Grouper And Snapper Overfished? WHAT!

Ahoy there Anglers,

Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you all enjoy the Holidays with your family and friends. Thank you all for being subscribers to my fishing reports this year and I hope you all continue to enjoy them in 2009 as well as our Just Fishin Radio Show. Our listeners made us the "Number 1 Outdoor Show in 2008" in the ratings and we really appreciate it !

No, I didn't get lost at sea if any of you have been wondering what happened to my reports. I know I'm late in getting this report out. I completely skipped November's report but I've had my 92 year old father in the hospital plus my daughter's been in the hospital both in November and have also been taking advantage of working whenever I can, (when the wind let's me) anyway, my father and daughter are doing much better and are back to normal.

Lately, on our WOKV Just Fishin Radio Show I've been telling anglers that we have to be heard and heard in numbers if we don't want one of our favorite recreational pastimes to be taken away from us altogether. It's dwindling down faster and faster here lately it seems. The South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council are saying that the grouper and snapper fisheries are in trouble while on the other hand people are telling me AND showing me at the dock that both the fisheries are doing better last year and this year than they have been in the last 20 years. What's up with that? When they started the size and bag regulations years ago, they helped both the grouper and snapper to be able to grow and spawn and now they're here in such great numbers that you can hardly catch anything else while fishing offshore. It worked! Now let us have a few. Don't close the season from 4 to 6 months. People are getting their limits in an hour or two of fishing and having to release a bunch of legal-sized fish and a whole bunch of smaller fish. Now does that sound like a fishery in trouble?
When I talk with people at the bait shops, the dock, etc. about showing up to these marine meetings or asking them to write e-mails to these councils, the FWC and the Governor, most anglers say, "that's not a species I target so it doesn't matter to me." Well, when that species is closed due to "overfishing" then another species is going to be concentrated on and then that species will be closed due to "overfishing" and the list goes on and on. What species will be next? Will it be the one you're targeting then? I know of a lot of anglers that sold their offshore boats when the fuel pieces went way up and they bought inshore boats saying it costs too much to tow a large boat to the ramp and then go offshore and only get to catch a few legal fish. I don't blame them. Now they're targeting other species inshore which if the councils find out they will say these species are being "overfished" now. It's a bad cycle that's only getting worse. We all like to fish and most of us like to take fresh seafood home to enjoy. Since people like it so much, anglers are not going to just stop fishing altogether. They're going to fish for something. We need to protect our resources but yet protect our sport! The fish don't belong to the marine councils, the Feds, the FWC, or the environmentalists even. They don't belong to any certain group. Everyone should be able to enjoy them.
Please, if you hear of another Marine Protected Area trying to be started up by the environmentalists, or another proposed rule to keep us from harvesting "our fish", please let every angler you know hear about it. We need numbers. The environmentalists beg big donations from corporations to pay their lobbyists to wine and dine and beat on the doors of the people involved in making the rules. Anglers don't have that luxury. We need numbers to show we're concerned and we love our sport. Why keep us from harvesting our own seafood right here but allow the foreign countries to fish right off our coasts and then ship "our" seafood back to us? Something is just not right about that.


CREEKS:
Redfish are mostly off and on right now. Most days we're catching 6 to 12 slot-sized reds in the creeks and then some days, especially just after a front, we can hardly find slots feeding. I think it's mostly all these back-to-back cold fronts with wind and record low temperatures. What happened to global warming? I thought our winters were supposed to be getting warmer each year. Why is it you can always find 'rat reds'? Because they eat more often and are growing at a faster rate than the larger fish that can eat larger baits. There's still a few flounder in the creeks but not many. We find one here and there usually while redfish fishing. Spotted trout are doing good now with a whole lot of small ones but when you find some slots they're nice sized ones. Black drum from 12" to 18" are biting in the creeks better than I've seen in years.


JETTIES:
Sheepshead and black drum are the main players at the rocks this time of the year. Nice catches of sheepshead to 8 pounds are being caught and then in the deeper water the drum have been from 14" to 28" with an occasional huge sheepshead mixed in. This past week we're managed to catch a 9 pound sheepshead, a 10 pound, a 10.5 pound and a 12 pounder while drum fishing. That's a bonus I can deal with anytime. Bull redfish along with a few slot-sized ones are chewing at the rocks also. I wouldn't go all the way out there just to target a slot red as most of them are 30" and larger. There is still a few black margates, some legal sea bass, whiting and a bunch of ringtails out at the jetties too. We even caught a 17" flounder out there while drum fishing with dead shrimp. Whiting are doing better now than they've done all year.


RIVERS:
Black drum, yellow mouth trout and spotted trout are the main characters in the rivers. Work grass lines at higher tides with Bomber Long A's, crank baits of many kinds, top water lures, slip-float rigs with live shrimp or Cajun Thunders with live shrimp for the spotted trout. Dead shrimp on the bottom are working for the drum and yellow mouth trout. There is a very few croakers around but are small. Large redfish are being caught by drum fishermen at the time they're targeting the drum. Mangrove snapper are still around and are so good to eat and there are some sheepshead on the rock banks, bridge and dock pilings too. Whiting are doing pretty good in the sandier areas of the rivers especially Nassau Sound and Ft. George Inlet.


MILL COVE:
Spotted trout, black drum, redfish, whiting and a few flounder are being caught in the Cove right now. I like catching spotted trout on lures or slip-float rigs. Heck, I just like catching fish! High tide along the grass edges with a Cajun Thunder and a live shrimp 16" under the float is working real good right now.


SURF:
Whiting down at the "picnic tables" are doing so good right now. Catches of 50 to 75 are being reported and they're nice sized ones too, finally. Black drum mixed in with the whiting and I've heard of a lost pompano or two down there but don't bother going down there to target pompano. They're quite a bit further south now. Small bluefish are also being caught in the surf. The Jax. Beach Pier anglers are doing real good now also.

OFFSHORE:
My offshore report is brought to you each month by Captain Chad Starling of Team Buck Rogers. The red snapper are biting better now than they ever have. The information the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has supporting the closure of the snapper fishery, including vermillion snapper, is hogwash. Thursday we limited out on red snapper with 8 and threw back between 15-20 legal fish up to 9lbs. We also threw back several undersized fish. We limited out on vermillion snapper up to 3lbs with 40 and threw back several more vermillion snapper up to 3lbs. We caught a 20lb amberjack, 14 black sea bass, and several sharks. The rods stayed bent all day with fish that the experts say we don't have. Thursday I heard reports all day over the radio of people catching lots of red snapper and vermillion snapper so local fishermen continue to prove that we have a strong snapper fishery off our coast. I'm not the only boat that was throwing legal fish back after we got our limit. If you get the chance to have your voice heard, tell the SAFMC that closing the snapper fishery down completely for 6 months because they are being overfished is hogwash. You can quote me if you like! Keep those rods bent!!

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Remember, bring your cut off line, paper, can and bottle trash back to the ramp. There's trash cans there.

You can say what you want about the South but,
you never hear of anyone retiring and moving up North,,,

Captain Vic Tison
Co-Host of WOKV's 'Just Fishing' Radio Show, Saturdays 6:00am to 8:00am
United States Coast Guard Licensed Captain
International Game Fish Assoc. Certified Captain
Regional Director for the Florida Guides Assoc.
Member of the National Assoc. of Charterboat Operators
Member of the American Professional Captain's Association
Sponsor of The Inshore Saltwater Anglers Club

Vic2Fish & Adventures, Inc.
P O Box 28208
Jax., Fl. 32226
904-699-2285
Web Site http://vic2fish.com

Neither Captain Vic nor Vic2Fish & Adventures, Inc. claims any responsibility for any injury or loss of property arising out of any party using these Fishing Reports.