November 2, 2017 — After three years of no allowable red snapper fishing off the South Atlantic coast, it opens back up today for the first in consecutive 3-day weekends for recreational fishermen. For a lot of charter fishermen, however, the chance to take advantage of the reopened fishery may have come and gone.
Scott Griffin of Goin’ Coastal Charters said he and his fellow captains really had less than a week to get the word out, and even then, years of atrophy to offshore charter business already had an impact.
“Most of the guys are concentrating inshore for trout and redfish right now,” Griffin said. “If it had been during the tourist season, it would have been a whole different story. We could’ve booked all six days. So, giving us one week’s notice in the middle of the fall, it basically does nothing for us. It’s a shame, too, because the fish are out there.”
The area covered goes from 3 miles out from the coast, to 200 miles, administered through federal regulatory bodies.
In the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council meetings on Jekyll Island in March, discussion shifted between whether they were in a position to accurately know the health of the fishery, to the amount of by-catch — usually dead snapper thrown back into the water when caught during fishing for other species — to the continuing frustration of recreational anglers who maintain there are more than enough red snapper for both harvesting and maintaining the population.
Read the full story at the Brunswick News