jjam

http://blog.al.com/live/2012/02/shor...ason_ever.html

Online CurrentSea

There is no shortage of Snapper here, everything about this drives me crazy! With all of the anger and frustration from the recreational fishermen and charter guys, there still seems to be no reaction from any elected official. It would be great if we could come up with an outlet for all of us to respond to these claims with our day to day experiences on the water. Personally, I have to plan my baits around the red snapper before each trip. You can throw just about anything down on a wreck and pull up a red snapper. Also, what about all the released snapper that don't make it due to air bladder's not properly released. I understand this is all driven by commercial guys and lobbyists, but if we took all the frustrations just from this site and pointed them at our elected officials, just maybe someone will notice. Is there anything available like this now? If not, it may be time to build a site that we can all post our frustrations, thoughts, experiences, etc. and forward them to all of the officials for the panhandle.

SouthAlabamaSlayer

That's absolutely bull. Everyone knows that the fish are bigger and more plentiful than EVER. They say we're catching bigger fish than they anticipated so they need to shorten it, oh yeah they're catching more and bigger fish than ever so the crop isn't very good. Makes absolutely no sense to me, or anyone for that matter.

Fog Ducker

Crabtree and his ilk have got to go...from the article:

Lawrence Abele, a Florida marine biologist and member of the Gulf Council, said every indicator suggests that “the snapper population is recovering faster than we can keep up with.” The fact that the snapper quota has been exceeded each year despite shorter and shorter seasons shows that the fishery is in better shape than federal scientists believe, he said.

“The (underwater video surveys) and everything else suggests we are moving in the right direction,” Abele said, arguing that the season should be getting longer each year, not shorter. “We’re doing something wrong.”

“Yeah, we’re doing something wrong,” said Roy Crabtree, the fisheries service official in charge of setting the annual catch limit. “We’re giving (recreational anglers) too many days... The only thing to do when we keep going over (the harvest limit) is to give them fewer days.”

And what about the trigger season?

During the Tuesday meeting, officials learned that the triggerfish season was to be closed as well, removing another popular species from contention during the Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo.

Online CurrentSea

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Demand...562187?sk=wall

Burnt Drag

A protest? How about every Gulf Fisherman get his boat hooked up and lets head over to Mobile. Crowd as close together as possible, slow down to a crawl on I-10 and just as the first of us get to the tunnel we somehow get a flat. Don't forget to use water based paint and write your feelings on your boat. I'm sure we could get the Miss and Al boaters to bring the east bound lanes down in the same manner. All this letter writing and attending meetings has been a big waste of time.

JD7.62

Im game, and with my luck I would actually blow a tire as I seem to on the regular. Seriously, in the article it said recreational anglers in the Gulf of Mexico spent over 16 BILLION dollars on fishing in just one year. With that kind of money we HAVE to have more pull with the federal blow hards then we do.

I dare crabtree and his goons walk around Destin Harbor spouting off his BS.

osborne311

Think it would do any good at all if every fishing forum along the AL and FL coast united in a "call or write your congressman" sort of thing? I am new to salt fishing so unsure what govt. official would be best to complain to en mass but those sort of protests do get attention. It is basically how Google, etc. shut down that internet piracy bill. They all put up pages that let you automatically email a complaint to the proper elected official. Just a thought if it would work.

__________________
We need a bigger cooler!

SouthAlabamaSlayer

I'm in for the stop I10 protest, I can head up the east bound procession haha.

Capt. Jon Pinney

I've said it a million times, but if a species of fish is really being overfished, then how can you allow a commercial sale of that fish???

If Florida had the guts to have their own season then we would be ok here with our 9 miles of State Waters....

Its amazing that a few people in certain positions are allowed to make rediculous decisions and no one has been able to question that...