Fishing for the Future

Overfishing and human population increase having negative effects on one of state’s most popular pastimes and resource

Any fishing story that has roots in the 21st century should start with numbers — not just the measurements of a fish or quantity of a fish population, but numbers of people. There are more than eight billion in the world, about 342 million in the United States, and almost 23 million in Florida, many of whom like to catch or eat fish, or both.

A century ago, with a world population of two billion, a U.S. population of 110 million and a state population of just under one million, nobody worried about fishing rules or regulations. The first fishing licenses were established then to protect and preserve their resources for state residents, not to protect the fish. And commercial fishermen caught what they could sell in any quantities they desired, regularly discarding catch they weren’t seeking with fatal consequences for the fish.

But times changed. Marine environments and myriad fish species spawned and thriving in them were frequently damaged. They continue to be damaged or at least reduced, in many cases.

Feeding Tarpon at a popular tourist spot in Islamorada, Florida Keys, USA. COURTESY PHOTO

Now, in spite of some success stories in the last 30 years that show populations of several species stabilizing or increasing, Florida’s fishery along with the quality of our waters is under siege.

This week, Florida Weekly looks at the future prospects for this defining characteristic of the Sunshine State: Fishing.

East and west, the pressure is on

“The sheer amount of vessels on the water today directly impacts the habits and behaviors of our fishery, whether they are fishing or not,” says Capt. Codty Pierce, a career fishing guide and the Calusa Waterkeeper, heading one of 15 nonprofit Waterkeeper organizations in the state aimed at protecting its salt and freshwater resources.

“Combustion engines zooming around the estuary is good for the shortterm economy in the form of boat sales, fuel, ice, fishing tackle, boat ramp payments and so on and so forth,” he explains. “But man’s presence in these sensitive areas is absolutely affecting the migratory habits and even the numbers of gamefish we interact with on a daily basis.

A commercial fisherman aboard the Falcon brings up a red grouper in the Gulf DAVID HILLS, GULF OF MEXICO REEF FISH SHAREHOLDERS’ ALLIANCE / COURTESY PHOTO

“Imagine someone flying a helicopter across the roof of your house multiple times a day. You will never get any work done nor feel comfortable with a disruption of that magnitude on your surroundings.”

It may be something like that for the fish, too. But all is not lost, in the estimation of Capt. Pierce or others, especially if more people begin to pay attention.

“Here’s the big picture,” says Eric Brazer, deputy director of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, commercial grouper and snapper fishermen in the Gulf, based in Texas. “As a country we have some of the best managed fisheries in the world, a system based on science, a public process where fishermen, seafood consumers, recreational fishers, citizens, all can get involved. It’s mostly transparent and science based. And very important to people. From a grassroots perspective, anybody who cares about the environment or the health of the Gulf of Mexico should be involved.”

Two commercial fishermen aboard the Black Jack I with a red grouper. DAVID HILLS, GULF OF MEXICO REEF FISH SHAREHOLDERS’ ALLIANCE / COURTESY PHOTO

Many do care, and not just about the Gulf but the Atlantic and the historically rich waters adjoining it, such as the 156- mile Indian River Lagoon stretching from the Loxahatchee River at the Jupiter Inlet to the Ponce Inlet of the Halifax River near Daytona.

“It’s the most diverse estuary in North America,” points out Jim Moir, the Indian Riverkeeper.

A self-described “Keys rat,” Moir grew up on Key Biscayne and spent years working as a captain, a boat builder and designer, and a team member of such ocean-based marine science projects as tagging whales.

“Within 10 miles of the St. Lucie Inlet we have 10 eco-zones,” he explains. “The continental shelf butts into the Gulf stream, the river enters the Atlantic, different weather systems converge on this spot and we’re located where the tropics and subtropics meet. So there are massive inputs of nutrients from an enlarged watershed.”

Capt. Codty Pierce is a career fishing guide and the Calusa Waterkeeper, heading one of 15 nonprofit Waterkeeper organizations in the state aimed at protecting its salt and freshwater resources. COURTESY PHOTO

A mere 10 square meters here, less than 110 square feet or the size of a walkin closet, may support 55 fish species. And 10 square miles contains some 600 species, he says, all of it now threatened, which is why the Indian River Lagoon should be made a national park and preserved, along with coastal reefs.

With the danger of overfishing and with water pollution and seagrass destruction all factors in everyday Florida living, a chorus of voices expresses deep concern about the state of the Florida fishery.

These are Republicans and Democrats, commercial and recreational fishers, marine scientists and longtime advocates.

They offer sometimes conflicting opinions about who or what is at fault, but one thing is certain to all of them: Food for millions, along with hundreds of millions of dollars each year and many Florida jobs are at stake, too.

The clamoring voices agree on one general notion: Clean water and careful use by both commercial and recreational fishers will likely result in a healthier fishery, even in the face of factors with unpredictable consequences: climate change and an even greater population, for example.

“I love sushi,” Perry Bihari said after a recent day of fishing in the Florida Keys. COURTESY PHOTO

Recreational anglers

Perry Bihari, a Sunshine State native and lifelong fisherman, has made annual pilgrimages to the Keys for the last 22 years, fishing and lobstering — diving for Florida’s native lobsters — in season.

His joy and pleasure in taking fish is coupled with a conscientious caring for the resource, one that reflects the views of many anglers.

“We used to catch a lot of fish, mahi in particular, and a lot of them were too hog to just grab your line so you could flip them in the boat. We had to gaff them and put them in the fish box.

“Over the years it’s been harder to catch the limits — it used to be 10 per person — and the fish are smaller. We only had to use a gaff on two, maybe three mahi last year, and this year on none.

Perry Bihari, a Sunshine State native and lifelong fisherman who has made annual pilgrimages to the Keys for the last 22 years, recently took his yellowtail snapper catch to the Lazy Days Restaurant in Islamorada, where they grilled it up for him. COURTESY PHOTO

“Also, the legal limit was lowered to five. It’s a regulation I agree with if we want to continue to have any fish at all.”

But oh, the pleasure. This year, he and friends could still do what recreational anglers have done almost forever in Florida, on a given day — they took their catch into an Islamorada restaurant “and for a small fee, they cooked them up for us.”

Bihari doesn’t want that tradition to go away.

“With all the fishing pressure on Florida’s fishery, we need to pay close attention or there will be none left for the kids to catch,” he warns.

Although Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has ranked the state only 11th for fresh seafood production in recent years and fourth in exports behind Alaska, Washington and Maine, a federal tracking agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA, called it “the state with the largest recreational harvest and the largest number of angler trips.”

Trips like Perry Bihari’s.

“We hear anecdotal stories from all the fishermen — ‘they’re not as thick as they were,’ they say, or ‘I have to run farther offshore, fish harder, fish longer, get more gear to catch the same fish we did years ago,’” says Brazer.

“In the last six months, data from Gulf states shows that the recreational fisheries have declined over the last four years. The average size caught is smaller, too. That’s a sign that the population is in distress,” he notes. “When the next stock assessment comes out, probably in the fall of 2024, I fear more data showing the fishery is not as healthy as it has been.”

Fine-tuning management

The goal of those who champion a sustainable recovery is the same, whether they represent commercial or sustainable fishing, suggests Glenn Law, formerly editor-in-chief of the Salt Water Sportsman Magazine and an editor of Florida Sportsman.

“You have to have a healthy habitat,” he says. “Once you have a place to live, they have to have something to eat, so you have to have a healthy food chain from the forage base on up, with good water quality for prey species like mullet.”

And that’s not all.

“Once you have a good habitat and a food chain, then you have to manage it, so you maintain healthy breeding populations.”

And that’s where questions begin to arise, and innovation may be required.

“Historically they’ve used maximum daily yields,” Law points out — but that won’t always work.

“If you say it takes 100 fish to produce 500, so we can kill 400 and take the population back to 100, you’re forgetting all sorts of seasonal and unpredictable things. So, you have to have a healthy food chain where all of it is honored — not just the top predator species. And a breeding population with head room for variance.”

All that, he concludes, amounts to “platitudes. And they’re easy to say. But implementation is another thing entirely.”

That may be especially true of recreational fishing, which appears less regulated, or at least differently regulated, than commercial fishing nowadays.

State regulators offer only a limited number of permits for commercial fishing; the potential number of recreational anglers, on the other hand, is infinite, says Eric Brazer.

“Nobody wants to talk about limiting access, but how do we protect and grow a natural resource when there are an infinite number of people out here trying to catch them?

“Commercial went from open access to limited access. Same thing with charter for hire: The government gives out permits, and they’re not making new permits. If you want a permit, you have to get it from somebody else.

“And say you have a permit to go catch fish: There may be a quota. You have to have a GPS on board, and you have to let the government know when and where you’re fishing, when you’re returning, where you’re going to offload the catch and who you will sell it to. Who you sell it to has to be a licensed dealer, and weigh every pound of fish.”

Most commercial fishermen don’t resent this, Brazer says. They just see it as the price of doing business.

“This was to get away from trip limits and seasons, when there was a lot of waste and discards. This was part of getting to a better fishery” — along with such major events as a 1997 net ban that changed the way many commercial fishermen could fish, and put them out of business, a thing challenged a number of times unsuccessfully, and resented by many.

Recreational problems

But there’s no line or equipment ban on recreational anglers, let alone on their numbers, and there probably should be, points out Jim Moir, the Indian Riverkeeper.

“Why is it OK to allow a bait bag to blow over?” he asks. “One of the most regularly encountered pollutions is monofilament line and fishing gear — about 6 percent of all marine mammals have fishing gear in them or attached to them. Things like balloons and bait bags are being discovered in deep-diving whales many hundreds of miles offshore. These things are pernicious, and they start in the near shore.”

The right of people to use cheap monofilament line that never degrades has allowed them to fish “without having to learn the tragedy of their impact,” he adds.

“I do a dive every early summer to remove cast nets from local artificial reefs. Last year I retrieved 196 pounds of cast nets from one barge. They’re allowing those cast nets to go down 44 feet and get snagged on the barge, and then continue to catch everything until it degrades.”

Unfortunately, those nets won’t degrade in 50 or 100 years. That particular location, he says, was Bull Shark barge about 1.25 miles off the St. Lucie inlet

Bans are one thing, regulations another.

Take snook, a premier game fish known both for its fighting ability on the hook and culinary appeal.

“In my opinion, they’re not doing a good job managing snook,” says Byron Stout, a Fort Myers-based former newspaper reporter, outdoor writer and winner of national writing awards for his work on boating, Everglades conservation and environmental issues including fisheries management, with credits in many outdoor publications such as Field & Stream and Florida Sportsman.

“They target breeders for harvest. The (total estimated) number of fish compared to the number capable of spawning is the ratio fishing managers use to determine the viability of population. They want a certain number of snook to be of a certain age.

“So they’re managing snook based on that, but not on the potential of a sports fishery. Between 28 and 33 inches they become harvestable on the west coast — that’s a four- or five-year span when they can be harvested.”

In other words, they can be targeted for four or five years of their lives because they don’t grow quickly at that size. Between 28 and 33 inches. There are restrictions: one per angler per trip, and the guides can’t harvest snook on a charter.

But here’s the problem, Stout says: “The chances for a snook to grow outside the slot limit are slim, because there’s so much fishing pressure. Their growth slows by that time in their lives. Snook can procreate at a much younger age than they are when they reach 28 inches.”

Consequently, he concludes, “If the slot limit were 20 to 22 inches, a snook could grow through that in one year. Then, only accidental fishing mortality would occur (at different sizes or ages). So, we could have just as many snook and much bigger snook if they changed the slot limit.”

Looking back, looking ahead

Once upon a time, Stout remembers reading, snook would come down the Peace River in Charlotte County heading for Charlotte Harbor and the Gulf, “in such schools that there was a roar in the water that would go on for days.”

It was like that with other fish in Florida once, too.

“I was on the old Edison Bridge (over the Caloosahatchee in Fort Myers) one day when a school of mullet, a spawning aggregation (surfaced), and I heard that roar — it was a big rustle. Every so often a predator inspired them all to jump.”

Could such sights and sounds be brought back for any fish?

Probably not, and certainly not under present conditions.

“There’s not sufficient habitat anymore, we’ve screwed that up to too great an extent,” Stout says. “When I was a kid, the Caloosahatchee in the downtown area had seagrasses far out into the river. Water clarity would allow sunlight penetration. And the fertilization from human waste probably contributed to the growth,” because in the 1950s and ‘60s it wasn’t yet overwhelming.

“There was a sewer outlet at the end of Alhambra Drive you could walk out on — it extended about 200 feet into the (mile wide) river. If you walked out to the end of it you could watch the turds float out, and the mullet feed on it.”

Now things are a little different — but perhaps still salvageable, says Capt. Pierce.

“If we can curb our nutrient loading impact from man, along with stopping the destruction of wetlands and estuary habitats, we could see nature’s resiliency in the vital parts of our estuary.”

Wouldn’t that be nice.

“Sea grass meadows are one of the biggest, most valuable assets any area has,” he adds. “All across the globe these are under attack from prop scarring, nutrient problems, turbidity and salinity levels.

“Without sea grass we damn near lose the whole picture, and unfortunately there are many examples of this happening here, an immense loss of biomass almost all due to water quality problems.”

That inshore tragedy has an offshore consequence, of course: it devastates deep-water fish species like gag grouper, red grouper, permit and a handful of other species, too.

Those species cannot exist without seagrass, “and that impact alone on the commercial fishing industry is one that will make your stomach hurt when you see the potential fiscal (consequences),” he notes. Not to mention the heartbreak.

As realists like Perry Bihari and Byron Stout see it, there is still room for optimism, but optimism with careful management and regulation.

“I believe in commercial fishing,” Bihari says. “I think humans who can’t afford to buy boats, or who don’t have the knowledge to catch fish, should still be able to enjoy it on their table. Even if it means buying it from stores that have it provided by the commercial community.”

But like recreational anglers, he says, “They, also, need to be kept in check.”

As for Stout, “Florida fisheries can be managed. Now it can be done scientifically and with the politics taken out of it. They can be managed at healthy levels with plenty of fish for everybody to catch and eat…but the good old days are gone.” ¦

The post Fishing for the Future first appeared on Fort Myers Florida Weekly .