Feds lock down Gulf early in bid to protect snapper

Red snapper is off the hook in federal waters, but the move leaves local anglers hanging.

Effective at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the recreational fishery for red snapper in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico closed for the remainder of the current fishing year. The federal recreational fishery will reopen June 1, 2009.

Destin fishermen say that the move is just the latest in a long list of decisions made with inaccurate data. It seems that the federal government blindly hands down obstacles without regard for effect on the industry, they say.

“It’s definitely going to make things hard on us,” said Robert Ashler of the Indemand. “There’s more red snapper in federal waters than we know what to do with. In state waters we have to fight through all the little fish.”

The closure comes after the state of Florida heeded the words of boat captains at a regulatory meeting in February where hours of public testimony were heard. Though state regulators maintained the season, they scaled back the bag limit on the area’s signature fish. The action didn’t go far enough for the feds, who responded by closing the season almost five months early.

On Monday, Ashler was filleting a load of about a dozen red snapper on a dock behind Fisherman’s Wharf, his last catch of the year from federal waters.

Ashler and others use the racks as a form of advertisement to passersby.

“If we can hang good snapper when we get back to the dock, it makes our boat look like a good one to take out,” said Ashler. “We’re not going to be able to do that near as well on trips in state waters.”