Nearly three years after devastating red tide, harvest ban remains in place for three species
For nearly three years the state has imposed a ban against harvesting redfish, snook and sea trout in Southwest Florida waters.
Chad GillisIt’s Florida – people are going to catch, fillet and eat fish.
But for nearly three years the state has imposed a ban on harvesting redfish, snook and sea trout in Southwest Florida waters after a red tide bloom nearly wiped out local sea life in 2018.
What has that done? Two things, fishing guides say.
One, it has allowed the three most popular gamefish here to rebound to some degree.
That’s a good thing, but it’s also caused some anglers to shift their sights to other species, most notably sheepshead, pompano and mangrove snapper.
Not quite as desirable as snook, trout or redfish, sheepshead in particular are being harvested in large numbers these days because many anglers have switched from throwing lures and bait in front of snook to dropping frozen shrimp along docks and sea walls, where sheepshead thrive.
“We’re in a sheepshead slaughter right now,” said Estero Bay area fishing guide Matt DeAngelis. “Every guide that comes in is taking 14 or 15 sheepsheads.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the state agency charged with setting recreational fishing limits, will discuss the ban on redfish, snook and sea trout harvest later this month.
The ban, which stretches from the Pasco-Hernando county line south to Gordon Pass in Collier County, runs through May. But biologists are scheduled to bring it up with FWC commissioners and the public during a series of online meetings set for the week of Feb. 25.
Snook, redfish and trout are the most targeted coastal species in Southwest Florida. They’re so popular that catching all three on the same day is called an Inshore Slam by anglers.
If allowed to expire in May, snook season likely would not open until September as the fishery is closed for most of the summer in a typical year.
2019 photos:Hundreds of dead fish line the sand at Naples beaches
There are more than 4 million registered anglers in Florida, and the recreational fishing industry is estimated to have a value of $9.2 billion.
Fishing guide Mike Smith, of North Fort Myers, said he thinks FWC has done a good job managing the devastating impacts of one of the worst red tides on record.
“I think the closure’s been good for the length of time they’ve done it,” Smith said. “I don’t expect snook to open up until this coming September. But there’s a good feeling among folks here that are catch-and-release (minded) and they say they could see it stay closed a while more to give the fish a chance to rebound from the red tide.”
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Smith said he also can understand the pressure put on FWC to remove the catch-and-release requirement.
“Some of the winter folks, or folks that come to vacation, they want to keep a trout or redfish, but I think the base feeling (of local anglers) is if they kept it closed it would be OK,” Smith said.
“But I can see the pressure being on FWC.”
A smaller red tide broke out in December, and there were patchy fish kills reported.
But the recent bloom has been nothing like the one that stretched from the fall of 2017 until the spring of 2019. The strongest impacts from that red tide were felt in the summer of 2018.
Ecologically, the coastal aquatic system is still partially recovering from that strong bloom.
DeAngelis said the restrictions are an important part of protecting Florida’s fisheries and that he wouldn’t mind seeing more species listed as catch-and-release only.
“We’ve been seeing some good sized (redfish) schools in Estero Bay, and we had a pretty good fall bite with them,” DeAngelis said. “But I don’t know about harvesting them. With the trout, I think we’re getting a lot right now, but they’re undersized, and I could really care less if they ever open snook again.”
Connect with this reporter: @ChadEugene on Twitter.
Photos: A history of Florida red tide
