Red snapper

[SharkDave]

Sorry didn’t see my previous post on thread. Same shit 2x.

[Southernduck]

A lot of cattle graze public land. If you want to keep more fish quit your job, get an expensive highly regulated and limited snapper grouper permit, you’ll need 2 for 1. VMS, fill out reports coming and going, take mandatory random observers, go to work in sometimes aweful conditions. Get boarded and harassed by green jeans or CG nearly constantly to make sure you’re in compliance. And then cringe when you see the sky high fuel prices take most of your profit.

Grazing cattle on public land is far from free. There are permits and maintenance costs with it too.

I wish commercial fishing would make a resurgence. It’s a tough way to make a living but I imagine it is a spiritually rewarding job like raising cattle. It seems like the big players in the commercial sector control the SAFMC and want to keep everyone else out. That needs to change. One thing is for sure we need data from both commercial and rec guys to make sound decisions but we are talking about the government so throw common sense out the window.

[Saltydog235]

Grazing cattle on public land is far from free. There are permits and maintenance costs with it too.

I wish commercial fishing would make a resurgence. It’s a tough way to make a living but I imagine it is a spiritually rewarding job like raising cattle. It seems like the big players in the commercial sector control the SAFMC and want to keep everyone else out. That needs to change. One thing is for sure we need data from both commercial and rec guys to make sound decisions but we are talking about the government so throw common sense out the window.

No truer words have been spoken in the thread. None of those big players give a damn about a spiritually rewarding job nor the little guys that are trying to eek out a living day to day, they'd just as soon put them all under water. SAFMC needs to be sent to the gut bucket, states should be in control of the waters that are along their coastlines insofar as resource management is concerned. Then maybe a resurgence of some sort could take place but I doubt it, the old guys that new how are going and there's not much in the younger set taking it up.

[Duck Tape]

I am told, there are only 50 commercial guys that reef fish in federal waters.

[Southernduck]

I am told, there are only 50 commercial guys that reef fish in federal waters.

In the state? It wouldn’t surprise me if you told me the whole southern Atlantic

[Saltydog235]

I am told, there are only 50 commercial guys that reef fish in federal waters.

Well damn, I saw 4 or 5 of them on Saturday.

[Duck Tape]

50 in the state. How many recreational fishermen will target them?

A I says 60,000 different rec fishermen would target them on a 60 day season.

There are 220,000 salt water licenses.

Might not be difficult to convince legislators who to support.

[scdiver]

Commercial boats move up and down the coast. Regularly see boats from all of the South Atlantic states offshore here. Regulation of that is going to be challenging.


When you go recreational fish the Steeples/blackjack from SC, do you buy a NC license? South out of Edisto to the Deli/Sow Pen do you buy a Georgia recreational license?

Just thoughts from a total state run side for commercial and recreational.

[SharkDave]

It’s an expensive federal commercial permit to fish federal waters. There aren’t many left. I’d love to know who these “big players” are. Maybe some fish buyers in Canaveral or somewhere but all the guys I know are scratching out a living, mostly by diversifying catch and doing a lot of leg work cutting out middle man getting fresh fish straight to restaurants or consumers. If you really want to help any bottom fishery? ban spot lock trolling motors(. SG Complex, not inshore or fresh water). They will damage the fishery and bring on regulations you don’t want faster than any commercial boat could ever do.

[JABIII]

DNR is meeting with NC, GA, and FL tomorrow on this. Florida is being difficult if you can imagine...

[Saltydog235]

It’s an expensive federal commercial permit to fish federal waters. There aren’t many left. I’d love to know who these “big players” are. Maybe some fish buyers in Canaveral or somewhere but all the guys I know are scratching out a living, mostly by diversifying catch and doing a lot of leg work cutting out middle man getting fresh fish straight to restaurants or consumers. If you really want to help any bottom fishery? ban spot lock trolling motors(. SG Complex, not inshore or fresh water). They will damage the fishery and bring on regulations you don’t want faster than any commercial boat could ever do.

I have a Rhodan on the boat, rarely use it on the ledge and deep water. We beat the stuffing out of grouper and snapper. A spotlock has nothing to do with success or failure when it comes to that. It’s easier than dealing with 25’ of 5/16” chain and drum full of rode but it doesn’t make a bad or average fisherman good.

[SharkDave]

The spot lock makes people who have acquired numbers easily able to get on smaller pieces of bottom who never would otherwise be able to. Anchoring on top of smaller pieces(not drifting over large stretches of ledge or Art reefs) isn’t very easy and takes some work. And as DT said above, I think the rec lobby dwarfs the comm lobby. 50 vs 60,000? Didn’t check those numbers but not even close. Penalizing commercial guys who bring seafood to market for people that want to splurge on a nice dinner without buying a very expensive boat is still the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while. My mind hasn’t changed on that. I lived through the SOS bullshit in the late 90s early 2000s w Swordfish. We suffered regs, we adapted, have a strong fishery in the US now. Sporty vs Commercial is nothing new. One is an industry, one is for play. Pick which one you want, I play a little now when I’m not working on the ocean 200 days/year. But don’t penalize or injure one or the other.

[SharkDave]

And I will agree to disagree with you I do think a spot lock can make an average BOTTOMfisherman good. Can ride over a spot and hit a button, get on the bottom quicker, longer and more accurately and wear a spot out. I’ve done it. Your not swinging on and off esp the smaller pieces. Sure those spots replenish over time, but I think every center console w a spot lock targeting bottom fish is not going to end well. I hope I’m wrong, been wrong before.

[Duck Tape]

I don't want to pick a winner or loser.

50 commercial on offshore reefs. versus. 60,000 recreational versus 1,000,000 who buy fish

However, one of the groups sued 60,000 of us. Rubs me wrong. They better have a reasonable settlement recreational fishermen can get behind by December because if I am still irritated, I will become the irritator.

[Saltydog235]

But don’t penalize or injure one or the other.

That's how it should be. I have no issue with the commercial guys, realize many are living hand to mouth and fighting to survive. There's a lot of numbers on my machine that have come from some retired guys that want to see everyone succeed. Everyone needs to play by the same rules though. My contention is that states should manage the fisheries within their borders/coastlines. The SAFMC covers way too much ground, the fishery is not the same in the Keys as it is Jacksonville, Jacksonville isn't the same as Charleston/Gtown and Chas/Gtown isn't the OBX, why are we all playing by the same rules in the recreational side and totally different set of rules for the commercial?

[Saltydog235]

And I will agree to disagree with you I do think a spot lock can make an average BOTTOMfisherman good. Can ride over a spot and hit a button, get on the bottom quicker, longer and more accurately and wear a spot out. I’ve done it. Your not swinging on and off esp the smaller pieces. Sure those spots replenish over time, but I think every center console w a spot lock targeting bottom fish is not going to end well. I hope I’m wrong, been wrong before.

The average guy going out can't read a sounder, he parks over a Maps Unique or Artificial Reef on one of the charts and comes home with a few B-liners, AJ's and ringtails and calls it a success. Every once in a while, he gets lucky and finds some structure and catches something worthwhile. Or they see something on the sounder and hit the MOB to create a waypoint that's already off the little bit of bottom and can't find the spot again. Or my personal favorite, they see you pulling up fish after fish and come running over to cornhole your numbers and try to set up right on top of you. Spot Lock or not, it takes a while to be able to read bottom and figure out what is productive and what is not. We never spot lock on the 275-800' stuff either, you're asking for a mess of tangled lines if you can't figure out what the currents are doing way under the boat. Spot Lock is just a tool, a useful one if you know what you are doing but it doesn't equate to success if you don't.

[Palmetto Duck]

Shark Dave I don’t know how you can say “DONT PEANLIZE ONE FOR THE OTHER” unless you’re in favor of shutting it down for commercial guys too??!! Are you? Because it doesn’t sound like it. You choose to be on the water 200 days a year and I respect the hell out of the work it takes to do that. Some in here have said commercial guys are just scraping by. Again a choice. That doesn’t build priority over he public. People used to sell encyclopedias and typewriters too u til it didn’t make sense to anymore. Also, we’re only talking about Red Snapper, not every other fish you catch and sell. But just because commercial fish are being sold at whatever price to people who want to buy it, does NOT give the commercial fisherman any priority over the recreational taking of a public resource. I lived and fished through the swordfish bullshit too AND the changes Florida made. The world class bill fishing we have right now off SC is I think, in part, a direct result of that. Another example where,left alone, the commercial industry would have continued to fuck many species with their Indiscriminate longlining. Glad you adapted to the regs you reference. Why wouldn’t you? And how many of those were proposed by the commercial lobby? I’ve watched longliners move into the GT hole area during the Georgetown tourney years ago. 5e first day, no long lines and you couldn’t run away from the big dolphin. Every marlin plug you put in the water no matter how big got crushed with the quickness for miles. Every boat on radio with same experience. Next day, long lines everywhere and boats seen pulling dolphin after dolphin and plenty of o5er fish over the side. Barely a dolphin brought to the dock that day in the tourney. I know there are many other variables. But many people see commercial guys dial it in and absolutely smash the targeted species because they’re good at what they do. Then they see the lobby say this resource is still good for us to fish, but not the recreational guys. That’s BULLSHIT, you can’t reconcile it and you know it. I don’t care if you live at sea year round.

[Frank1]

If theres not enough fish for one there isnt enough for anyone