June 10, 2019 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Another early mandated closure of yellowtail snapper commercial fishery has local commercial fishermen again calling for a reallocation of that species because the recreational fishing side has not been meeting its annual allocation every year.
The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will close the fishery Friday, June 7, and will reopen it Aug. 1, which is the start of a new fishing year for yellowtail snapper. The fishing year for yellowtail runs from Aug. 1 to July 31.
The August 2018 through July 2019 commercial catch limit is 1,596,510 pounds whole weight. Commercial landings are projected to reach the commercial catch limit and harvest should close to prevent the catch limit from being exceeded, according to the South Atlantic Fishery Management.
During the commercial closure, all sale or purchase of yellowtail snapper is prohibited, and harvest or possession of yellowtail snapper in or from federal waters is limited to the recreational bag and possession limits while the recreational sector is open, according to council.
This is the second straight year the council closed the commercial yellowtail fishery roughly two months early.
Yellowtail snapper is one of the most profitable commercial fin fisheries in the Keys. The Keys account for 90 percent of the yellowtail landings in the United States.
The top five communities with the highest levels of commercial landings of yellowtail snapper include the Florida communities of Key West, Miami, Marathon, Fort Lauderdale and Key Largo, according to the South Atlantic Council. The top Florida communities for recreational fishing also include communities in South Florida and the Florida Keys.
For the past several years, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association Executive Director Bill Kelly has lobbied state and federal fishery managers to reallocate some of the unused yellowtail annual catch allocation from the recreational sector to the commercial sector.
The annual catch limit for commercially harvested yellowtail is about 1.6 million pounds and the recreational annual catch limit is roughly 1.4 million pounds.
The recreational side has not harvested 500,000 to 700,000 pounds of yellowtail in South Atlantic waters for the past six of seven years and 500,000 pounds in Gulf waters, according to Kelly.
“The recreational sector has not harvested more than 50 percent in the past 10 years, but still we have early closures,” Kelly said.
Reallocation is a hugely controversial issue when it comes to all fisheries. The federal General Accounting Office is currently taking input on fishery reallocation and is interviewing fishermen this week at the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council this week at Gulf Council’s meeting in Florida.
The General Accounting Office will be at the South Atlantic’s meeting next week in Stuart, Florida to take input.
This story was originally published on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.