Gettys Brannon, left, holds a red snapper on a fishing trip with Russ Tomlinson, on July 12, 2024, the one day that year they could fish for snapper. Tomlinson, president of Sportsman Boats, is holding an African pompano. (Photo provided by Gettys Brannon)
Anglers this year had two days to fish for red snapper. Next year, they want more than 60.
The Department of Natural Resources, with support from anglers, boaters and conservationists, is asking the federal government to extend the recreational fishing season for the recovering species in 2026 as part of a pilot program that could help determine how many red snapper are really swimming off the Atlantic coast.
Concern about Atlantic red snappers dates back to 2008, when a federal population survey found the number of fish dwindling. The federal government then shut down anglers’ access to the game fish. In 2010, they couldn’t bring any red snapper home. Minimal fishing has been allowed since, with recreational seasons lasting no more than six days a year. During those short windows, the take-home limit is just one snapper per angler per day.
In recent years, however, fishers are coming back to land with stories about seeing more red snappers on the ends of their lines than ever before, suggesting the population has rebounded significantly, said Robert Boyles, who oversees policy for the Coastal Conservation League since retiring as director of DNR.
At the same time, federal limitations require anglers to toss back all the red snappers they catch outside the brief window. And the actual number of snappers living off the Southeastern coast remains unclear, since the federal data has a significant rate of error, according to DNR’s application to the federal government last month.
Expanding that window from the most recent period of two days to as many as 62 days could relieve some of the pressure on anglers to catch as many fish as possible in a short period of time, the agency wrote in its application. An added requirement that fishers report every snapper they catch could help improve data on the number of fish swimming off the coast, agency officials said in a news release.
Florida, North Carolina and Georgia made similar proposals. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council heard from representatives of each state Wednesday in Kitty Hawk, N.C., but made no decision. The regional council will decide at some unspecified date in the future whether to send a letter of support, members said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will make the final decision about whether to approve the plans.
DNR plans to make the same request every year for the next three years, according to its submission. If approved, the data collected by anglers over those years will inform how to move forward.
State officials have been working for years to get the red snapper season extended, said Sen. Stephen Goldfinch. The effort was bolstered through an April executive order from President Donald Trump calling for agencies to remove burdensome regulations on the fishing industry. Although the order didn’t directly address red snapper, DNR pointed to it in its application, arguing the state’s proposal supported the administration’s goals.
Red snappers can get up to 40 inches long and live up to 50 years, according to NOAA.
They “are delicious,” Goldfinch said.
“They’re fun to fight, and they’re abundant,” the Murrells Inlet Republican said. “So, what do fishermen want? They want to go catch them.”
But after years of going out in punishing weather to take advantage of the brief fishing seasons, Goldfinch has opted during recent seasons to stay home and skip catching red snappers altogether, he said.
“I just don’t need the hassle of going and beating myself up and beating a boat up anymore,” he said.
SC utility agrees to cooler water dumped in river after push to protect endangered fish
Every year, the few days anglers have to bring home red snapper fall during hurricane season, meaning unpredictable weather.
That was the case this year, when the two days in July anglers could bring their fish back to land brought a forecast of high severe winds and large waves.
In a letter to NOAA sent one day ahead of the two-day window, a bipartisan group of coastal legislators asked for an extension to the season so fishermen didn’t have to risk themselves and their boats to bring in the fish.
NOAA denied the request.
“The least NOAA can do is ensure that the two days of access it has granted are actually fishable,” reads the letter by Rep. Lee Hewitt, a Murrells Inlet Republican, and 16 other legislators.
For Tommy Hancock, an abbreviated season means less business for his company, Sportsman Boats Manufacturing. He can’t put a number on how much money he loses each year, but he’s certain the Summerville manufacturer loses out when people don’t want to go out in choppy waters to fish for red snapper, he said.
“It’s a pretty bad obstacle for us, because people say, ‘Well, maybe I don’t need a boat. I can’t go catch fish anyway,’” Hancock said.
That’s bad news for a state with three of the largest tackle brands in the country and more than two dozen boat manufacturers, said Gettys Brannon, CEO of the South Carolina Boating and Fishing Alliance.
Statewide, more than 540,000 people were licensed to fish in 2021, the most recent year available, according to data collected by the American Sportfishing Association.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
If the expansion is approved, “when folks come here, they’ll be able to take more charter trips,” Brannon said. “They’ll be able to spend more in tackle shops. They’ll put more hours on their motor. They’ll spend more days on their boats.”
“There’s a wide impact that a seemingly small decision, or a lack of good decisions, has an impact on from an economic perspective,” he said.
Most of the red snappers that anglers catch are dying anyway, according to DNR data included in its application.
Anglers who get a red snapper on their line while fishing outside the short recreational window must throw them back. But red snappers are more prone to dying than other fish after being pulled from the ocean’s depths.
Reeling the fish to the surface causes their swim bladders to inflate, which makes it more difficult for them to sink back to where they were. That makes the fish more vulnerable to predators, meaning anglers often throw the fish back just to get eaten, Boyles said.
If anglers are catching the fish anyway, and if those fish are dying once released back into the ocean, then the people catching them might as well keep them, said Martha Guyas, director of policy for the American Sportfishing Association’s southeastern offices.
“This has been a frustration point for anglers, because they’re seeing a lot of fish out there, and they’re catching them, but they’re not allowed to keep them,” Guyas said.
Fishers want a hardy red snapper supply, since overfishing would mean the end of their hobby or livelihood, Brannon said. At the same time, they feel the need to balance the conservation of the species with the ability to continue fishing, he said.
“The ability for us to be able to balance the economy and ecology and come up with sound policy that actually creates a healthier fishery, it also creates a sound workforce and the ability for our industry to be sustainable here in the state,” Brannon said.
The Coastal Conservation League is on board with the proposal, since it will likely mean better data to get conservationists, scientists and anglers on the same page about what is necessary to keep the population booming, Boyles said.
“At the end of the day, we’re going to get better data out of this and hopefully get a better handle on the status of the stock,” Boyles said.
NOAA understands anglers’ frustration, southeast regional administrator Andy Strelcheck said in a news release. At the same time, the number of fish dying is too much, Strelcheck said.
“We as managers are also frustrated and see the need for new, innovative management strategies to reduce snapper-grouper dead discards, including red snapper,” Strelcheck said. “We also need to better realize the social and economic benefits for the snapper-grouper fishery, and provide additional fishing opportunities as we recover fish stocks.”
Continuing to overfish can further stunt the population of red snapper, causing more problems down the line, wrote Catherine Bruger, a fish conservation manager for national nonprofit Ocean Conservancy.
“If allowed to mature, these fish could usher in a golden era of red snapper fishing in the South Atlantic,” Bruger wrote. “But raising catch limits too high, or losing our ability to monitor catch, will wipe out these young fish and cause our best chance in years for a huge, healthy fishery to slip away for today’s fishermen and for future generations.”
That’s far from what South Carolina’s community of anglers and boaters want, advocates for the proposal said. The change is not permanent, Boyles added, and it includes safeguards to continue preventing overfishing.
Each angler would be allowed to take home only one fish, and it would have to be at least 20 inches long. With that in mind, expanding the season for a few years would be worth getting better information on how many snappers are swimming off the coast, he said.
“We want these resources available,” Boyles said.
He evoked a saying he used to hear his dad say: “Fish for you, fish for me. Fish for today, fish for tomorrow.”
This story has been updated to reflect action at the Wednesday, Dec. 10, meeting of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.
