Bottom fishing to be severely restricted

ATLANTIC BEACH, N.C.—The offshore bottom along the Continental Shelf would be closed to fishing from Charleston to south Florida under a plan tentatively approved by the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council today.

The council picked its preferred alternative from a number of closure areas under consideration to save the imperiled red snapper. The alternative will be reviewed in May 2010 and could get a final vote in June. But the closure might not come before a new stock assessment is finished in December 2010.

The area proposed for closing — from about 100 to 240 feet deep — would prohibit fishing any number of deep sea holes and sweet spots, but leaves a few prize fishing holes open closer to shore.

A bottom closure could virtually remove local catches of the sought-after grouper from the hook, restaurant plates and seafood stores because the grouper is a bottom fish like the snapper. A closure would put commercial captains all but out of business, they say, and curtail recreational fishing. That would disrupt saltwater fishing that is championed as a $600 million-per-year industry in South Carolina alone.

Read more in tomorrow’s editions of The Post and Courier.