SNAPPER GROUPER AMENDMENT 18

SOUTH ATLANTIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL
SNAPPER GROUPER AMENDMENT 18 PUBLIC SCOPING
POOLER, GEORGIA
MAY 12, 2008
Summary Minutes
Mr. Leong: My name is Arthur Leong. I’d like to address the Red Snapper Fishery
Amendment. Basically, all of your data has been on fuel that has been pretty stable in price. For
the last five or six years it has gone up a little bit, but now in the last year it’s doubled. The
amount of trips, in general the recreational and commercial and headboat trips are all going to be
less. The headboats are not going to fish as far; they’re not going to try as hard to catch fish
because it’s more money. It actually comes out to more money for them, so there will be a
definite reduction in the size of their catch. Your data is flawed to begin with because it’s so
different now. It’s apples and oranges.
Mr. Newman: My name is James Newman. I’ve been a fisherman basically for all my life, and
I’m 66 years old now. I’ve been a charter captain and now I’m just a recreational fisherman. I
have seen the industry from its infancy way back in the seventies, the late sixties and seventies. I
believe the collection of data is imperfect; that it’s not sufficient for the draconian measures that
are proposed by the council. I know they’re mandated by the congress to do that, but I’m just
stating my opinion that they should not do this from the rationale of the impact of the unintended
consequences.
Mr. Bowen: I’m Captain Zack Bowen, charterboat captain from Tybee Island. Charter fishing
is all I do, and I’m here to give my statement on the red snapper. I received the scoping
document. I’ve read it numerous occasions. I have contradicting information from what the
SEDAR states I have brought with me, and I will plan to show it to you. Did you receive a letter
and CD from Amick Deep Sea Fishing?
Mr. Harris: Yes, I’ve got it; I have not had a chance to go through it yet.
Mr. Bowen: Good, I’d like to go through it with you and let you go ahead and see what we’ve
sent you. One of the statements here says in this document is there are virtually – basically it
says there are virtually no ten-year-old class snapper left. They are virtually non-existent. I have
information to contradict that, and I’d be glad to show it to you here when we’re done. I think an
emergency closure of the red snapper is going to kill us, man.
I can’t even book a charter fishing trip if the red snapper season is closed. It will be over. I have
seen more red snapper in the last two years than – I see the population of red snapper getting
better and better and better and better since 1992 when you implemented the 20-inch rule, two
per person. I feel that the red snapper – there needs to be, in my opinion, regional management
of our federal fisheries state by state.
Snapper Grouper Amendment 18 Public Scoping
Pooler, Georgia
May 12, 2008
I mean, we’re seeing more red snapper than we ever have. I’ve talked to guys south of Cape
Canaveral. They don’t even care about the red snapper because they don’t see them. I talked to
a commercial fella in North Carolina. I said, “Man, we’re killing the snapper; how you all
doing?” He said, “Oh, I caught one all year; we don’t even fish for them; caught one all year and
it was an accident.” That tells me that the impact that it’s going to have for you closing the red
snapper in the southeast, it’s not going to affect the guys in North Carolina. It’s not going to
affect the guys in Florida, but it’s going to put us in Savannah out of business. If there is a way
to have this regionally managed, I mean I really feel like that would be way to go.
Mr. Harris: Let me ask you a question real quick. Why does everybody keep saying closure of
the red snapper fishery?
Mr. Bowen: Why does everybody say it? Because it’s stated in the scoping document.
Mr. Harris: Where is it stated?
Mr. Bowen: It’s stated on Page 13, Section 3-A; “Giving the need to reduce total fishing
mortality, landings and discards by at least 87 percent, the council is considering the following
measures to end overfishing and rebuild red snapper: A. Emergency interim rule; prohibit all
harvest and possession of red snapper. If the council approves this request at the June ’08
meeting, the estimated effective date would be January 1, 2009.” So if that happens –
Mr. Harris: No, I just wanted it on the record.
Mr. Bowen: And not only are we doing fishing, but it makes our charterboats that we’ve worked
so hard to build, rebuild and keep running, not only are we out of business, but it makes them
worth half as much. The only person that’s going to buy my boat is a charterboat. If the season
is closed, it makes my boat not worth anything. I mean, I’m 36 years old.
This is the only thing I know to do. There is nobody going to hire me to go do something else
when you close the snapper fishery. The impact for me is it would put me out of business and
make me bankrupt. I’m not alone. I’m just the only one telling you this right now. That’s what
I wanted you to know.
Mr. Harris: Okay, tell me what you think is an alternative, then, to an emergency closure?
Mr. Bowen: I think an alternative is regional management. I think maybe taking the limits away
from the captain and crew. That’s four snapper for me a day less than what I’m catching now.
That would be an alternative. I don’t think – and you brought this up to me one time before in a
meeting in Brunswick – I don’t think reducing the limit to no minimum size limit and keeping
the first number that you catch – I’ve thought about it and I told you I’d think about it when you
asked me that question.
I don’t think that’s an answer to it because if you take away the 20-inch minimum size limit and
tell me I can go catch six snapper or twelve snapper, two apiece, at no minimum size, I’m going
to be honest with you; I’m going to catch them all. I’m going to catch every one of them, and in
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two years there won’t be a snapper out there. When I say “I”, I mean “I” as the charterboat fleet.
Myself, Steve, Kelly sitting right here beside me, we will catch every red snapper out there if
there is no minimum size limit. I think the minimum size limit of 20 inches is great.
Mr. Harris: What about discard mortality?
Mr. Bowen: Man, we poke every fish and I know that the statistics say 40 percent. I know that
the scientists say 40 percent. I don’t know; to give you an honest answer, I don’t know. I mean,
I see the fish when they swim back down and they look lively, but I don’t know which ones do
what they do when they get back down to the bottom. As far as them turning belly-up and
floating away from my boat, it is way, way less than 40 percent.
I mean, I’d say 5 percent that actually turn belly-up after I’ve tried to deflate them and try to
revive them if they’re less than 20 inches float away. There are some but very, very, very few. I
mean, we give 100 percent honest effort on making sure those fish – if they’re not 20 inches, we
do everything in our power to make sure that they survive, not only because I want them there to
grow the population, but, man, I base my living on making sure those fish survive, but I’m going
to need to catch next year or two years down the road.
Mr. Harris: What depth do you normally fish in?
Mr. Bowen: 90 to 130 feet of water.
Mr. Harris: Snapper Banks fishing?
Mr. Bowen: Snapper Banks. I’d like to show you what I brought and let you see that there –
because of what the statement says that there are virtually no ten-year-old class left; there’s none
left.
Ms. Shipman: Is that the same CD that Steve sent?
Mr. Bowen: Yes, it is, but Mr. Duane hasn’t looked at it yet, and I just want to make sure that
I’m here –
Ms. Shipman: Well, I just got mine in the mail today before I –
Mr. Bowen: Have you seen it?
Ms. Shipman: No, I mean, I worked at the office.
Mr. Bowen: Good, I’d like to be the first one to let both of you see our ten-year-old-class fish
just caught in 2007 and 2008. This has nothing to do with past years. This is ’07 and ’08, and I’d
like to present it to you just to contradict that there are ten-year-old-class fish left.
Mr. Harris: Have you got some time?
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Mr. Bowen: I’ve got all the time in the world.
Mr. Harris: Okay, why don’t you wait until –
Mr. Bowen: I don’t want to wait; I want to show it to you now.
Mr. Harris: Well, we’ve got other people that need to talk, so let me get to these other folks –
Mr. Bowen: Do you all mind waiting?
Audience: No, we don’t.
Mr. Harris: Well, the problem is not because you’re going to wait or not. There are a bunch of
people downstairs, as you know, and if all of those folks want to talk, I’m going to have to start
limiting people. You know, I don’t want to limit anybody to any time, but if I need to I’ll have
to.
Mr. Bowen: How about I just set it up here, and I’ve got it where –
Mr. Harris: That will be fine.
Mr. Bowen: And you all can just kind of glance.
Mr. Harris: That would be great.
Mr. Bowen: Is that fair enough?
Mr. Harris: Sure, no problem at all.
Ms. Shipman: We did get them but literally we only got it as I walked out of the office today. It
came in the mail today.
Mr. Bowen: Sure. Well, everyone one on the council has got it. We’ve also sent one to Ms.
Carolyn Belcher, the head of the Science and Statistical Committee. This is just snapper from
2007 and just this year of 2008, just to contradict one little bit of the SEDAR. There are so many
contradictions in there; this is just the easiest one for me to get for you.
Ms. O’Brien: Amendment 18, Kelly O’Brien, the same thing. The stock assessment numbers
are bogus. The assessments are not being done. They’re less than 10 percent of the trips run out
of Savannah, Georgia. There is no stock assessment. These numbers are coming out of the sky.
For all the data that all of these amendments and future laws are being based on, bogus numbers
in, bogus numbers out. That’s all I have.
Mr. Hancock: My name is Tony Hancock. Like I said, I fish 100 to 120 days and dive. I split
about 50/50 between commercial and recreational, anywhere from North Carolina down to the
Keys. That’s every year for a lot of years. The red snapper right now are as numerous as I’ve
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ever seen them personally. There are some of the places I dove last week that had a hundred of
them on it.
The idea that there aren’t any big snapper out there, I don’t think you guys are doing any
sampling on the boats that I see because I’d say that probably at least 10 to 20 percent of the
catch are larger snapper, larger than the 8- to 10-year-old fish that supposedly don’t exist. Just in
the past two weeks I’ve seen a number of 20-pound fish, so I don’t think your stock assessment
there is very accurate as well. In the past year some of the dives that I’ve been on, a hundred to
two hundred red snapper mixed up between sub-20 inch and to over 20-inch fish.
That’s anywhere from about the 33 latitude line in South Carolina down to about the 29 lines off
of Daytona, latitude. There’s more than I’ve seen in probably ten years or more, and I’ve been
diving out there for 20 years-plus, fishing on charterboats and off my own boat for 30 years. I
just think the assessment is pretty flawed to not be able to see that. Thank you.
Mr. Hagan: I’m Dave Hagan. We’re going to talk now about the snapper. This year, in the last
three months in particular, the snapper have just taken off. I’ve got some of my captains here
and they’ll tell you that before this year there was almost a non-exist commercial endeavor in
less than a hundred feet. Now there is viable commercial fishing in less than a hundred feet of
water for the snapper.
This has never been the case, so either the fish are coming in closer or there’s more fish. That’s
for you all to decide. The Brunswick bottom up off of Georgia is exceptionally hot in the 100 to
115, 118 feet for both B-liners and snapper, but particular snapper. There’s been a lot of fish in
there. I just don’t the statistics you have as being the statistics that are really out there. I mean,
all I can do is tell you what we’re seeing doesn’t jive what you’re seeing.
The big problem is there’s no enforcement of the laws that you have on the books. I’m not here
to beat up on the recreational fishermen, but I can tell you that the recreational fishermen don’t
obey the law, period. I was out the other day, and it happened to be a Saturday, and I was
inshore a little bit and there were three recreational boats that came up there, and I witnessed all
three of these vessels break the law, and there is nothing you can do about it.
You just scoff it off, but yet if I do it, you know, they’re going to want to hammer me. If you’re
going to pass laws without peace, they aren’t any good. You’ve got to have enforcement. So
with all this stuff, you’ve got to step up your enforcement. I don’t know what you can do about
that, but I know the federal government has – I’ve harping on it at every meeting for 20 years,
you know, get more enforcement.
The only people that get caught is somebody that pissed somebody off and they get pimped out.
That’s the only way you get caught. I appreciate the time and I appreciate you listening.
Hopefully, we can get something done to increase my bottom line, because that would be nice. I
thank you so much.
Mr. Robey: Amendment 18, Charles Alton Robey, commercial and recreational fisherman,
hook and line as well as spearfish, charter captain. It’s a pretty serious thing that’s going on here
in the fisheries management. I’m sorry if my sense of humor is not showing. As far as
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Amendment 18 on red snapper, some of the reports there on this data collection, as far as
showing mortality rates on red snapper by let’s catch a red snapper and put him in a cage and
drop him back down there after we’ve stressed him and keep him from swimming and
oxygenating his body while he dies, geez, the mortality rate is 90 percent – I mean that’s the
biggest joke I’ve ever heard.
I mean, if I beat you up and then held you down and didn’t let you breath; would you survive?
No, I don’t think so. That’s not a very accurate way to learn how many of these fish we’re
catching are surviving. I think, in my opinion, the data collection is prehistoric in comparison to
the fish that we’re seeing out there. I have seen more – the statistical data says that the
population of 10-year-old and older fish are basically non-existent.
I have never seen so many 25 to 30-plus pound snapper be caught in our waters of Northeast
Florida. As far as juvenile fish go, there are clouds of them, clouds of juvenile snapper,
hundreds undersized, hundreds legal. It just depends on what spot you jump in and look at them.
One spot is immature fish; one spot is mature; some spots, they’re all over 10-year-old fish that
are supposedly not even out there anymore.
So, that pertained to this biomass data collection. In my opinion it’s pretty positive to what I’ve
seen in the past. The trip ticket information, in my opinion – I mean, this is just pretty much fact
– the federal permits that you’re collecting this commercial data from, these federal permits are
declining, because you have to purchase – for every new permit it takes two permits, so you’ve
just eliminated one permit for every new permit that’s issued.
So the numbers of federally permitted vessels that are catching and selling these fishes are
declining. The number is getting smaller, so your numbers should naturally get smaller. You
can’t say that the number is smaller so the fish are gone. Well, yes, half as many fishermen are
out there. Size limits, the recreational anglers with a 20-inch size limit and there being so many
under 20-inch snapper, if you only knew how many undersized snapper these people are catching
to try to get to their two 20-inch fish, it’s an astronomical number.
If you’re interested in a mortality rate, try reducing the size limit of a red snapper, so these
100,000 boats per weekend can go out there and not have to catch 75 or a hundred snapper to
catch their fish; because the juvenile snapper, there is no doubt they’re way on the rebound.
Circle hooks, my next topic, and non-stainless, you know, this is probably a waste of time if you
don’t have the enforcement.
It might sound good and you might feel like you accomplished something; you’re wasting your
time. Non-stainless steel, now you’re asking people not to use quality fishing tackle. I do agree
with the deflator, but with a law that says everyone must carry a deflator, somebody has got to
teach people how to use it. Okay, let’s buy a stainless steel syringe and go jam it in our juvenile
red snapper before you throw it back in the water; probably not a good idea unless somebody is
going to be out there teaching these people how to do it.
I won’t take anymore of your time, but you know how to contact me because I’ve got plenty
more to say. Thank you.
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Mr. Williams: Mark Williams, Fishing Magician Enterprises, Inc. I own three commercial
boats out of Mayport, Florida. This is on the Red Snapper Amendment 18 that has in
conjunction with it some emergency closure and ruling thing that has to do with this deflator and
stainless steel hooks.
First and foremost, I did see all the snapper data that Gregg was showing to us down there.
We’re not going to have another debate about the data. You know, certified diver, video camera,
you bring it down here to Northeast Florida, let’s get something relayed to the scientists and your
scientific committee. We are getting an opportunity, I think, with this other assessment that you
are waiting on but you’re having to go forth with the one that’s kind of a general thing, so let’s
hope that knowing that the data is not going to be correct in any way, shape or form, they’re not
even going to be close because it’s awesome.
This is what we fought for with the council. We thought we were working in conjunction with
the council to work towards, so that we could get more and more in our bottom lines. We
sacrificed; we worked in conjunction with the committee. Oops, the committee’s hands are tied;
we write the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Oh, and if you don’t let the South Atlantic Fishery
Management Council put this stuff into effect, they’re going to do what the government did and
told NMFS to come into on the Gulf Coast.
And on the Gulf Coast anytime they cried and called “lawyer”, they got another inch deducted
off their snapper, and that leads me to the next thing. For three years when all these juveniles
were being caught, and you all knew what was being released down here because I wrote and
told you all, that was the time for the council to act like the sound, responsible, professional
organization that we pay our tax dollars and they’re supposed to be done – that’s when you
should have dropped the limit.
When the recreational anglers were going up there and beating and abusing my redheaded
girlfriends to death to catch their 20-inch fish, and there are rows of fish – if you all pre-read
them, you know about the one in the northeast bottom three Saturdays ago with the people and
stuff like that. You know, them people not knowing how to release them and you wanting to
mandate stuff, you’ll not find a bigger advocate in this room on who could teach you all how to
release a red snapper so there is little, if any, mortality with these fish.
They are called my redheaded girlfriends down home and I do care very much about them, and I
have caught a pile of them in my lifetime since I was 12 years old. I know that what we throw
back and lives is what we have for our future. The unfortunate thing is the recreational anglers
that don’t know – and there are certainly some of them that have commercial fished in the past
and all that do care and understand that if they take care of this fish and send it back down and
just don’t go down there and bleed to death or if it’s gut-hooked there is nothing you can do with
it, anyhow.
And whatever we do with those – most of the time we do something cutting bait that we’re not
supposed to or what have you, but, you know, it’s better than making the sharks come in there
and ruin the bite. There are all kinds of ends to all this. I think Gregg did say something down
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there that I had told these boys that I think should happen in the council within all its infinite
wisdom.
I didn’t if it could be undertaken, but Gregg did say something about a possible limit, and that
would be wonderful because we are in the stock year classes that have rotated around, which we
have a lot of multiples in the year class you all say aren’t there. There’s definitely more large
snapper in our party grounds than we have ever seen. Those are more commonly called mules.
Those are fish of what we call truly 20 pounds or more, and there’s plenty of those fish and more
than we’ve ever seen.
But the juveniles mixed with the just-legal fish on 20 inches is still pretty insane. For three years
it was all juvenile, and I saw in the data on the thing right there at the drop, and it all looked just
like what I was experiencing in my charter and commercial fishing. When the fish came on this
January, there was the largest part of legal fish I had seen in three and a half years. This is where
I predominantly fished and where I have my masters degree in that 12 to 12 fathoms of water,
right in there.
This emergency thing you all have to do, this thing that I have sent you, this is a man here that is
a charter captain and has a show, and as you can see in the first thing how awesome and terrible
it was two Saturdays ago when I watched all them snappers just being thrown and not handled,
not deflated or nothing, and this is a show where 99 percent of his viewing public is the
recreational sector.
And as was said earlier, if you all are going to take money and take time, don’t take that time to
take away our fisheries. Take that time to educate the recreational angler so he can send our fish
back so they won’t die. You can believe the majority of these boys in here take care of their red
snappers and are sure that they sent them back there with as less possible chance or mortality
because we know this is our living and we know if we don’t take care of them and they crybaby
to the council, oh, the commercial fisherman is bad – he’s not.
We’re the ones voicing for the recreational angler to be educated so these fish aren’t left up on
top of the water when I go by running from spot to spot and look over my sign and go, oh, the
little yellow boat, another that doesn’t know. I don’t have time to stop everywhere, but out there
in that bottom with all them snappers littered, it was very obvious the man had no idea. I think
you need to address this.
Jab hooks work fine. You’re going to hurt some charter captains and you’re going to hurt some
commercial fishermen. You need to allow a straight hook or whatever hook so that they can use
it. But as far as the ACR hookout, we’ve been having hookouts with the same thing for years
and years. Whether you’ve got to put money in somebody’s pocket and advocate, that one has
one has to be on somebody’s boat, I don’t know why.
We’ve been using deflators here down on the Magician Boat for well over seven years, and
there’s always a wet deck and a wet towel to go over their eyes and their body while I deflate
them before they go over the side. And that’s thousands of head of fish a year between my
commercial fishing and my charter fishing that are released off the Magician Boat, thousands,
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especially the last three years, probably almost in excess of 10,000 juveniles in the last three
years, because for three years that’s all we had inshore.
You were lucky if you caught five or six legal fish. Now it’s an unbelievable mix of fish, just
huge schools. That’s all I’ve got to say and my time limit is probably up. Usually they’re
running me off by now.
Mr. Owens: My name is Jeff Owens, captain of the Fishing Vessel Rolling Thunder out of St.
Augustine. I’ve been working on partyboats since the early nineties where you were doing good
just to catch one or two snapper over 20 inches. I remember when it was even at 13 inches, you
were doing good just to catch one or two fish of legal size. Just what’s in the last three years,
particularly this year, they’re of biblical proportion catches.
I mean, I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean just day after day, spot after spot, I can’t see this
fish being overfished. It probably is overfished but not currently undergoing overfishing. I
mean, it’s the same thing on that, the inaccurate data. You guys are using data from 1945. If
you think the data is bad now, what do you think it was like back then? As far as the mortality
rate, I would do away with the commercial size limit entirely and maybe go to a set quota. That
way we’re not killing fish; and once we catch our limit, then we can just pack it up and go on
home.
Mr. Harris: Let me ask you a question about that. The problem with that – and I agree with you.
I don’t believe we ought to have minimum sizes on these deep water species. If you’re going to
continue to fish in those areas, even if there is no minimum size and if you have a commercial
quota on red snapper, you’re going to go out there and fish on other species; is that not correct?
Mr. Owens: Yes, and you going –
Mr. Harris: How do we resolve that?
Mr. Owens: And you’re going to catch snapper, you know –
Mr. Harris: Right, but how do we resolve that?
Mr. Owens: I mean, you know, the vermilion snapper and red snapper kind of go together. I
don’t know.
Mr. Harris: Well, this is what I’m struggling with, so I would like for you all to come up with
some kind of solution for that problem.
Mr. Owens: I mean, this probably isn’t going to go well with a lot of people, but, you know, a
complete quota on everything.
Ms. Shipman: A combined quota?
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Mr. Owens: A combined quota, you know, say you’re allowed so many pounds of red snapper,
you’re allowed so many pounds of vermilion snapper, but just make it where we can make a
living at it. As far as the circle hooks, that’s pretty much all I use on my boat, anyway, for Bliners, red snapper and grouper. I mean, venting tools, you know, we’ve all pretty much been
doing that, anyway.
Other than that, if this passes, I mean you have got a large amount of very angry people that have
some money and are going to be more than happy to sue the government, and I just hope they’re
prepared for that or whoever is responsible for these laws because they’re just going to put us out
of business, and these people are going to get desperate. You’re going to create outlaw
fishermen. The way things are going, it’s going to be a mess.
This doesn’t really pertain to anything, but I read an interesting article on CNN.com about EPA
scientists, 1,600 that were polled, 60 percent agreed that they were under political pressure to
skew their findings.
Mr. Duren: My name is John Duren. I am a recreational fisherman, and I am speaking about
Amendment 18 to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan. I believe that some
management action is warranted for red snapper. I am talking about actions just for the
recreational fishery. I would recommend that for the recreational fishery there not be a closed
season, but if there were it be the minimum closed season possible.
My reasons for that relate to the hardship that a season closure will cause charter fishing
operators and also concern that a closure will diminish tourism in the states in the southeastern
region. Again, I think the high fuel cost is reducing fishing pressure, and I would hope the
council will take that into consideration.
I think that discards are a serious problem – the mortality of discards, let’s put it that way. I
certainly agree in venting and the use of circle hooks. I do both of those things on my boat. But,
even if you do that well, predators are usually hanging around and a lot of fish get lost. I think
discards are a problem. I recommend that the council consider changing the size limit so that
that would reduce the number of discards.
Perhaps allow smaller fish or even the first two fish might be allowed. I do think that combining
quotas is a good way to consider that because, you’re right, a person that comes out there and
fishes and catches two small snapper and that’s all they’re allowed and they can’t catch any other
species, they’re going to go home, but some kind of combined quotas or whatever would be a
suitable way, in my opinion, to deal with the size of the red snapper and also maybe reduce the
discard mortality.
I’d like to thank the council and the committee members and the staff for working on this
fishery, and I look forward to an amended fishery management plan that will lead to greater
abundance of the fish in the future.
Mr. Amick: I’m Steve Amick, charterboat and a headboat operator out of Savannah and on the
AP for, I guess, the last seven or eight years. I’d just like to make some comments on
Amendment 18, on the red snapper. I don’t know if you all received my letters.
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Mr. Harris: We did.
Ms. Shipman: We got it, thanks.
Mr. Harris: We haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but we got it.
Mr. Amick: Okay, I would be interested in your comments, but just basically that’s my position
on the red snapper. I’d like to address the – I’m scared of these overlapping closed seasons as far
as the different species like gag grouper and vermilion snapper; and if you tag on the red
snapper, a certain closure on it, I don’t think you can target any of those species without
intermingling or catching some of them.
As a charterboat/headboat operator, if it comes to closed seasons, I would like to see a total
closure on the species, as short as possible, but excluding sea bass because you can target your
sea bass without getting into the vermilions or gags and the reds. I don’t see being able to
survive any kind of closures on the vermilions alone, you know, September 1st to May 15th, but
you tag on the gag grouper or any grouper because I believe it’s all grouper. If the gag is the
indicating species, it applies to all the grouper.
So, you throw in the red snapper there is nothing left for us to target offshore. And if you open
up the red snapper and you’re still messing around the vermilions, you’ve got a lot of discards.
If you have a closure, it would be beneficial to have it all in one closed season. Well, closed
seasons in my feelings it has to be regional. A closed season in the Keys or Jacksonville or
Mayport area does not necessarily work in North Carolina and South Carolina.
It needs to become a regional management made by the states that imposes a closed season in
certain areas, because what’s going down in the Keys has nothing to do with what’s going in
Savannah, much less even a short distance to Jacksonville. Everything is different, especially in
North Carolina. If they’re trying to managed closed seasons across the board, it won’t fit for a
lot of people. I mean, I think George Strate fishes year round. It has to be controlled regionally
and say this is the best time for us to be closed to meet the reductions that you’re looking for.
Mr. Harris: If you can’t do it state by state, what’s the region that you –
Mr. Amick: Well, you’ve done it for Spanish and king mackerel. You can go lat/long, latitude
32 degrees or below. I think the fishing –
Mr. Harris: But you wouldn’t do it Georgia/Florida and South Carolina and North Carolina?
Mr. Amick: As long as it could be managed in a way like – I don’t know this gentleman here
from Jacksonville, but everything I hear on the red snappers is the same thing we’re seeing off
the coast of Georgia, and I think we’re in the heart of the red snapper area from Cape Canaveral
to maybe Charleston, so you have that section.
Mr. Harris: I’ve got you, okay.
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Snapper Grouper Amendment 18 Public Scoping
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Mr. Amick: But it makes a difference at the Keys. I talked to Tony the other day. He said,
“You can shut the snapper down; we don’t see them.” And I don’t care about yellowtails. As far
as closing the season down for the red snapper grouper species, like I said before, you would
have to exclude – I see excluding the sea bass because you could have – I’m not sure what’s
coming down the line for sea bass, but you could put a sea bass fishing trip together without
hurting any vermilions, gags or reds.
Basically, that’s my idea on the closures. As I state in my letter that I sent to all the council
members is that I’m really having a hard time with that assessment of 1945, 60 million pounds,
and we have what they consider 1 million pounds. From what I’ve seen on our reefs offshore,
it’s really, really hard to believe and swallow without the data. I sent you my catch records and
it’s accurate.
Just whatever I have written is down is what you’ll see as catch and release. I have a hard time –
I understand the thinking behind reducing the size limit on red snapper because of the discards
and on the mortality rate. In the early nineties we haven’t been seeing snapper and then the big
change came when we went to the two fish per person, 20 inches. I mean, it was a complete
turnaround. We released a lot of fish but we also seen all age classes of fish throughout the years
get better and better, especially what you call the mules, the 15 to 20 to 25 to 30 pound fish.
We’re seeing more and more. Never, even through eighties we didn’t see the big ten-year-old
class where the assessment says they didn’t exist. You know, that’s not correct. We’ve seen a
lot. You’ve talked about percentages of populations. I don’t know what percentage of the
population of red snappers is supposed to get up to 20 inches. All this is new. I know that a 20inch snapper, that’s a mature old fish, and now all of a sudden looking at 53-year-old snapper.
I mean, there’s some marine biologists that I’m sure have been sampling in the last 30 years, you
know, the age class of snapper, but anytime we catch a snapper over 20 pounds, even 15 pounds,
15 to 35 pounds, that’s an exceptional fish. We mark it down in the books and it’s in my records
that I sent you. I mean, my gut feeling is that the red snapper stocks or biomass off the coast of
Georgia and apparently down through Northeast Florida is exceptional; it really is.
Perhaps we can improve, we can increase the stocks down the line, but my big concern is that
emergency closure, and that’s my push, and I hope that we don’t go through that emergency
closure because we don’t have anything else to do. You can come back say, “Okay, we’re going
to have a closed season. You won’t be able to fish from here to here, but you’ll be allowed to
catch whatever comes up” – well, we need to sell trips. I don’t need to sell fish but I need to sell
trips.
Starting in January 2010 the fishing season will be from here to here, and you will be allowed to
catch this. Then when the season is over, boom, you close it down and nobody messes around
with the fish and it recoups. We can live with that. I believe the new generations – a lot of the
old people that have been fishing for the last 25 or 30 years won’t accept it.
But the new generation, they’ll come and they’ll say, “Well, we’re allowed four or five
vermilions during each course of the month” and the recreational fisherman or for-hire operator,
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Snapper Grouper Amendment 18 Public Scoping
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May 12, 2008
that’s the only possibility that I can see down the line of staying in business. But as far as the
overlapping closed seasons, it’s not going to work. It’s not good biologically and it’s not good
for business, it’s not good for recreational. Basically, that’s all I had say.
I have a thing with the circle storing and dehooker. You know, it seems like you’re throwing –
we use circle hooks on our live baits and when we target bigger fish. You can to tiny, tiny circle
hooks and you catch everything that swims with real small circle hooks. I guess the idea is like
billfishing and big game fishing, that circle hooks are more – hook in the jaw and you’re
supposed to release them.
I mean, you can turn it around and you use real small circle hooks, I don’t think it’s the solution
one way or the other. Most of the snapper fishing, they’re a striking fish and the fellows that are
fishing very rarely – I mean, you have some fish that are dead when they hit the deck. The
difference between what you’re going to try to accomplish recreationally from the circle hooks to
the straight hooks is not there.
I mean, when you set hook on a snapper, you catch them most of the time in the jaw and you
release him. You poke him. I agree that it has to be released. We take care of our snapper also.
That’s our future and our livelihood and we throw back 30 snapper in a day. We want them to
go down and survive, and we see a lot of the same snapper again. I think it’s a mistake, in my
opinion, that reducing the 20-inch size limits, which is letting the fish grow to a certain age and
spawn, is not a solution.
The reefs that we fish, you say, okay, we’re going to reduce the bag limit to one snapper per
person. We’re going to take away the bag limit, so that means that any snapper that’s caught
during the course of whatever seasons – or you can release the thing; that snapper is gone.
Recreationally fishing, I don’t see the recreational fishing like I have in the eighties and stuff.
It’s just almost non-existent off the coast of Georgia because of the distance we travel, 40 or 50
miles to the reef.
I can speak for the for-hire sector that even though you limit us to one red snapper per person,
you will put a dent in the stocks more than with that catch and release, even if you’re counting 40
percent mortality rate, which is questionable, but I can accept 40 percent – 60 percent survival
rate, 40 percent, and you’ve got six of them that are living on the 18, 19 and 20 inches and
spawning.
I’ve seen the small fish, all age classes, from 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19 on up, and that comes from
releasing those 20-inch sized fish. I’m really supportive of it and I’ve seen it from almost
nothing in the early nineties to an abundance right now. And then abundance, I see in the early
2000s, from 2003, 2004, which the assessment shows a peak in the catches – I mean, I’m not
sure how you explain the biomass age classes, but there is a lot of snapper out there.
I don’t think personally that taking off the 20-inch size limit is really good for the stocks. It’s
good for us. In three or four years everybody on the boat takes their limit of snapper, wow,
good, but you’ll surely get back to where you were in the late nineties. Thank you.
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Snapper Grouper Amendment 18 Public Scoping
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May 12, 2008
Mr. Harper: I’m Captain Wendall Harper. I want to speak first on Amendment 18, the red
snapper. What I’ve seen the red snapper has been a great fishery for the last few years. It’s
getting better and better. I know we have a problem sometime with releasing and having the
killing of fish. If there’s a season on any of these fisheries, I think it should be all one season
and not a cross-over season on closures at all.
I’ve got a problem with any of the closed seasons. The reason I’ve got problems with the closed
season, I just got to listening downstairs and I was looking at all the closed seasons and the
different ways we’ve got to set up for an amendment, this would be a closed season here, but
then a commercial has got an allocation of a tonnage. Well, when I think of closed seasons, I
think of closed seasons completely for everybody.
But come to find out, if we’ve got a closed season on the recreational and the commercial hasn’t
hit their tonnage yet, they can keep fishing through our closed season. Now to me that’s
altogether wrong any way, shape, or form you look at it. A closed season is a closed season. It
don’t matter a cotton-picking who it is. If there is a problem with them hitting their tonnage,
they definitely need to quit fishing then, because that shows that maybe they are a problem.
A closed season should be no sale of fish of that species, of whatever species it is, from the gag
grouper to the vermilion to the red snapper or any of the gag family. It should be a complete
closed season for sale or for hire. Whether it’s a month long or three or four of five months long,
it should the whole sector, commercial and recreational. But for the snapper, I feel kind of like
we need to keep the red snapper at two person, as it is, and I feel like that first-come first-served
basis would be a good sector for the fishery.
I know everybody has got a thing and that’s the reason why we’re having these meetings right
now. Sometime it makes my day great and somebody it makes by day hard. It don’t matter how
you look at it. But I think we do have a problem with releasing of red snapper mainly in the deep
water.
Mr. Ogden: Robert Ogden. I’m a commercial fisherman. I have a permit and I fish out of
Mayport, Florida. On the red snapper, from what I’ve seen in the last 15 years, it’s increasingly
gotten better. Four or five years ago there were some bigger fish around. It seems like there’s
not quite as many of the larger fish. Actually, if you quit catching the smaller fish, catching
them in different areas, and not necessarily going looking for the bigger fish in the areas that I’ve
caught them in before, you know, that could be some of it, too.
But the snapper stocks have increased. The divers are seeing them everywhere. You can’t
hardly go to any spot out there and not catch a couple legal fish if you’re in the right depth. I’ve
never seen it like that before. I don’t know, I really don’t think that anything needs to be done
about this. I also think that the mortality rate on those that we’re seeing, nine out of ten fish
dying over 150 foot, that just seems super, super high to me. I really don’t know, like I said, but
it seems super high.
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Snapper Grouper Amendment 18 Public Scoping
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I don’t think anything should be done about those. The 20-inch limit that was set years back I
think has been really good for the snapper. They’re coming back in huge numbers that anybody
I’ve talked to have never seen. That’s all I’ve got to say about them.
Mr. Tarver: My name is Tim Tarver. I’ve had a captain’s license. I was a charterboat captain
for 15 years and have been a recreational fisherman for 15 years since then. First I want to
comment on the red snapper amendment. I also want to say that I feel like the red snapper stocks
are greatly improving. Since the early nineties we’ve seen a lot of small red snapper turning up
and not big enough to keep, but this year they’re legal and they’re everywhere.
I’ve never seen so many since the early eighties. Now, grouper kind of remain the same. I feel
like I prefer seasonal closures over bag limitations, you know, tightening bag limitations. I feel
like if you’re going to close the season you need to close it for recreational and commercial at the
same time. If I could suggest that whenever state officials make a stop or a check on a boat like
DNR, if the fish counts or whatever that are observed, if they could be tallied up as far as
recreational landings go, I think that would be some good input.
And over areas that we’re already covering, they’re already doing that, all they’d have to do is
write down the information, and I think that would be a good source of information. Also, I
want to say that I feel like if commercial people don’t meet their quota over, let’s say, two years
in a row, I think it should be automatically adjusted to that amount if their landings don’t meet
their quota. That should be like a stock assessment. That’s all I need to say about red snapper.
Mr. Hansen: My name is Captain Toby Hansen. I would like to take Amendment 18, the red
snapper to the Grouper FMP. To reiterate just a little bit of what Captain Sapp just said, just as
far as credentials go, I’m on my fourth issue of 200-ton unlimited master’s license. All I have
done is run boats my whole life. I spent some time in South America but basing out of Palm
Beach, Florida.
I’ve moved to Georgia and settled down here five years ago because I started having babies and I
couldn’t be gone nine or ten months out of the year anymore. It was no longer acceptable. I
started a charter fishing business out of McIntosh County for three years and spent on average
180 to 190 days offshore. I have been fishing in pelagic fishing 40 to 90 miles offshore between
grouper and snapper fishing and during the season catching your pelagics.
I think the main concern with statistics, having sat downstairs and listening to the man, is these
numbers are coming from Frying Pan Shoals to Key West, and we have such a unique area here.
Do I believe that the true red snappers are overfished from Jacksonville to Key West;
undoubtedly. I’m sure that every inlet from Jacksonville to Key West has got 30 or 40 top-notch
captains in it, and how many ports are there from Jacksonville to Key West?
That’s not even counting the commercial guys. I’m not one of these sportfishing guys that just
gets on the commercial guys, hard core. I come from a long family of commercial fishermen.
My father is a commercial tile fisherman, snowy groupers and swordfishing, depending on the
season. My grandfather was a gill netter and in ’93 they put him out of business in Florida, and I
was for it.
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May 12, 2008
It was way too few people taking way too much, much the same as my father’s business with the
swordfishing. They’ve put an end to that in the Straits of Florida and look where that fishery is
coming. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but in a few short years it’s a rod-and-reel
fishery now, catching five and six fish a night.
So, I’m not against all closures or changes to the fishery. I look at what Georgia DNR, the state
has done here with a lot of their fisheries, and it’s incredible. I think they’re years ahead of
where Florida was, coming out of Florida and being into the fisheries’ politics in Florida pretty
aggressively. I’ve stayed out of it since I’ve moved to Georgia. I have slowed down a little bit.
My main concern with this is in the last four years, five years of living here and bottom fishing,
it’s been incredible, this last year being my best. I have had incredible fishing. If you can get
numbers here that aren’t on the chart, you know, that not everybody has, it’s great fishing. And a
lot of these spots, even this year we found accidentally, and I’m just trying to take my wife and
kids black sea bass fishing, fishing chicken rigs with three and four hooks and coming up with
two and three ten-plus pounds of true reds on them.
I’m not seeing it off of Georgia. Do I believe they’re probably overfished off the Carolinas and
Florida? I’m sure, undoubtedly. You look at the numbers – and I don’t fight the numbers, but
like Captain Sapp said I don’t think they’re indicative of our area. I realize this is federal and
when you guys make laws, it’s from North Carolina to Key West. So we don’t have that here.
From my estimates – and I don’t know everybody here. I know very few people here and I keep
to myself and I run my little business and I go home at night. I’m not sitting in the bar or sitting
at the docks talking with folks. I’ve been there and I’ve done that. But from my point of view,
I’ve seen about three commercial bottom fishing boats up there. There might be a couple more.
But the spearfishing, I’m an average spear fisherman. I can’t find anybody to go with me up
here.
I run a marina for a living now. The last year and a half, I run the Fort McAllister Marine down
there in Richmond Hill. I’ve seen zero in a year and a half, zero spear fishermen come to the
dock with anything but sheepshead caught three miles offshore. You know, there is a whole
other argument to who is killing more fish, the commercial fishermen or the sport fishermen, but
in this case I don’t think it’s happening at all.
I can drop on any of my offshore numbers. You know, if I have a slow day trolling and I have
got a group on board that I’m wanting to bring something home and we’re not catching a
dolphin, I can stop and drop a lead with the bait on the South Ledge or just about anywhere else
in less than 150 feet of water; and if it’s not a spot that everybody knows about, I’m putting fish
in the boat, guaranteed – not guaranteed, you know, nothing is guaranteed, but there is a very
good chance that you’re going to put fish in the boat.
So, I guess my biggest issue is the numbers don’t show what’s happening here in Georgia, but
it’s going to have a great effect on the people of Georgia. It’s going to have great effect on the
few fishermen that are making a living doing it. In my opinion, like I said, there are two or three
commercial guys that are making a living at it. I think there’s probably ten or twelve guys that
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May 12, 2008
are truly good, the Amicks and people like Tim Gaylor behind me that are truly making their
living killing fish.
And for the amount of bottom that we have up here in comparison to the amount of coast we
have, these guys aren’t affecting the fishery as good a fisherman as they are. But with the limits
we have in place, Tim Gaylor goes fishing with four guys on board and he comes back with eight
true red snappers, and how many days does he get to fish? I’m there at the marina everyday.
I see the charterboat come in. He is the only charterboat fishing out of Richmond Hill. In
between weather and everything else, he fishes about a day a week lately. And he gets three or
four good days in, but for the numbers to not reflect what’s happening in this area, it’s going to
have a great effect on this area between your commercial headboat guys and your recreational
guys.
As a marina operator, October, November, December and January, my slowest months out of the
year, the only boats that are truly moving are going bottom fishing, and the majority of these
guys aren’t that good. They just like going fishing; and if they actually come back with a true
red, they had a great trip. They’re not hurting the fishery either, but they’re not going to go at all
if there isn’t a chance for that one time a year that do luck up and actually find the numbers
they’re supposed to be going to and can actually get on top of them and you can actually dump a
couple of baits on them where they actually catch three or four and they had a great trip, they’re
not even going to go.
Between the black sea bass, the sizes and all the other problems, I see it affecting us greatly in
the marina industry, the charterboat industry and the commercial fishing industry. That’s all I
have to say.
Mr. Jiran: My name is Captain Mike Jiran. I’m a charter fisherman out of Savannah for 25
years now. The first 20 I couldn’t catch any snapper. You said, “Where is the learning curve
here?” There is no doubt about it; we’re good at it, we catch a lot of snapper. Since the 20-inch
limit rule went into effect in ’92, it made a tremendous comeback. Now again that’s one of our
bread-and-butter fish. You go out and you catch two snapper per person, we’ve had a wonderful
day. I don’t care if you put another fish in the boat.
There is the economic aspect of it, too. I don’t what impact our business has on the state as a
whole, but people will come down and spend three and four and five hundred bucks on a
weekend. They rent motel rooms at Tybee where we are. They bring families, they eat at
restaurants, and it’s a lot of money.
I know that the meetings are not concerning the economic impact, but I just wanted to bring that
up. So we have no problem catching snapper, but I have been at it a long time, worked hard at it,
and I like this. I like making my living this way, and I intend to do it. I’m almost 70 years old,
and I intend to do this a few more years. I think it keeps you alive. When you quit working, you
die, so that’s my attitude. I want to hang in it for a long time, as long as I can.
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May 12, 2008
I’d like to make a decent living at it, too, while I’m adding at it. Other than just general
comments, I don’t think I have anything else to say. We see no problem with it. As I say, I
would accept these comments there for the record. Does anyone want to buy a good charterboat?
Transcribed By:
Graham Transcription Service, Inc.
March 30, 2008
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Snapper Grouper Amendment 18 Public Scoping
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May 12, 2008
SOUTH ATLANTIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL
SNAPPER GROUPER AMENDMENT 18 PUBLIC SCOPING
POOLER, GEORGIA
MAY 12, 2008
Attendees
Council Members
Charles Duane Harris
Susan Shipman
Staff Member
Julie O’ Dell
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