Red snapper season cut; fishermen divided

SANDESTIN - After more than three hours of comment from fishermen divided into three camps, Florida regulators on Thursday shortened the red-snapper fishing season for this year in state waters.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission unanimously voted to set the recreational season at June 1 through Sept. 20 in the Gulf of Mexico. It had been from April 15 through Oct. 31.

The change matches the fishing season in federal waters.

Federal fisheries officials maintain that snapper are overfished in the gulf.

FWC Commissioner Dwight Stephenson, who made the motion, said he wants the committee to come up with some way to count fish, whether it is by tag, permit or stamp.

Commissioner said the decision to shorten the season was difficult.

"There is no easy way to do this with what we've been handed," said FWC Vice Chairwoman Kathy Barco.

Fishermen were united last year when they asked the FWC for a longer season in state waters. Not so on Thursday.

More than 40 people from Apalachicola to Orange Beach, Ala., spoke and three different camps emerged.

Those from the Pensacola area were mostly recreational fishermen. They urged the FWC to defy the feds and leave the red snapper season as is - April through October.

Others from Destin and the Panama City area encouraged the commission to throw in the towel and change the recreational season in state waters to mirror the federal season.

"We've been told that federal waters may be closed completely if Florida doesn't comply," said Pam Anderson, operations manager of Anderson's Marina on Panama City Beach. "We've been caught between a rock and a hard place."

Anderson also stressed the importance of improving what many have called a flawed red snapper count.

"The more (data) we can collect, the more we can cut back on guessing," she said.

Anderson mentioned a Gulf of Mexico Angler Reporting System (GOMARS), where recreational boaters would report what they are catching and where.

The third idea, voiced by some Destin charter boat captains, was to ask the state to be completely compatible with the federal season, even if the federal season was shortened to just a couple of months.

"Let's do whatever we have to to get past the overfished (category)," said Destin captain Mike Eller. "It's a bitter pill to swallow.

"Yes, we question their data, but they (the federal regulators) have beat us," he said.

They all agreed that red snapper are plentiful and that a better way of collecting data is necessary.