For immediate release Email: twvenker@joincca.org Anglers shortchanged with four-day red snapper season Federal mismanagement virtually eliminates access to popular recreational fishery Continuing a downward spiral in South Atlantic red snapper seasons, NOAA Fisheries has announced a four-day recreational season for 2020. While expectations in March were that the federal agency in charge of the nation’s fisheries would disallow any recreational red snapper season, the move to a four-day season is hardly a victory for anglers who have seen their access to the fishery severely curtailed for the last decade even as the red snapper population expands. “A four-day season is marginally better than a zero-day season, but it is profoundly disappointing that this is the best result available after 10 years of intense scrutiny and federal management. This is certainly not where anglers deserve to be with a fishery that is clearly recovering and expanding,” said Bill Bird, chairman of the CCA National Government Relations Committee. Since 2010, the recreational sector has been allowed to harvest red snapper in South Atlantic federal waters a cumulative total of 37 days despite increasing abundance of fish. In recent years, NOAA Fisheries has maintained that recreational bycatch mortality – red […]
Daily Archives: June 8, 2020
CRD adds two vessels to offshore artificial reefs Brunswick, Ga. (June 5, 2020) The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’s Coastal Resources Division on June 3, 2020, added two new vessels to artificial reefs about 20 miles offshore of St. Catherines Island. (Click here for a video.) Sales of the “Support Fish Habitat” license plate funded the project, along with the Coastal Conservation Association of Georgia. “These vessels will provide essential fish habitat off Georgia’s coast and will eventually become populated with corals, sponges and other marine life,” said Paul Medders, the Artificial Reef, Habitat Enhancement and Boating Access leader for DNR’s Coastal Resources Division . “In about two years, these reefs will become prime fishing spots for offshore anglers, as well as a unique place for SCUBA divers to visit.” The first vessel, an 82-foot shrimp trawl named the Frank and Marie, sank at reef CCA-JL 22 nautical miles east of St. Catherines Island. It rested on the seafloor at 2:40 p.m. in about 64 feet of water. The Frank and Marie joins New York City subway cars, steel structures and other materials at reef CCA-JL. The second vessel, the 180-foot Tangiers Island, sank in 70 feet of water at […]