After completing a review of the extended fall weekend private angler red snapper season, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) has determined that the private angler red snapper quota for the 2020 season has been met.
Therefore, Alabama waters will remain closed to private angler and state-licensed charter red snapper fishing until the 2021 season is established, a Tuesday release announced.
For the 2020 season, NOAA Fisheries allocated Alabama 1.12 million pounds of red snapper for private anglers.
“This has been an interesting year for red snapper fishing,” stated Scott Bannon, director of ADCNR’s Marine Resources Division.
“The season started out with an amazing amount of effort due to favorable weather, with the exception of Tropical Storm Cristobal, and we closed earlier than anticipated,” he outlined. “It was determined that there was enough quota remaining to have limited fall weekend fishing which was something many anglers had previously asked us for. The weather did not cooperate with three more hurricanes impacting Alabama during the fall reopening and it took an additional 17 days to use the quota.”
Chris Blankenship, ADCNR commissioner, said in a statement, “Once again, Alabama’s private recreational anglers have benefited from the state management of private angler red snapper.”
“We are able to monitor the harvest accurately and in a timely manner allowing anglers maximum opportunities to fish the Alabama quota. Under federal management we would have been tied to the harvest of all of the Gulf states and we could have seen a much shorter season this year,” Blankenship continued. “The federal system definitely would not have been able to make adjustments week to week and may not have been able to keep anglers from fishing over the quota, as we have done.”
Additional red snapper landing information for Alabama’s 2020 season is available here.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
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