I began fishing in the ocean east of Daytona Beach Florida as a young boy with my father. In those days there were no regulations on ocean fish and a salt water fishing license was not required. There were no size limits or species restrictions. If you could get out there you could keep what ever you caught. The fishing was primitive compared to today's standards with nothing but a compass to steer by and a crude depth sounder. The fishing was good with decent quantities of Snapper, Grouper and reef fish. There were no artificial reefs off shore of Daytona and therefore red snapper were caught on the natural reef system in 70 feet and deeper. Occasionally there were some limited red snapper harvested on the closer in reef structures.

It was not uncommon to catch several large red snapper and grouper in water deeper than 80 feet, and one could load the boat with black sea bass. Trigger fish were a little less common but abundant. There was a small number of charter boats serving the area with Captains brave enough to challenge traversing Ponce Inlet and the constant shifting sand bars. There was not much of a channel at times and no jetties. Small private boats could only safely get into the ocean on calm days.

As time passed the area population grew and proportionately so did the fishing fleet that called Ponce Inlet their home port. The private recreational fishing fleet grew with the population and the Army Corps of Engineers began to address the hazards of traversing the inlet. The jetties were constructed in an attempt to make passage of the inlet safer with this project continuing through most of the 1970’s.

The fishing through the 1970’s was good but there began to be concerns of sustainability in the coastal fisheries as now not only would the locals frequent the fishing grounds east of Daytona, we would observe foreign fleets of fishermen from distant ports (U.S. and abroad). They caught fish with long line rigs, trawling nets and traps. There was an honest need to enact some regulations to protect the fishery. Snapper and Grouper could be caught but were noticeably less abundant. Black sea bass had been so abundant in the early 1970’s that it was difficult at best to get baits past them to get to the more desirable Snappers and Groupers.

The 1980’s started out with the ability to still harvest good numbers of fish but the Quality was diminishing. Regulations were imposed to stabilize the population.

After the large commercial boats began devastating the fishery both reef fish and pelagic fish were noticeably harder to find in any significant quantity. The black sea bass were small and it became difficult to limit out on legal sized fish. There were less frequent numbers of large (greater than 20 lb.) sow red snapper harvested.

The early 1990’s was more of the same but the mass commercial harvesting of fish was being curtailed and the fishery started to recover as a result. The regulations on harvest quantities and methods was beginning to bring back fish from the wholesale devastation by the foreign commercial fleets.

Enter the early 2000’s the federal government became more and more intrusive and restrictive on harvest numbers claiming the scientific research proved it necessary. Although there was extremely limited scientific research conducted off the Central Florida coast stiffer and stiffer regulations were enacted although the fishing fleet was experiencing a noticeable increase in red snapper numbers before the onset of these stiffer regulations and closures. Tyrannical restrictions were implemented including total area harvest closures for several years and extreme limits on recreational seasons limiting harvest numbers into single digits and decreasing the seasons to mere days. Although the population of red snapper had already been showing strong improvement to those of us that were regularly fishing fishing and diving the reefs. These closures caused such a population explosion that other reef fish that had also been showing signs of recovery began to diminish from red snapper depredation on the reefs. The population of red snapper east of Central Florida is currently at a levels not seen in at least 50 years. Red snapper populations are now so significant that it is now the most prolific reef predator within its natural habitat and they are now inhabiting areas they have never before occupied, yet N.O.A.A. claims that the population will not be stable until 2044.

These are my observations and are based upon 50 years of fishing the Atlantic waters off of the East Coast of Florida.