Red snapper tagging begins

[Chiung]

http://www.news-journalonline.com/ne...ng-begins.html

Red-snapper tagging begins
BY JORDAN KAHN, STAFF WRITER

By the numbers

154 Total number of fish caught.

28 Fish that got away at boatside, including 3 red snapper and a cobia.

67 Number of red snapper caught, measured, tagged and released.

8 Red snapper in the catch were shorter than the 20-inch max length regulation.

29.8 Inches in length of the largest red snapper caught.

15.9 Inches in length of the shortest red snapper caught.

23.2 Average length in inches for the red snapper caught.

1 Number of gag grouper (31.7 inches), gray trigger fish and little tunny caught.

6 Hours spent fishing approximately 25 miles offshore in depths from 75 to 90 feet.

The trip also caught 3 tomtates, 3 vermilion snapper, 26 Atlantic sharp nose sharks and 24 black seabass.

THE ATLANTIC OCEAN -- From 25 miles offshore, the storm looked like a black tongue of night swallowing the western horizon, the direction a crew of three scientists and four fishermen would have to motor to make it back to the safety of Ponce de Leon Inlet.
Their trip earlier this week was the maiden voyage of the Florida East Coast Cooperative Red Snapper Tagging Program, a study being conducted by Florida's Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.

Commercial and recreational anglers will soon be able to receive tagging kits at training seminars on participating in the program.

Collaboration between government scientists and fishermen represents a sharp turn in their debate over red snapper bans, which fisheries managers have called "the most controversial" situation in South Atlantic fisheries management history.
"What we are doing is trying to fill in some of the data gaps that exist on red snapper . . . so the next time we have a stock assessment we can have less uncertainty," said Luiz Barbieri, the research institute's head of marine fisheries research.
In all, 67 red snapper were tagged on Monday's trip before the men aboard the Finest Kind II fishing vessel owned by Capt. Paul Nelson of Port Orange had to head back home into the squall. Roiling seas smashed Nelson against the console. Blood dripped down his elbow.
The study is funded in part by the Gulf and South Atlantic Fisheries Foundation, a private fisheries science and development group. Bob Jones, a foundation manager, said they put up $25,000 secured from federal grants to hire different commercial captains to take the scientists fishing.
The state research institute has $120,000 to fund the project through 2013, money obtained from fishing license sales and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Sport Fish Restoration grants.

Russ Brodie, the research institute scientist heading up the tagging program, attended the Halifax Sport Fishing Club meeting Thursday to discuss how best to involve sport-fishers.
Brodie said he hopes to have tagging kits in anglers' hands within two months and that signs will soon go up at bait shops and boat ramps alerting anglers about the program.
Bob Mahood, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council's executive director, said the tagging program will mark "a turning point" because the state's research on Atlantic red snapper has never involved recreational anglers.

CONFLICT, COLLABORATION
Red snapper have been illegal to catch and keep in federal waters from the Florida Keys to North Carolina since January 2010, when the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council shut down the fishery.
The council's latest stock assessment completed in 2010 indicated red snapper are at just 7 percent of their historic un-fished levels.
Fishermen dispute the science in red snapper stock assessments and have done so loudly.
The National Marine Fisheries Service is being sued in federal court by the Recreational Fishing Alliance for imposing "unwarranted closures."
Approximately 5,000 fishermen gathered for a "United We Fish" rally on the steps of the U.S. Capital in February 2010 to protest closures. And at least three pieces of legislation to restore flexibility to laws governing fisheries management have been proposed.
The council said the closure, compounded by a recession, resulted in a 70 percent decrease in offshore fishing activity in the South Atlantic.
That sharp decline in southeastern waters hit one of Florida's largest industries. According to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report, as of 2006, fishing was generating $12.8 billion in annual sales and 234,000 jobs in Florida.
The closure affected a valuable asset for scientists, too: data. Without catches, the flow of information needed to update stock assessments stops.
Brodie and Capt. Nelson's trip Monday reopened that data stream.
At sea, before tagging and releasing each fish, Brodie and his team recorded their lengths, the baits and hook-types used, water depths, sea conditions, GPS coordinates and other data.
The storm served as a reminder of just how precious good fisheries data is and how difficult it can be to get. For two hours, the 39-foot vessel idled at 6 knots in white-out conditions, leaning into the storm, weather alerts and tornado warnings.
The waves knocked the anchor loose and the crew had to scale the gunwales around the cabin in 8-foot seas and 50-mph winds to secure it.

FISHERMEN STARTED PROCESS
Jones, of the private fisheries foundation, said the red snapper tagging program would never have happened if not for a meeting of commercial fishermen held two years ago behind Hull's Seafood in Ormond Beach.
Fishermen weren't participating and didn't know how to get involved in red snapper management before that meeting, he said. At that March 4, 2009 meeting, Jimmy Hull, the market's owner, told 35 fishermen, "We are in a fist fight for our livelihood."
The fishermen formed the East Coast Fisheries Section chapter of the Southeastern Fisheries Association. Jones said that group pushed hard for the tagging program.
Nelson said the haul of 67 red snapper plus the few other salable fish caught Monday used to bring him $1,700 to $1,800. Now their only value to Nelson was in what he hoped the catch would prove.
Nelson said he thought the day showed that more red snapper survive after being released than the government claims.
The 2008 assessment said 90 percent of red snapper released by commercial anglers die. The 2010 assessment lowered that to 48 percent.
Brodie said tagging programs aren't designed to inform on release survivability.
"I can't say what happened to the fish after it went down there," Brodie said. "We were documenting (whether or not) the fish swim right down or flounder at the top and we saw all fish swim right back down very quickly to the reef."
Nelson also hoped that catching 67 red snapper would indicate their populations are healthy.
Barbieri cautioned against such conclusions.
"It's counterintuitive for people to believe the models (used in stock assessments to estimate population levels) when they're going out there and catching red snapper," he said. "But reality is, the models are integrating so many pieces of information, and they're looking at the population as a whole, not just those areas where red snapper really are abundant."
But models rely on good data, a need important enough to Florida that Sen. Bill Nelson procured $1.75 million through congressional appropriations for red snapper research in Florida, his office said.
"Data collection in the southeast ... lags far behind the entire country and the entire country fares pretty poor," said Nelson's press secretary, Bryan Gulley.
Fishery council director Mahood said Alaska is the standard bearer for good fisheries data.
"They have consistent data collection dating back to the '70s," he said. "We don't have that. That's what we're trying to develop right now."

Video: Snapper tagging and the storm.
YouTube - Snapper Tagging and the Storm

[NoBullJeff]

the video looks like a step in the right direction

[Surface Tension]

Good video.

[Reeftails]

Originally Posted by nobulljeff

the video looks like a step in the right direction

2x

[seadogger]

Definetly good data. Thanks Chiung !!

[Captrandy]

Looks like some useful research to me. Looks like some good fishing too!!

[DeltaSix]

Great info and nice vid, thanks.

[Gradyman]

Thank you to the Nelson Family of captains your dedication is second to none! You guys are the best.

[ameliahunter]

how about attaching a small video camera to snappers with a break off line that will last about an hour and then float back to the surface to video the released snappers actions after capture. All the technology is already there and in use by researchers. This can quickly prove/disprove catch mortality percentages.

[Hat-Nasty]

Originally Posted by ameliahunter

how about attaching a small video camera to snappers with a break off line that will last about an hour and then float back to the surface to video the released snappers actions after capture. All the technology is already there and in use by researchers. This can quickly prove/disprove catch mortality percentages.

Not a bad idea. It would also help with the fish count. When the snapper swims back down to the school you would see just how many fish are acutally down there!