service implemented temporary regulations in the Gulf to reduce mortality and harvest rates. These set a commercial quota of 3.315 million pounds and a recreational quota of 3.185 million pounds. That commercial quota applies to about 200 commercial boats in the Gulf, compared to tens of thousands of recreational anglers, said Ted Forsgren, the director of Florida's Coastal Conservation Commission.
The temporary rules also reduced the bag limit for recreational anglers to two fish and added a zero bag limit for captains and crews of charter boats. The minimum size limit remained at 16 inches and the federal season remained April 21 through Oct. 31 - again in Gulf waters.
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