I hate to say it, but I fish like lightning. That is, I seek the path of least resistance…like fishing for what’s biting. It seems that red snapper are always biting. The biggest consideration is if the weather will let me get to 'em. Sunday, the weather cooperated and so did the snapper.
Harold Wilcox
www.haroldshogwash.com
Am I thinking wrong here?
Assuming incorrectly?
Hope so.
Louisiana… Nice catching!
Thank goodness.
It’s tough being an old fart.
Thanks interceptor4.
Thanks, interceptor4. I like catching those snapper on my light bass fishing rods and reels. It’s virtually impossible to catch 'em around the rigs on light tackle because they’ll run into the structure and break you off. I’ve found some humps on the bottom away from any rigs. When I catch 'em there, I use light tackle, because there’s nothing down there for them to break you off on. When sharks are around, it tough to get the snapper up before a shark gets him. I’ve lost too many to sharks. Now, when sharks show up, I relocate.
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Originally posted by interceptor4Louisiana… Nice catching!
Harold Wilcox
www.haroldshogwash.com
I was thinking like IM$USC after the read by the thought cleared my mind with continious reading. Spent sometime in Venice last year with The MISSTRESS (offshore crew) team running after tuna and those guys do pull up some nice ARS and big reds. Looking forward to our next outing.
What a heck of a big limit you have.
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Originally posted by IM4USCAm I thinking wrong here?
Assuming incorrectly?
Hope so.
Or we could try not thinking the worst. Hard but doable!
“…thinking the worst.” What am I missing here? Is catching red snapper a bad thing?
quote:
Originally posted by RWLOr we could try not thinking the worst. Hard but doable!
Harold Wilcox
www.haroldshogwash.com
I’m going to ask a question at the risk of being crucified, but why is it they can catch Red Snapper in the gulf but we can’t in tha Atlantic? Am I missing or understanding something incorrectly?
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Lee , Me thinks they don’t have the stoopids down there making the rules…
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I think there may be a lot more red snapper off the Louisiana coast than there are off the SC coast. It seems that they have more generous limits on all species. Limit on speckled trout is 25 per person. One of the fishery biologists down there said that the population of trout could not be hurt with rods and reels. That may be an overstatement, but I took it to mean there are LOTS of trout down there. There are lots of sheepshead, too…so many that there’s no limit on them. I’ve enjoyed catching spade fish off the SC coast, and there are lots of them around the oil rigs in Louisiana. Funny thing is, I’ve NEVER heard anyone in Venice even mention spade fish. I asked a couple of folks about them. One guy had never heard of them, and the other turned up his nose and said, “They are a nasty trash fish.” I think spades are pretty tasty. Chocolate and vanilla, I guess.
quote:
Originally posted by pitviper0404I’m going to ask a question at the risk of being crucified, but why is it they can catch Red Snapper in the gulf but we can’t in tha Atlantic? Am I missing or understanding something incorrectly?
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Harold Wilcox
www.haroldshogwash.com
quote:They are considered different stocks of fish. Really that simple... The atlantic side is managed by the SAFMC, and the gulf side is managed by the GOMFMC.
Originally posted by pitviper0404I’m going to ask a question at the risk of being crucified, but why is it they can catch Red Snapper in the gulf but we can’t in tha Atlantic? Am I missing or understanding something incorrectly?
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Neither side knows anything about red snapper, and the GOM season is shorter as well, but that’s what happens when you let “scientists” try to engineer solutions to problems that don’t exist.
Just as an example, it’s a known fact that the snapper fishery in the GOM was discovered in the mid to late 1800’s. The annual catch coming into the 1900’s was about 2-2.5 million pounds per year. Under this catch rate the stocks crashed so bad that the snapper fleet went all the way to the yucatan penninsula to maintain their businesses. Stocks have since rebounded and the total allowable catch nowadays is 11 million pounds… So, how is it that 2 million pounds of catch per year crashed “virgin” stocks in the 1900’s, but nowadays 11 million pounds is sustainable? How can today’s “norm” be 5 times higher than “virgin” stocks that had not been touched by man until the 1800’s.
The answer is quite simple… There are literally THOUSANDS of oil rigs and artificial reefs in the GOM that have greatly increased the habitat there. There are more than 20 thousand artificial reefs in Alabama alone. Before their artificial reef program, they caught 0% of the total red snapper catch in the GOM. Now, they catch about 40%.
Anyway, I could go on a
Skineej, it seems like you know your stuff. Back in the 1800s when the fishery supposedly crashes at 2 million pounds per year, do you think a reason that fisherman thought it crashed was lack of sonar and gps? I mean the fish were possibly still plentiful, but they didnt have the technology to find them? Our technology nowadays allows us to find almost any fish in the ocean if you try hard enough.
quote:These guys covered a lot of ground over decades. It wasn't just like this FLEET of boats had 1 bad year and threw in the towel. They literally chased fish the entire circumference of the GOM all the way to Mexico. Also remember that back in the day, longlining was prominent. They stretch these lines out for miles over "snapper grounds", so no, I do not think that GPS was the gap between 2.5 million and 11 million. Remember, that 11 million is "sustainable" allowable catch, which means it would take more than that to crash the stock.
Originally posted by millacdSkineej, it seems like you know your stuff. Back in the 1800s when the fishery supposedly crashes at 2 million pounds per year, do you think a reason that fisherman thought it crashed was lack of sonar and gps? I mean the fish were possibly still plentiful, but they didnt have the technology to find them? Our technology nowadays allows us to find almost any fish in the ocean if you try hard enough.
Ah i gotcha. If those numbers are accurate, then that’s truly an amzing statistic then… Basically quintupling the amount of fish in the same size body of water by increasing structure/habitat.
quote:Precisely. Government models have no way to factor in increase of habitat. If you think about it, 95%+ of the ocean is just sandy, flat, uninteresting bottom. How much life does a single sunken boat hold? Off of the SC coast, imagine what fishing would be like with 20,000 artificial reefs that were "semi-private" or "semi-hidden". That's what Alabama has. With that much structure, would it surprise anyone to see a huge abundance in fish? And, oil rigs... I've got $5 that places a bet that hwilcox was catching these beasts on oil rigs. Those weren't present until modern day history (i.e. net net habitat).
Originally posted by millacdAh i gotcha. If those numbers are accurate, then that’s truly an amzing statistic then… Basically quintupling the amount of fish in the same size body of water by increasing structure/habitat.
One day, the federal government will learn that the age distribution model that they apply to red snapper was the wrong initial assumption. One day, they will realize that having a multitude of YOUNG fish is normal for a population that can double it’s size in one year. Unfortunately, this won’t come until decades or scratching their heads wondering why snapper are starting to cover the Atlantic, but not getting any “older” on average.
I think snapper are a peculiar species because of their nature (i.e. millions of them, yet can live to be 50+ years old). It’s due to the lack of having a baseline to compare to. “Best Available Science” means, “Even if we don’t know what we are doing, we will use whatever data we have”…
The scary thing about this is right now, they are working on schemes to close large swaths of the ocean as a means of preventing “dead discards” to red snapper. Their last proposal was maybe 4-5 years ago and they proposed closing the South Atla
we need some oil rigs!
quote:That's the last thing we need... We just need the government to let us fish. I've only dove 3 times so far this year... 2 out of those 3 dives had 75-100+ snapper on each spot.
Originally posted by toddnwe need some oil rigs!
You only need oil rigs when you have nothing else. We have a great network of live bottoms, ledges, and the gulfstream.
quote:
Originally posted by skinneejquote:That's the last thing we need... We just need the government to let us fish. I've only dove 3 times so far this year... 2 out of those 3 dives had 75-100+ snapper on each spot.
Originally posted by toddnwe need some oil rigs!
You only need oil rigs when you have nothing else. We have a great network of live bottoms, ledges, and the gulfstream.
How about some more area 51’s. 
I agree no oil rigs, but the few public A.R. we have got far to much fishing pressure imo. With the size of our ocean and the amount of live bottom I still find it baffling the number of boats you see stacked up on an artificial reef.
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