FISHING SEASON 2K12!!!!!!

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Gag grouper are closed. The Atlantic is more strict in then the Gulf. In some parts of the Atlantic including alot of Florida, there is a closure on "bottom fishing" in a certain depth range for something crazy like thirty years.

It is getting crazy. The fishing has never been better but they are shortning and shortning our seasons every year and adding new fish to closed seasons.
 
In 2008 I went fishing out of port canaveral and caught tons of red snapper. I landed a 14 lber and there were probably 100 snapper on our boat. All bottom fishing. That's closed now?

When I've gone out of ft myers, all we would catch is grunts and grouper and everyone always had to throw them back, even huge ones, reds, black, gag, it didn't matter.
 
yeah they keep killing off the snapper seasons, kinda like how u can only keep its either 2 or 3 silver snapper here in NC yet when u go on a headboat there are times where you'll pull up two NICE 16"-17" silvers at a time
 
are these only for recreational fisherman or commercial as well. Seems like I heard they were cutting back recreational harvesting and still allowing commercial, which is completely backwards to me.
 
just recreational.. its like speckled trout, they just cut recreational from 6 fish to 4 fish which hurts a lot of charters, but commercial fisherman can harvest something like either 50 or 100 per day. the problem is they catch their 50, keep fishing, and then start throwing back the smaller ones that are already dead...
 
recreational anglers get screwed by our government AND commercial fishing. Its all about money, not conservation.
 
absolutely... NC is blessed enough to have one of the best fisheries for redfish flounder and speckled trout inshore on the entire east coast, but these gill netters are ruining it. By-catch, overfishing, these are all huge problems. There's a black market for fish kept over the limit around here, they had tried to pass a bill that would do away with gill netting completely for 2 years, and PAYING the salaries in FULL of all the commercial fishermen. The commercial guys wouldn't accept it, the reason being they make most of their money on the side illegally.
 
I suppose the blame doesnt lie entirely with the commercial fisherman (except the black market stuff, they sell big cats to paylakes around here and rape our rivers) its lies mostly with our federal government and local DNR. Our license fees and tax dollars go towards managing fisheries too, but we get shafted. There is too much money and corruption to do anything about the commercial fisherman. You can't tell those guys not to feed their families. Its up to the gov. to establish correct laws that protect our fisheries while maintaining a proper balance. They always go for extremes from no regulations to restricting seasons or closing them. The commercial fishing is why there aren't as many fish or as many quality fish, but thats all on the government. I'll get off my soap box now, but I can get fired up about that.
 
i agree completely. you can't take away that job market but at the same time you have to figure out a way to do it responsibly.

bass pro this weekend.. can't wait!! leaning towards the silvermax and penn fierce option, but with gas about to hit $5 a gallon this summer idk how much ill get to use the fierce lol!
 
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