The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is considering creating new regulatory designations for recreational fisheries.
– Gamefish will be defined as species for which there would be no commercial harvest, possession, or sale; hook and line only; recreational harvest only (within season, size, and bag limits); zero bag limit for captain and crew of for-hire vessels (only paying anglers could harvest fish). At present, fish are only categorized as commercial harvest and sale allowed, or no commercial harvest and sale. This new designation would codify the recreational status of these species.
– Sportfish will be defined as species for which there would be no commercial sale, possession or harvest; no recreational harvest or possession (i.e., catch and release only); hook and line only.
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust’s Director of Operations, Aaron Adams, made the following statement at the FWC Commission meeting in Apalachicola, FL, on December 5, 2013, in support of the new designations.
“Bonefish & Tarpon Trust commends the Commissioners for taking on this task of improving the way fisheries are addressed and managed in Florida. The Commission has already done a fantastic job of addressing the challenging issues put before it, but with this new approach to saltwater recreational fisheries, I think the commission is poised to take a great step forward. In the world of freshwater fisheries management, there is already a gamefish category. Yet in saltwater, fish are either for commercial sale or no commercial sale allowed.
By codifying recreational fisheries as gamefish and sportfish, the commission will allow the fisheries to be more easily managed and open doors for more effective research and assessment by FWRI. For both regulatory and cultural reasons, many of Florida’s recreational fisheries are becoming catch and release. For example, 97% of snook that are caught by anglers are released, making it a de facto catch and release fishery. And the Commission has already taken the step of making bonefish catch and release. Catch and release fisheries are more difficult to assess because they don’t provide the data upon which traditional fisheries stock assessments are based. This means that new methods for assessing stock size, catch rates, and fishing effort are needed. I can’t speak for my colleagues at FWRI, but I think that codifying gamefish and sportfish in the regulations will make it easier for them to develop the new fisheries assessment tools that will be required for fisheries management in the future.
In addition, although Florida is known as the Fishing Capitol of the World, there is competition, and defining important fisheries as gamefish and sportfish makes Florida more competitive. For example, Belize has made bonefish, tarpon, and permit catch and release only, and the recreational bonefish fishery in the Bahamas is catch and release as well. Given that Florida’s saltwater recreational fishery has an economic impact in the billions of dollars per year and is a major part of the state’s tourism marketing identity, codifying gamefish and sportfish makes economic sense as well.
It is also worth noting that anglers and resource management agencies in other states are following this discussion closely, and are looking to Florida for leadership. I urge the commission to adopt the Draft Rule creating the gamefish and sportfish categories to keep Florida at the forefront of fisheries management. The discussions on particular species that are of concern to so many can then take place with the new regulations as a framework.
Whether species are assigned to a category or not can then be addressed independently and by the user groups that have an interest in those species”.
