October 8, 2026 — Six commercial fishing businesses and fishermen, including two on the Treasure Coast, have filed a lawsuit challenging a two-week recreational red snapper fishing season for Florida, Georgia and South Carolina that starts Oct. 9.
The lawsuit contends the decision to allow the 14-day season was based on unsupported assumptions that will lead to overharvest of red snapper.
October 7, 2026 — Evon Waska’s fish camp was too quiet this summer.
“Well, this is my smokehouse,” he said, opening the door to the plywood structure at the water’s edge in Bethel, where he says his parents settled when they gave up their nomadic ways.
It’s next to empty salmon-drying racks and fish-cutting tables that have seen too few fish for many years running.
A few smoked king fillets still hang. Waska caught about 40 at the start of summer. That was a relief. Some years subsistence fishermen on the Kuskokwim River weren’t allowed to harvest any, and it’s worse on the Yukon. But Waska said he got only half of what his household needs.
His fish racks should be filled with silver salmon now. But the silver return was too weak to fish. So instead of getting more salmon in late August, his family was already dipping into what they put up for winter.
Waska, like a lot of people along the Kuskokwim River, say the problem is in the Bering Sea, with the trawl fleet. The trawlers are after pollock, but they are allowed to waste thousands of king and chum salmon, some bound for Western Alaska rivers like the Kuskokwim.
“They don’t close the trawlers,” Waska said. “They close me and my people first.”
Waska is up against a giant. Trawlers in the federal waters of the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska catch nearly 3 billion pounds of Alaska pollock, the nation’s largest fishery by volume. They can tow nets as wide at the mouth as a football field and a quarter-mile in length.
It’s not just subsistence fishermen who are upset about bycatch — the other species those nets scoop up. Sport, charter and commercial fishermen are also boiling mad and demanding change. In Alaska’s tight U.S. Senate race, bycatch has become a flashpoint, and the race may turn on which candidate — Sen. Dan Sullivan or challenger Mary Peltola — is perceived as the most willing and able to rein in the the trawlers.
October 7, 2026 — Cole Hockema, operator of the 104-foot Pacific Storm, is disappointed that pollock fishermen like him have no champions in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.
“It’s just such easy, low-hanging fruit, essentially, to get votes, is to be against trawling,” he said.
The pollock industry, America’s largest fishery, has been hit with a tsunami of popular discontent in Alaska this election season, with loud demands for a ban on trawling. The problem is bycatch — the thousands of salmon and metric tons of halibut the pollock fleet catches by accident. Anger about these wasted fish has sparked a movement that’s flexing its political muscle, and it could be decisive in Alaska’s tight Senate election.
Amid the barrage, the pollock industry — the source of the fish in fish sticks and McDonald’s Filet-o-Fish — is feeling misunderstood.
Trawl opponents focus their harshest critiques on the biggest players in the pollock fleet — the massive catcher-processors, floating factories that are homeported mainly in Seattle, and the substantial number of trawlers owned by out-of-state corporations.
October 7, 2026 — Six commercial fishing businesses and fishermen from Florida and North Carolina have filed a federal lawsuit challenging exempted fishing permits that authorize a 14-day recreational red snapper season in South Atlantic federal waters.
The lawsuit, Ariel Seafoods of Florida, Inc. v. Lutnick, was filed Oct. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare three permits issued Sept. 21 to Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina illegal.
The permits authorize recreational red snapper harvest in federal waters off the three states from Oct. 9 through Oct. 22, with the possibility of a second season in December. NMFS has separately established a three-day federal season, Oct. 9-11, for anglers not participating under a state permit.
At the center of the dispute is how additional red snapper harvest is being allocated between the recreational and commercial sectors.
October 7, 2026 — October is National Seafood Month, a time to celebrate the essential role American seafood plays in feeding our nation, powering coastal economies, and preserving a heritage built around our working waterfronts. I’ve been part of the seafood sector my whole life, so to me, my family, and my colleagues at NOAA Fisheries, every month is Seafood Month! But October gives us the welcome opportunity to swell the tide of national gratitude for the hardworking fishermen and seafood farmers who feed us. Thanks to them and our science-based management system, American seafood represents the gold standard for sustainability. And while 50 years of management under the Magnuson-Stevens Act has made the United States the model for sustainable fisheries, there is still work to be done.
In my time at NOAA Fisheries, I hope I’ve made my focus clear: I want to ensure our domestic seafood sector thrives in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. By increasing opportunities in our wild-caught domestic fisheries and expanding seafood farming operations, we can get more American seafood on American plates. And NOAA has been empowered by the President’s Executive Order on Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness to do just that.
In recent months, we have committed to tangible agency actions to directly support the industry. We are confronting the economic headwinds facing our seafood sector by driving reforms designed to help our seafood producers. I believe we can go a long way toward meeting these goals by modernizing our regulatory framework, tackling market imbalances, and highlighting the unmatched quality and sustainability of American seafood.
October 7, 2026 — Florida law enforcement has announced charges against 10 people after a multiyear undercover investigation revealed a major illegal commercial fishing operation.
“We plan to leave Florida better to God than how we found it, and poachers abusing our natural resources will be prosecuted to the fullest extent,” Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier said in a release. “Those who abuse our waters and wildlife will find out how tough our laws are. The Office of Statewide Prosecution, FWC [Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission], and our local law enforcement officers will ensure criminals are caught and punished.”
October 7, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a lawsuit challenging a Maine rule requiring commercial lobstermen to use electronic vessel tracking systems.
In an unwritten decision, the high court denied lobsterman Frank Thompson’s petition for a writ of certiorari to consider a case against the Maine Department of Marine Resources, claiming that GPS monitoring of private boats violates Fourth Amendment protections. The decision effectively ends the long-running legal fight, upholding a previous federal appeals court ruling rejecting the lawsuit.
Thompson, who was represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, had claimed the 24/7 surveillance unfairly targets Maine’s federally licensed lobster fleet.
October 6, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case that argued against 24/7 GPS monitoring of the Maine’s lobster fishing fleet.
In 2023, Maine began requiring commercial lobstermen in the state to install GPS monitoring devices that would enable 24/7 tracking of the vessels – a move called for by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. Soon after, lobstermen sued, calling it a violation of both the fourth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
October 6, 2026 — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case challenging Maine’s requirement that certain commercial lobstermen use electronic vessel tracking devices, leaving in place a lower court ruling that upheld the program.
The case was brought by Frank Thompson, a Maine lobsterman who argued the state’s tracking requirement violates the Fourth Amendment by forcing fishermen to submit to continuous GPS monitoring as a condition of keeping their fishing licenses.
October 6, 2026 — Six commercial fishing businesses and fishermen from Florida and North Carolina have filed a federal lawsuit challenging exempted fishing permits that authorize a 14-day recreational red snapper season in South Atlantic federal waters.
The lawsuit, Ariel Seafoods of Florida, Inc. v. Lutnick, was filed Oct. 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare three permits issued Sept. 21 to Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina illegal.
The permits authorize recreational red snapper harvest in federal waters off the three states from Oct. 9 through Oct. 22, with the possibility of a second season in December. NMFS has separately established a three-day federal season, Oct. 9-11, for anglers not participating under a state permit.
At the center of the dispute is how additional red snapper harvest is being allocated between the recreational and commercial sectors.