May 25, 2017 — Despite vehement opposition from recreational-fishing advocacy groups, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says it has worked up a pilot program that will award a significant portion of the state’s red snapper haul to select recreational anglers.
The department announced the plan in a Thursday afternoon press release, just one day after meeting with pro-recreational fishing groups and mentioning nothing about the program.
Under the pilot program, which would run in 2018 and 2019, a total of 150 anglers would be selected at random to receive 25,000 pounds of the recreational red snapper quota. Those anglers would not be subject to daily bag limits or season restrictions.
The structure would be similar to what exists in the commercial sector, where fishers have been awarded percentages of the overall commercial quota, and may harvest their red snapper at any time during the year. The system, called individual fishing quotas, has been panned by recreational-fishing organizations as well as good-government groups because it has set up so-called Sea Lords, who own quota and make hundreds of thousands of dollars on a public resource without ever leaving the dock.
Gov. John Bel Edwards lauded the department’s proposal.
“As a fisherman myself, that sounds like a lot better system than squeezing all of my red snapper fishing into June when there might be bad weather or when family obligations get in the way,” Edwards stated in the news release.
NOAA Fisheries announced last month the 2017 recreational red snapper season in federal waters would run three days, June 1-3. It’s the shortest federal red snapper season in history.