Snapper and grouper fishing might have just opened up again.
On Thursday, federal regulators moved farther south their preferred option for closing an offshore bottom-fishing area. If adopted, the closed area would end at roughly the Georgia-South Carolina border. The former preferred option ran the closure all the way to North Carolina. It would have closed off any bottom fishing in the prime grounds off South Carolina.
The alternative will be reviewed for its impact on restoring red snapper and could get a final vote in June. But a decision might not come before a new stock assessment is finished in December. A temporary bottom- fishing ban remains in place for the winter spawning season.
"I'm not happy about it. We are where we are," said Duane Harris, a Georgia charter boat captain who is chairman of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the group that voted for the option change.
"I think it's simply a matter that the folks in South Carolina and North Carolina didn't believe the area needed to be that large. I think we'll revisit the matter (in June)," he said.