Latest Gulf Council Meeting Recap
Big news emerged from the April Gulf Council Meeting in Birmingham.
First, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama took the first step toward managing the red snapper below their state waters.
Second, it appears there will be more days for charter fishermen to catch red snapper in 2017.
The Council also made some progress on Amendment 41.
Below are brief breakdowns of these actions.
Louisiana May Get State Management of Red Snapper in 2019-21
LDWF Assistant Secretary of Fisheries Patrick Banks successfully brought up a motion which may allow Louisiana to manage its Gulf-wide historical percentage of recreational red snapper harvest in 2019-21 out to 200 nautical miles.
The motion passed 11-5.
Mississippi and Alabama quickly followed suit with similar motions, both of which also passed.
Texas and Florida were not incentivized to bring up corresponding motions because both states currently harvest far more than their percentage of historical red snapper harvest dictates.
Although we do not know what state management of red snapper will look like and there is plenty of work to do to ensure that Louisiana’s charter fleet gets its fair share, the majority of our offshore captains view this as an exciting first step for Louisiana to take managerial control from the federal government.
Longer Federal Charter-for-Hire Red Snapper Season Expected
As for this year’s federal red snapper season, NOAA Fisheries Service Regional Administrator Dr. Roy Crabtree stated that the Gulf-wide charter-for-hire sector should get equal or slightly more days than the recent 45-day season. This is because the Gulf’s charter fleet caught only about 90 percent of its allotment of red snapper in 2016.
Private recreational fishermen went substantially over their allotment of red snapper last year, according to National Marine Fisheries data. This will result in a shorter private recreational red snapper season, according to Crabtree. There is a rumor circulating that private recreational anglers may get 0-3 days to fish red snapper in federal waters in 2017, however the data says 3-6 days is more likely. Last year, private recreational fishermen got nine days, plus two weather make-up days, to fish red snapper in federal waters.
At previous Council meetings, the Council gave conflicting information on whether private recreational fishermen going over their allotment would take 2017 days away from just them or whether the charter-for-hire sector would be penalized too. The latest information from the Council is that the sectors will receive 2017 red snapper allocations separately based on what they caught last year.
The number of days for each sector is not firm yet, however Crabtree said it should be finalized by May 1, so stay tuned. We sure will.
Amendment 41 Progress
Amendment 41, an alternate federal management plan which would allocate red snapper shares to charter fishermen, briefly came up at the Birmingham Council Meeting.
As expected, the Council voted without opposition to add cyclical redistribution of red snapper to Amendment 41. In layman's terms, this means that if a charter fisherman can’t show effort for red snapper over the course of a set number of years, this fisherman will lose red snapper allocation and that allocation will be distributed to charter fishermen who show red snapper effort. This is an attempt to stop wasteful allocation of red snapper from going to a charter fisherman who doesn’t target red snapper or can’t catch red snapper from his port.
The Council also narrowly passed adding gag grouper, gray triggerfish, greater amberjack and red grouper to Amendment 41 by a 10-7 vote.
At future meetings, the Council will discuss which years of harvest to use in the allocation formula, whether to use equal or proportional-to-landings redistribution, who shares can be traded to and whether the amount of shares one fisherman can own should be capped. The devil will be in the details here, and it is very important our captains stay on top of these issues to ensure that Louisiana charter captains don’t get the short end of the stick.
Questions also remain regarding whether captains would be able to opt out of red snapper management in Amendment 41 and instead take part in Louisiana's new state management development for the years 2019-21.
There are lots of moving parts here, so keep reading these newsletters to stay informed.
