Changes to Florida’s Atlantic Black Sea Bass Recreational, Commercial Harvests Effective This Week
Several changes to black sea bass management in Atlantic state waters went into effect this week. These changes will help rebuild the Atlantic black sea bass population for future generations of recreational and commercial fishers and were made by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at its Dec. 5 meeting.
Changes include:
- Increasing the minimum size limit for commercial harvest from 10 to 11 inches total length, and for recreational harvest from 12 to 13 inches total length;
- Changing the recreational daily bag limit from 15 to five fish per person;
- Requiring federal commercial endorsements and permits for the harvest of black sea bass using traps;
- Matching federal trap specifications and requirements, including requirements for trap construction, requiring traps to be set only in waters north of Cape Canaveral and requiring traps to be removed from the water and brought back to shore at the conclusion of each trip.
Black sea bass populations in the Atlantic are improving but are undergoing overfishing, which means more fish are being removed from the water than is considered sustainable. Federal fishery managers made several recent changes to help continue to rebuild Atlantic black sea bass populations. The FWC-approved changes will align state management efforts with most current federal regulations for black sea bass.
The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission came into existence on July 1, 1999 - the result of a constitutional amendment approved in the 1998 General Election as part of the package proposed by the Constitution Revision Commission.
In the implementation of the Constitutional Amendment, the Florida Legislature combined all of the staff and Commissioners of the former Marine Fisheries Commission, elements of the Divisions of Marine Resources and Law Enforcement of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and all of the employees and Commissioners of the former Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission.
Five years later, after consulting stakeholders, employees and other interested parties, the FWC adopted a new internal structure to address complex conservation issues of the new century. The new structure focuses on programs, such as habitat management, that affect numerous species. It will focus on moving the decision-making process closer to the public and did not require any additional funding or additional positions.
