http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishery_bulletins/documents/pdfs/2014/fb14-034_red_snapper_er.pdf

11 was not short enough� so now its 9 days.. amazing!

Rediculous. Shows the political corruption.

That'll teach us to complain about a 11 day season !

Serious thought here guys. Maybe it's time to organize all the recreational fishing interests to lobby that red snapper be restricted to recreational fishing only, with no commercial catch allowed at all.

I believe this was done with striped bass on the east coast.

+1

I agree!

& red drum in the GOM, & red rockfish on the left coast.
but that's beside the point..........

plenty of other opportunities out there

Very short season and only two fish in international waters. In texas waters (within 9 miles of coast) 12 month season with a daily limit of four. I personally think the red snapper are bigger in texas waters but the secret is, as always, knowing where to go.

Unfortunately, the only lobby is CCA and though they were part of the reason the stripers were eventually restricted, this is a different beast. Lots of commercial interest in the snapper and they have lots of pull with Crabtree and his goons on the gulf council. I know one thing, we will be catching lots of state snapper this year with this asinine season. But he commercial guys get 85% or some outrageous percentage of the quota year around. Not sure what to think anymore. The reason they dropped it to 11 days is because the commercial guys sued when the Feds announced a 45 day season earlier this year. Crabtree came out after "reviewing" some research or other convienent information and said the council is limiting the season to 11 days. Immediately after the announcement, LA said screw the Feds and went non-compliant and even went so far as extending their state water boundary (good for them, made me smile). Anyways, the council said because of LA going non-compliant like Florida and Texas, they needed to re-review the numbers. In other words they went back and estimated using their majical pshycic unicorn the number of snapper that would be caught in LA that needed to be subtracted from the total quota. Once they fed it the information, the unicorn apparently farted out 9 days.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Other than cheatin' ????

cheatin's fun, too!

The true answer is getting real catch data to set realistic seasons and bag limits and the best way to make that happen is going to a separate tag for snapper that you must purchase an app to log catches on. This would feed directly to a database and give real catch numbers and not the bogus, made up shtuff they claim. As you catch a fish you log it on the app. If you are caught w/ snapper that aren't logged you get fined. Yeah its a little extra work but in the end it is the only answer that will work outside the state just taking over waters out to the shelf and telling the feds to stick it and that won't happen.

Would any snapper fishermen object to this to finally get real numbers? I wouldn't. For that matter they could just skip the tag and require the app for all offshore fishing/catches. They could get incredible, accurate data and do a much better job at managing the resource.

I would object just because I don't necessarily have a cellphone or other PDA type device with me when I'm fishing. Part of going fishing is to get AWAY from those nasty things!! Wouldn't mind submitting catch reports once I got home via internet or phone.