GOM offshore "Permit"

[Terry England]

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is holding public workshops on a proposal for recreational reef fish data collection that would better define the population of offshore reef fish anglers for survey purposes using a mandatory permit or registry system. These improvements would enhance current recreational harvest data collection efforts for Florida's reef fish species in the Gulf of Mexico, including red snapper, gag grouper, red grouper, black grouper, greater amberjack, lesser amberjack, banded rudderfish, vermilion snapper and gray triggerfish. Stakeholders are invited to bring input and any questions about this proposal to any of the following meetings. The remaining meetings are as follows:
Tuesday, March 11: Phone conference (6:00-8:00 pm EST) please RSVP to the Division of Marine Fisheries Management at 850-487-0554 to obtain instructions on joining the meeting.
Wednesday, march 12 : Pensacola (6:00-8:00 pm CDT) Escambia County Extension Office Auditorium, 3740 Stefani Rd.
[Meetings previously have been held at Ft. Myers (3/3), St. Petersburg (3/5), Perry (3/6) and Destin (3/6)]
For Questions or Comments, please contact the FWC Division of Marine Fisheries Management at 850-478-0554 or on-line at "[email protected]"

Terry's Comments - I attended the workshop in St. Petersburg. Since the meeting was only announced several days in advance there were only 30 anglers present. I understand there were approximately 30 present at the Ft. Myers workshop. I have no information about Perry or Destin participation.
Presently the FWC collects data regarding reef fish catches in two methods 1) boat ramp reviews and inspections and 2) land line phone solicitations looking for offshore fishers. These methods completely miss any boaters who live or dock on the water and the 1200 phone per month calls net 300 answers and between 8 and 28 people who claim to fish offshore. These phone calls are not tied to fishing licenses, just random white page phone calls hoping to find a fisher person. Oddly, these statics show that those reporting last year indicating that 6,000# of Hogfish were landed from "shore based" recreational fisherman in Florida???
The State of Louisiana began a similar offshore recreational permit three years ago and now have hard data that the NOAA Federal Fisheries projections for Recreational Red Snapper were 70% overestimated in that state.

Please consider joining the phone conference on Tuesday march 11, if you would like to learn more or comment on this proposal.