FWC proposes more protection for bonefish
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) proposed draft rule amendments Thursday to provide more protection for bonefish, a premier saltwater game fish in Florida.
"Bonefish are a tremendous Florida resource," said FWC Chairman Rodney Barreto. "These proposed rules will strengthen our management approach to protect and preserve bonefish so that anglers can continue to enjoy fishing for this great Florida game fish."
The proposed rules would include all species of bonefish in the FWC's bonefish management rules to help ensure that all bonefish in Florida waters are protected, extend FWC bonefish regulations into adjacent federal waters to aid enforcement and enhance bonefish protection, and require that bonefish be landed in whole condition to help officers in the field identify bonefish and aid in enforcement of bag and size limits.
Since 1988, it has been illegal to commercially harvest and sell bonefish in Florida, and a daily recreational bag limit of one bonefish 18 inches or greater in fork length applies.
However, there is a temporary harvest and possession prohibition on bonefish in Florida until April 1 as a precaution, because of possible impacts to fish populations that may have occurred from the recent prolonged cold weather in Florida. Anglers may still catch and release bonefish during the temporary closure, and the FWC encourages everyone to handle and release them carefully to help ensure their survival upon release.
A final public hearing on these proposed bonefish rule amendments will take place during the FWC's April meeting in the Tallahassee area.
FWC acts to protect lemon sharks
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) approved a rule Thursday to prohibit all recreational and commercial harvest of lemon sharks from Florida waters. The FWC took this action to protect lemon sharks, because they have a high potential to be overharvested.
Lemon sharks are often found near shore in shallow water, especially in Southeast Florida, where they aggregate in large numbers each year. This makes them easy to locate and raises the potential for large numbers of lemon sharks to be removed from the population with minimal effort by fishermen.
Lemon sharks also are susceptible to overharvest because of their life history characteristics. They are slow-growing, reaching sexual maturity at 12-15 years of age, and have a low reproductive potential, producing 6 to 18 pups per litter every second or third year. Juvenile lemon sharks experience a mortality of 40-60 percent.
Recently, some preliminary data from an ongoing tagging study found that at least 7.5 percent of tagged adult lemon sharks from a Southeast Florida aggregation succumbed to fishing mortality in one season. At that rate, the entire lemon shark aggregation could be harvested in a few years.
In addition, recent regulatory actions for other shark species might put more fishing pressure on lemon sharks in Florida waters, where 90 percent of known lemon shark aggregations occur. The harvest of lemon sharks will still be allowed in offshore federal waters adjacent to state waters.
Healthy lemon shark populations are especially important to Florida's dive charter industry which provides ecotourism trips to see lemon shark aggregations in the winter months.
The FWC's lemon shark rule takes effect on March 23. More information about recent shark-management actions is available online at MyFWC.com/Rules, click on "Fishing - Saltwater."
FWC proposes weakfish management changes
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) proposed draft rule amendments Thursday to comply with an interstate fisheries management plan to help rebuild depleted weakfish stocks along the nation's Atlantic Ocean coastal waters and to rectify weakfish-identification issues in Northeast Florida.
Weakfish live off the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to Florida, although the major fishery occurs from North Carolina to New York. In Florida, weakfish are found only in the extreme northeast part of the state.
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), a compact of Atlantic coastal states responsible for managing several nearshore fisheries from Maine to Florida, recently determined that weakfish stocks are depleted along the entire Atlantic coast. As a result, they developed a management plan to reduce the recreational and commercial harvest of weakfish by more than 50 percent along the Atlantic coast.
The ASMFC plan requires Florida to reduce the daily recreational bag limit for weakfish, also known as gray seatrout or yellow-mouth trout, from four fish to one fish per person and establish a commercial weakfish harvest limit of 100 pounds per vessel per day or trip (whichever is longer).
In addition, weakfish and sand seatrout - a nonregulated fish in Florida - look alike and live in waters off Florida's northeast coast. Weakfish and sand seatrout interbreed and have created a hybrid-fish population. The two distinct species are hard to tell apart, and the hybrid population further complicates their identification and makes enforcement of weakfish regulations difficult.
Consequently, the FWC is proposing to apply Florida's weakfish management rules only in state waters of the St. Marys River in Nassau County, where weakfish are mostly found. All weakfish-like fish (including weakfish, sand seatrout and their hybrids) would be considered weakfish in this management area, and the proposed one-fish recreational bag limit and 100-pound commercial trip limit would apply. The current 12 inches minimum size limit for weakfish would remain unchanged.
In all other areas in Florida, the weakfish size limit, recreational bag limit and commercial trip limit would not apply.
A final public hearing on the proposed weakfish rule amendments will take place during the FWC's June meeting in Winter Park.
