December 11, 2014 — In the battle against inept federal management of Gulf of Mexico red snapper populations, Mobile's freshman congressman Bradley Byrne is attracting regional attention and support. Alabama anglers ought to keep heat on Alabama's other House and Senate members to actively back Byrne's efforts
Coastal Alabamians, whether fishing enthusiasts or not, are by now well familiar with the problems of federal management. Ample evidence, in most cases incontrovertible, shows that the feds understate the amount of snapper in the Gulf and vastly overstate the amount of snapper actually caught. The mismeasurement is especially egregious, both ways, in Alabama.
Based on these huge mismeasurements, the feds impose shorter and shorter snapper seasons, and smaller catch limits, almost annually. This year the Alabama snapper season was nine days; in 2015 it might be cut to two. The shortened season is a huge blow to the Alabama tourism/recreation economy and of course a massive infringement on the avocations of hundreds of thousands of sportsmen. It's also environmentally unsound: Rising snapper populations crowd out other Gulf species and thus create an eco-system imbalance.
Read the full opinion piece by Quin Hillyer at AL.com