November 30, 2017 — CHARLESTON, S.C. — The following was released by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
Information and data provided by recreational fishermen through the new pilot electronic reporting project MyFishCount.com were considered by NOAA Fisheries in order to extend the red snapper mini-season into December. NOAA Fisheries recently announced the reopening of the red snapper mini-season in federal waters for December 8-10, 2017. The bag limit will continue to be one fish per person/day with no minimum size limit.
Angler participation in MyFishCount, a voluntary recreational reporting pilot project developed by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council in collaboration with the Snook and Gamefish Foundation and Elemental Methods, was instrumental in the re-opening of this fishery by providing information not previously captured by current monitoring programs. MyFishCount is an online web portal that allows recreational fishermen to report information about their red snapper fishing activities, including the length of the fish kept and of those released, catch location, depth fished, hook type, hooking location, release treatment, and reason for release. Anglers are also able to report if trips were not taken for various reasons, including weather. For example, 106 reports were submitted for the second weekend of the mini-season and over 95% of trips were reported as abandoned due to weather. A detailed report including facts and figures of the information provided by anglers through MyFishCount during the November mini-season can be found on MyFishCount.com under the “2017 Season” tab.
Recreational fishermen are encouraged to continue reporting or to create a member profile on MyFishCount.com in order to report during the December 8-10 mini-season. Feedback from members has already been utilized in order to improve the program design. While the reporting platform will close after the December mini-season, MyFishCount will be modified into a mobile application to improve ease and timeliness of reporting and expanded to include other species. The pilot mobile app will be available for testing in 2018. If you would like to become involved in the piloting of the enhanced app in 2018 or provide feedback on the 2017 red snapper mini-season MyFishCount reporting platform, please contact Kelsey Dick at kelsey.dick@safmc.net or Chip Collier at chip.collier@safmc.net.
Learn more about the SAFMC by visiting their site here.