EDITOR'S LETTER

I’m sure going to miss fresh grouper filets.

Never mind that I’ve never really been that good at loading up a fishbox with big gags and scamps, that I’ve always had more luck with black seabass (the world’s easiest fish to catch). Every once in a while, we’d wind up over a nice piece of live bottom and manage to hook a 15-pound gag. Landing a keeper grouper has always been cause for great celebration on my boat — high fives, whooping and hollering, lots of pictures.

Looks like I’ll be waiting until summer to give it another try.

Barring an act of Congress, quite literally, it looks like wintertime bottom-fishing will never be the same. Federal fisheries managers have instituted a series of new regulations that put a number of popular bottom species off limits for a while. Even tighter regulations seem to be on the way. From January through April this year, anglers off the Southeast coast can’t keep gag, black grouper, red grouper, scamp, red hind, rock hind, coney, graysby, yellowfin grouper, yellowmouth grouper or tiger grouper. A new recreational closed season for vermilion snapper began Nov. 1 and continues through March 31. And a 180-day prohibition on red snapper catches was set to begin Jan. 4.

It would be easy to stew on these developments — to say “the heck with it” and just stay home. But I’m a fisherman, and I’m going to fish. When the wind lays down, I’m going to break out the foul weather gear, put in at Wappoo Cut and head out until I can’t see land. Then I’m going to motor southeast another 10 miles.

I’ll just have to remind myself that there are, as they say, other fish in the sea.

The wrecks and reefs out to 60 or so feet are loaded with trophy-sized flounder in the colder months. That’s where the doormats live in the winter. These same areas also hold schools of monster red drum. True, that’s a catch-and-release fishery, but there’s nothing more exciting than a double hookup of 20-plus-pound red drum. They’re amazing fish.

Further out, we can still have a blast with triggerfish. These great-tasting fish are easy to catch and plentiful starting in about 90 feet of water.

And, of course, we’ve still got black seabass. … for now.