Fishermen say red snapper were bigger and more abundant this season than any in recent memory. They hauled in piles of the bright pink fish, reportedly weighing an average of 15 to 20 pounds. They didn’t have to travel too far from shore to find the good spots, where a dropped line almost always produced a keeper.
At one time, fishermen were hard-pressed to find larger fish because the population had been so heavily harvested, he said.
Thanks to federal and state regulations over the years, the red snapper are back.
Federal regulators report that in 2009, the red snapper population was rebuilding and that the fish were larger and more abundant. The practice of removing fish at a greater rate than they could reproduce was projected to end.
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