Snapper Captains Deal with Lower Bag Limit

Grease and oil covered the hands of Capt. Tom Ard, who busily worked away in the engine bay of his multi-passenger charter boat, Fairwater II, at Zeke’s Marina in Orange Beach.

For most of the captains along the Alabama Gulf Coast, maintenance – on a day when small-craft warnings are in effect – is a job they must perform to make ends meet.

Even though participation in the fourth annual Orange Beach World Championship Red Snapper Championship is on par with last year’s event, the charter boat captains know there’s an ominous cloud ahead when the championship ends on May 20.

The Natural Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implemented an interim rule on May 1 that dropped the bag limit from four fish to two fish for red snapper, the lifeblood of the Alabama charter industry. Predictions are that some of the charter fleet won’t be able to survive, but Ard is doing everything possible to make sure he won’t fall into that category.

“Right now, fishing in the Gulf is good, like it always is in the spring,” said Ard, a second-generation charter captain. “We can catch vermilion snapper, white snapper (porgy), amberjack and grouper. We catch our two snapper per person in one or two spots, so there’s nothing to it. Then we go out and try to catch a few other things. I’m working my tail off right now to catch as many fish as I can this spring so I’ll have a spring business next year.

“Where it’s going to make a huge impact is when the amberjack quit biting, the grouper quit biting in the late summer, like they always do. On a 10-person charter, all we can catch is two snapper per person. We’re going to be coming in with 50 pounds of fish. Right now, I’m still filling a cart full of fish with different fish. But they will eventually quit biting, and there’s more red snapper out there than any other fish. Where it’s going to hurt is with the locals and the folks from Birmingham and Huntsville who want to come down here and catch a bunch of fish. It’s going to affect them more than anybody. They’re going to have $2,000 charters and they’re not going to have enough fish for a fish fry.”

Like most charter boat captains along the Gulf Coast, Ard just has a hard time believing the National Marine Fisheries Service assessment that the red snapper fishery is in dire straits.

“The regulations are not going to help anything,” he said. “It’s going to have a drastic effect on everything else. A red snapper will eat anything that won’t eat him. When the red snapper move into areas like the Trysler Grounds, they’re moving in there to feed. They’re going to eat every vermilion snapper and white snapper they can find. Then National Marine Fisheries Service is going to say, whoa, you’re catching too many vermilion snapper. It’s not going to be because we’re catching too many. It’s going to be because the red snapper are eating them.

“I know you’re heard this before, but the data is flawed. When they don’t take into consideration the thousands of artificial reefs and oil rigs in the Gulf, where are they counting the fish. There aren’t going to be any snapper on bare bottom. They like reefs and oil rigs. They’re going to take over all these spots and all we’re going to be catching is red snapper. They’re already out there thick, as thick as they were before Hurricane Ivan. We’re going to be killing more of the ‘other fish,’ which we’re using to replace the red snapper. As soon as we can’t catch ‘other fish,’ it’s going to be tough. All of my customers are concerned. I tell them we’re going to catch other things, but when the amberjack and grouper quit biting, we’re going to have some dissatisfied customers.”

Capt. David Jones, who runs the Boll Weevil, has already felt the impact of the two-fish limit, which also restricts the captain and crew from keeping their limits.

“Our main deal is snapper fishing, so it’s going to hurt,” Jones said. “I’ve had a couple of trips canceled because of the new limits. They said it wasn’t worth going if they could only catch two fish.”

It really irks Ard that he isn’t allowed to catch and keep two fish.

“Another thing, when did the captain and crew become second-class citizens?” Ard said. “Why can’t I catch my two snapper. Why can’t my deck hand catch his two snapper. That just isn’t right.”

Capt. Dick Cappar, who handles the helm of Traveler, said the full impact of the new limits won’t be felt for another couple of weeks, when school lets out for summer.

“We’re going to find out if they’re still going fishing with the two-fish limit,” Cappar said. “I can tell them we’re going to be more diversified, catching king mackerel and amberjack. But the mingo (vermilion) snapper and white snapper are getting hit hard. The triggerfish are getting hit hard What’s going to happen is the red snapper are going to end up taking over everything. I hit a spot the other day and had to make everybody put their poles up. They were catching red snapper on every drop. I’ve had no problem catching red snapper. There are plenty of fish out there and very few throw-backs. Red snapper are going to be like catfish at the cleaning table. They’re going to eat up everything out there.”

Right now, the big red snapper are definitely leading, according to the leaderboard at the snapper championship. A 33.40-pounder caught by Jarrell Gilbert of Columbus, Ga., aboard Bossman, leads the way. Brian Bailey Jr., fishing on last year’s winner Kwazar, is second at 31.20.

“We’ve got a 33.4 on the board and three more over 30, plus a ton of 26-, 27-, 28-pound fish,” said Tony Kennon, tournament director. “So the fishing is good. Ticket sales are running neck and neck with last year, although we had pretty poor weather the first week.

“This year we started a small boat division that is strictly for the recreation fishermen. We reached our goal of 25 boats, so first place will be $5,000.”

Kennon said it would be hard to tell if the reduced snapper limit had affected the tournament.

“But if fewer fishermen are coming down, there’s going to be less opportunity to sell tickets,” he said. “I’m stating the obvious there. We haven’t seen that, yet, but I’m watching and listening to the captains. I’ve heard rumblings that some of the captains don’t have the bookings they had last May.

“But, no matter what, we’re going to have a tournament of some type every year. And we’re going to make it work, one way or another.”

Not only do the top boats and anglers win big money, proceeds from the event are used to construct artificial reefs off the Alabama coast, as well as lobbying efforts for the recreational fishermen.

To date, 667 reefs and two large barges have been deployed. All the coordinates for the reefs, except for those the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Marine Resources Division uses for research, are available to the public.

Research is a huge benefit of the tournament, according to Vernon Minton, director of the Marine Resources Division.

“Those fish that we are seeing at the championship provide a tremendous amount of age and growth data we don’t get under normal circumstances,” Minton said. “Those fish will normally be caught during season, but would go unreported or unnoticed. Prior to the inception of the tournament, the database had 20 fish that were in excess of 30 years. I would say we’ve got at least twice that because of the tournament.

“We also look at fecundity, the number of eggs produced by females. Some data suggest that older fish may in fact produce fewer eggs per pound of body weight than younger fish. We take the females and look at number of eggs produced. We’re also looking at sex ratio, and of course, the age of the fish. We see 10-year-old fish that are 30 pounds and we see 30-year-old fish that are 30 pounds.”

Minton said some people are critical of a tournament that targets big fish, but he doesn’t have a problem with it.

“If you consider the miniscule amount taken out and the data produced, it is well worth the take,” Minton said.

Minton, who takes a $50,000 donation from the tournament and acquires $150,000 in matching Sportfish Restoration funds, also has a hard time believing the snapper are overfished to the point that would elicit the “draconian” limits imposed by NMFS.

“Some of the reefs put out by the tournament are in deep water and we didn’t publish the numbers because we want to study them,” he said. “Using an ROV (remotely operated vehicle) from Dr. Bob Shipp at South Alabama, we have videoed these reefs and there are hundreds of fish on these things. It makes you question the science. The fish are there. I can say we are way ahead in the recovery of the species. Look at the recruits, those numbers have been up for the last 10 years. Look at growth rate, they’re about three times bigger than they used to be. There are areas that historically have not had a snapper fishery, but they do now. We’ve got captains off Tampa who are regularly taking limits of snapper. They say they’re having trouble getting bait to the grouper because there are snapper everywhere. Dr. Steve Szedlmayer is also studying our snapper reefs, and you take his data and plug it into a stock assessment and it shows the stocks are in great shape.

“As for the Orange Beach World Championship Red Snapper Championship, I applaud it. It’s a great thing. It produces a tremendous amount of research and fish habitat.”

                                                                             ###