Went to find some freezer supplies on Saturday. A pretty decent day on the water. Stayed shallow…burned a minimal amount of gas and the boy caught a few fish.
Highlights of the day:
Zero Grouper
22 Triggers
20 Sea Bass
8 Good B-Liners
2 Banded Rudders kept
My best Moray released unharmed
12 ARS released…mostly smaller fish
12 Bud Lights left in the cooler
The one in the pic was 33"
Boat and fish cleaned by 9:30.
Nice…
Sounds like you guys got on em quick, hustled the lines, and got back in before the fish knew what hit em. What time did yall get out there?
Sport-Craft 241
Suzuki 225 EFI
That’s a beauty…
Also, out of curiosity, when you say, “smaller” red snapper, how long do you think that they were? I got asked the other day if we are seeing juveniles in numbers. Are the smaller ones you saw less than 20" in length? If you had to guess length, what would it be?
Note that smaller fish = someone is breeding, so it’s a good thing.
Jason, we saw hundreds of 12/15" ars on our dives Sat in 100+ft.
If it got any better I couldn’t stand it.
solid work there!
“mr keys”
Of the 15 we released last week, half were 12"-16"'s.
.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”
Most of the ARS were juveniles…my guess would be 12"-16". It is good to see them in decent numbers. This was the most ARS for me in one trip. Usually; on bottom fish trips we catch a couple bigger fish and maybe a few youngsters.
Not sure if this catch rate is a function of fish numbers or technique.
The only way to do proper sampling is by going down and doing fish counts. We have fished similar areas with the bottom completely lit up and caught zero ARS. A while later a couple of the crew suited up and dove down and saw 50 plus ARS??
The reason I asked is because one of the SAFMC members asked me about it the other day. Their fear was that we had this big spawn 4-5 years ago (those are the 15-20lb fish we are seeing out there supposedly) and that if we killed any of those, there wouldn’t be anything to replace them. The presence of these juveniles means that a lot more spawning has been going on, and we will have a lot more spawners in the next few years (at age 2 about 50% of them start to spawn). I was also told by a local biologist that there was evidence that they were spawning a few times a year now (versus once in July) and they really hadn’t seen that before.
To give you some perspective, a 20" red snapper is about 2 years old (average), so fish that are 12-16" are probably around a year old. I don’t know that I have ever seen them smaller than that, but it’s probably because fish that small don’t live where I dive.
Anyway, seeing a ton of juveniles is a good thing in my eyes and we should probably keep each other posted on this. I’m actually surprised you were seeing 12" fish around the 33" fish you caught, because a 12" fish is a snack for a 33" fish.
quote:Some times it's a little bit of both. From my experience, most schools like to hang out with similar sized buddies although schools do intermix once in a while. To give you an example, I dove a reef last October and there must have been 50 reds that were all about 12-15 lbs in size. Then a pack of about 8 20-25 lb fish swam in together almost in formation, swam through the edge of the smaller school and swam off together.
Originally posted by BlueFlyNot sure if this catch rate is a function of fish numbers or technique.
Red snapper are a cool creature though. I’ve only been on 3 dive trips since being back from Miami, but most of the reds that I have seen lately have not been schooling together as strong, but I’ve mostly seen larger fish (10-25 lb).
I have however seen an ass load of gargantuan triggers, and more vermilion than you can shake a stick at. I was also ferociously attacked by a black sea bass who tried to eat my finger like it was a cigar minnow.
Another thing you should know about red snapper. They did a pretty hefty tagging study on them years ago. Most of the recaptures were caught within 0.25 miles of where they were released. That means, take care of your spot. Don’t over kill… This is not directed at anyone on this thread. Just a general FYI in case anyone ever wondered about that.
quote:That's a good sign of things to come... Well, maybe a good sign of us being frustrated in a few years because we can't shoot them either when they hit 15 lbs!!!
Originally posted by Bug CatcherJason, we saw hundreds of 12/15" ars on our dives Sat in 100+ft.
If it got any better I couldn’t stand it.
Red snapper closure seems to be working,Skint-knee is so excited,hes up till the weee hours.
Wow
quote:Only if you didn't realize that the recovery was happening 4-5 years before the closure. The population of red snapper doubled it's size two years in a row BEFORE the closure started. Sometimes it helps to have a clear picture of cause and effect. Unfortunately, there will be plenty of people who think the closure was responsible for the "recovery", and won't learn anything.
Originally posted by BolbieRed snapper closure seems to be working,Skint-knee is so excited,hes up till the weee hours.
Wow
In the last couple of weeks my boat has hooked a fair number of juveniles (12"-17"), in water depth ranging from 45’ to 110’. I have been pleasantly surprised by the return of the juvi’s to shallow water. I hadn’t seen any in the 35’-45’ range in maybe 5 years. While I don’t believe the closure was/is responsible for the “recovery” it certainly hasn’t hurt the population. I’m a former Marine - which was never followed by “Biologist” - so my opinion is strictly just that…opinion.
EdgeWater 245
“The Mighty Fin”
LOL ^^ I think we need some more marine without the biologist or just fishermen in general instead of politicians setting this up!
MSA was already working before the shutdown started. But now they can claim a victory as they did with black sea bass. Semper Fi Folly Fisher…from an 0352
.
NMFS = No More Fishing Season
“Back home we got a taxidermy man. He gonna have a heart attack when he see what I brung him”