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FWC changes snook rules
June 14, 2007
Contact: Lee Schlesinger, (850) 487-0554
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission (FWC) approved changes to snook bag and size limits
and harvest seasons during its meeting in Melbourne Thursday.
New rules reduce the snook daily recreational
bag limit from two fish per person to one on Florida’s Atlantic
Coast, which means a one-fish daily limit on snook will apply
statewide.
Rules also change the 27-34 inches total length
snook slot limit to 28-32 inches in Atlantic waters and 28-33
inches in Florida’s Gulf, Everglades National Park and Monroe
County waters.
In addition, the rules add the first half of
December and the month of February to the Dec. 15 – Jan. 31 and
May – August closed harvest seasons for snook in the Gulf,
Everglades and Monroe County. However, the Dec. 15 – Jan. 31 and
June – August closed harvest seasons in Atlantic waters remain
unchanged.
The rules also allow anglers to carry more than
one cast net aboard a vessel while fishing for snook.
"These rule changes are intended to provide
additional protection for Florida’s valuable snook populations,
which are considered to be fairly healthy on the state’s
Atlantic and Gulf coasts,” said FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto.
"However, the FWC believes a reduction in harvest is necessary
to help achieve the Commission’s management goal for snook and
sustain and improve the fishery for the future.”
The latest FWC snook stock assessment concluded
the management goal of a 40-percent spawning potential ratio for
this fishery is not being met, and increasing fishing effort and
habitat loss are contributing to the decline. Spawning potential
ratio is the ratio of the egg production of mature fish in a
fished population to the egg production that would exist if the
population were not fished.
The new snook rules take effect in July and will
be implemented when the snook harvest season reopens on Sept. 1. |
