March 3, 2017

Why you are here

Gulf Council and NOAA Fisheries are seeking your guidance based on your experience and interest in the red snapper recreational fishery.

Charge: To provide recommendations to the Council on private recreational red snapper management measures which would

  • Provide more quality access to the resource in federal waters;
  • Reduce discards; and
  • Improve fisheries data collection

Long history of fishery

  • Red snapper have been harvested since at least the 1840's
  • Early fishery centered near Pensacola Florida
  • Fishery expanded after ice became availability
  • Early catches dominated by large fish ( > 10 lbs)
  • Localized depletion occurred by late 1800's
  • Fishery expanded to Campeche Bank off Mexico



Long history of fishery cont.

  • Dynamics of fishery changed after WW II
    • Western Gulf fishery emerged
    • The recreational fishery was beginning to develop
  • Shrimp fishery expanded after WW II
  • Shrimp effort doubled between 1960s and 1990s
  • Shrimp trawl bycatch became a significant source of mortality for juvenile red snapper



How did the red snapper stock respond?

  • Not well!
    • Localized depletion occurred
    • Biomass continued to decline

How did management respond?

How did management respond?

Summary of regulations

Outcome

  • Biological success
  • More fish
  • Larger
  • Expanded distribution

  • Increased reproductive potential & stock size

  • Counterintuitively, recreational access continues to decline with increasing population size
  • Biomass began increasing 2005
  • Federal season has decreased from 194 to 11 days
  • Recreational quota increased
  • CPUE increases outpace quota increase

  • Derby fishing has been accelerated

So where are we now?

What happened?

What other factors have affected access?

  • State water seasons and landings have increased
  • landings from state waters come off the total recreational ACL
  • Federal season is reduced to account for state landings
  • Requirement to increase buffer and payback provision
  • Changes in recreational data collection methods

## What else happened 2?

  • MRIP introduced changes in the way catch and effort are estimated from recreatonal fisheries
  • The changes are technical improvements but results in landings streams that were not comparable to the units that quotas were established
  • NMFS originally elected to continue establishing season lengths used the previous methodology and would have result in 40-d season in 2014
  • This decision was challenged in court
  • Guindon v. Pritzker, 2014 WL 1274076; D.D.C. Mar. 26, 2014
  • The court decision required use of the new MRIP data stream and result in a 9-d season for 2014
  • Court decison also required additional buffering to prevent ACL overages

Where are we headed?

  • No easy solutions
  • Uncertain future

Summary table

History of Management

  • Stock was unmanaged until the Reef Fish FMP was implemented in 1984
    • FMP noted declining landings
    • Implemented minimum size limit (13 inches)

Recreational fishery

  • Very limited prior to WW II
  • Tourism and fiberglass boats increased opportunity for red snapper fishing
  • A for-hire fishery emerged targeting red snapper
  • Landings increased from 500,000 (1950's) to 5 million poulds (1990's)
  • Today, account for approximately 50% of total red snapper landings

Recreational fishery cont.

  • Rebuilding is underway and a biological success


Why could that be?

Why could that be?

Where do we go from here

Management

  • Identify objectives
    • What to maximize
      • Season length
      • Bag limit
      • Trophy fish
    • What to minimize
      • Exceeding ACL and/or accountability measures

Bag limits and size limits

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