Bottom fishing ban may be heading south

Snapper and grouper fishing might have just opened up again.

On Thursday, federal regulators moved farther south their preferred option for closing an offshore bottom-fishing area. If adopted, the closed area would end at roughly the Georgia-South Carolina border. The former preferred option ran the closure all the way to North Carolina. It would have closed off any bottom fishing in the prime grounds off South Carolina.

The alternative will be reviewed for its impact on restoring red snapper and could get a final vote in June. But a decision might not come before a new stock assessment is finished in December. A temporary bottom- fishing ban remains in place for the winter spawning season.

"I'm not happy about it. We are where we are," said Duane Harris, a Georgia charter boat captain who is chairman of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, the group that voted for the option change.

"I think it's simply a matter that the folks in South Carolina and North Carolina didn't believe the area needed to be that large. I think we'll revisit the matter (in June)," he said.

"Clearly the public outcry from the South Carolina General Assembly, coastal town and counties, fishermen, and businesses had a significant effect on the outcome of the council vote. The unanimity of the S.C. Fishery Council members was vital to the outcome," said council member Tom Swatzel, a Murrells Inlet deep-sea charter fisherman.

The snapper, and its fellow bottom-dwelling grouper, are the prize restaurant entrees in the Lowcountry and a sought-after catch by commercial, charter and recreational anglers. The earlier closure threatened to remove the fresh catches and decimate saltwater fishing, which is championed as $600 million per year industry in the state. The actions come after several thousand anglers rallied in Washington last week to oppose the closure, and federal and South Carolina legislators are moving to stop it.

Council scientists say the closure is needed to restore a depleted fishery. Anglers dispute the fish count data as an incomplete, spotty sampling of a fishery that spans from North Carolina to the Florida Keys.

They say the laws are putting people out of business and keeping pleasure boats off the water for no good reason.

The new option doesn't resolve their dilemma. The boats tend to fish south in warmer waters when winter slows fishing offshore. Anglers frankly say the new closure will push Georgia anglers into South Carolina waters, putting more pressure on the fishery here.

But it's one heavy chain pulled off their boats.

"At least now they realize the impact of what they proposed to do, not just to the fishermen, but the economy of the state," said Wes Covington, of Norway, a recreational bottom fisherman.

"If we can get that, that's wonderful," said Mark Marhefka, a Shem Creek captain who is one of the last commercial fishermen operating out of the Charleston area, who spoke while taking a break from removing a blown engine from the Amy Marie.

"Any little thing is better than (the alternative) they had up there. But whatever they close, the boats in that area will be coming to your town soon," he said.

Harris agreed that was likely.

"The guys up in Savannah who fish off head boats and charter boats can fish off South Carolina," he said. But he doesn't expect charter boats farther south to make the trip.

Council regulators are turning from years of catch limits and season restrictions as they grapple for ways to enforce a revision of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act that says that within one year of determining a fish stock is depleted, overfishing must be stopped in that region of the ocean.

The red snapper population is estimated to be only 3 percent of what it was in 1945; the red grouper is about 21 percent of previous levels.

But the decisions are being made as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proposes new guidances for assessing fish stocks. A new, somewhat more rigorous stock assessment of the snapper-grouper fishery is due to be finished by December. That might give regulators more to work with.

"Hopefully it will paint a much more realistic picture. We won't have to have such a dire closure," Covington said.

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story contained the wrong map.