Boatless Fishing Forum, Reports, Info

FB15-060
Sustainable Fisheries Division
727-824-5305

August 17, 2015

Recreational Harvest of Hogfish in South Atlantic Waters Will Close on August 24, 2015

Recreational harvest of hogfish in South Atlantic federal waters will close, at 12:01 a.m. (local time) on August 24, 2015. Federal waters will reopen to recreational harvest at 12:01 a.m. (local time) on January 1, 2016. The recreational annual catch limit for hogfish is 85,355 pounds whole weight. Reports indicate that landings have exceeded the 2015 recreational annual catch limit for hogfish.

During the closure:
Recreational harvest or possession of hogfish in federal waters is prohibited.
The closure applies in both state and federal waters for vessels which have a valid charter/headboat permit for South Atlantic Snapper-Grouper.

This closure is necessary to protect the snapper-grouper fishery.
This announcement is forwarded as a courtesy of the
South Atlantic Fishery Management Council.

Link https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspect ... -20596.pdf

You can thank all the spearfisherman shooting 12in hogs for this one

cantseeme47 wrote:You can thank all the spearfisherman shooting 12in hogs for this one

Let's hope that is only for one year.

cantseeme47,

I "Rare" spoke of this some time back- Hell even GK too. When the Mutton talks were going on, hog were on the table. I had a long talk on that thread with an x members. This members wasnt happy on what i said- too bad you cant read the comments on there anymore on that thread or the PM's that were sent.

viewtopic.php?f=121&t=32853&p=330378&hi ... sh#p330378

Rare wrote:

miguel456 wrote:One reason Hogfish are bigger in the Carolinas is because theres less fish harvested by both Anglers and Spearfishermen.

You putting Anglers in there does not help cause I have never heard of anyone that i go out fishing with say, hey lets go out and get us a hogfish on line and sinker. Has anyone in here gone out just to target them...line & sinker? When you do get them is cause you were targeting other fish and the hog hit your bait. Some of the guys I know say we are going spearfishing and targeting hogfish. The hogfish I do see on the net, just about everywhere has holes in their body.

IMHO...spearfishing + a high harvesting limit = perpetual growth stunt is in place. I believe they should drop the numbers on 1per day & raise that silly 12inch to 18in. Do i dare & say, a closed season for them as well. When you do speak with a FMB i would like to hear it, but you pretty much answered why they are so small.

You can still get them in state waters in south Florida so it won't do much here where it probably needs it the most.

Apparently quite a few guys target hogfish on hook and line and they catch some nice fish. Seems to be a west coast of Florida thing though.

Correct Chris.....But this is how it starts. Soon the next agenda will be here in our waters

How about a ban on spear guns and scuba tanks? If you want to shoot a fish, use a sling or pole spear and hold your breath. The amount of fish taken (not just hogfish) would drop dramatically.

Rare wrote:cantseeme47,

I "Rare" spoke of this some time back- Hell even GK too. When the Mutton talks were going on, hog were on the table. I had a long talk on that thread with an x members. This members wasnt happy on what i said- too bad you cant read the comments on there anymore on that thread or the PM's that were sent.

viewtopic.php?f=121&t=32853&p=330378&hi ... sh#p330378

Rare wrote:

miguel456 wrote:One reason Hogfish are bigger in the Carolinas is because theres less fish harvested by both Anglers and Spearfishermen.

You putting Anglers in there does not help cause I have never heard of anyone that i go out fishing with say, hey lets go out and get us a hogfish on line and sinker. Has anyone in here gone out just to target them...line & sinker? When you do get them is cause you were targeting other fish and the hog hit your bait. Some of the guys I know say we are going spearfishing and targeting hogfish. The hogfish I do see on the net, just about everywhere has holes in their body.

IMHO...spearfishing + a high harvesting limit = perpetual growth stunt is in place. I believe they should drop the numbers on 1per day & raise that silly 12inch to 18in. Do i dare & say, a closed season for them as well. When you do speak with a FMB i would like to hear it, but you pretty much answered why they are so small.

Dam where was i in this debate. You nailed it though you cant compare spear vs rod. Miguel was high when he wrote that

How do they know total recreational catching exceed 85,355 pounds of limit?
I am not arguing it doesn't exceed. But I am just curious how they estimate as I don't think those spear guys will report their catches.

They shake the magic 8 ball and it tells them.

Miami_Chris wrote:How about a ban on spear guns and scuba tanks? If you want to shoot a fish, use a sling or pole spear and hold your breath. The amount of fish taken (not just hogfish) would drop dramatically.

That's about a dumb statement.. what they should do is raise the minimum size to something like 16" or bigger.. I see plenty of hook and line and/or spear'd caught Hogs at the cleaning tables and most are barely 12" and way to many are not even that. Some enforcement would help too.

The closing is in Federal Waters, I think.. the closure of Biscayne Park will help also. My buds were out last week off Elliott and could not find a decent sized hogfish to shoot, said there were many many small ones though.

Last week at the Lloyd cleaning table we saw a dude with a bucket full of dolphin that were in the 14-15" size, cleaning away.. when I asked him about the fish he says "no peakie engli"...

Cantseeme Miguel wasn't high he was just being Miguel.

I don't think it's a dumb idea, but I don't see much sport in shooting hogfish and grouper with tanks and guns. The fish in deeper water would see little to no pressure. I don't see raising the size limit 2 inches making a big difference.

People that are keeping undersized fish won't be effected. There should be more effort to enforce current laws. I have seen many a person get just a warning and long speech. I am not saying warnings are not effective but a if fish were guarded like lobsters word would get around.
Rec fisherman should be the last effected in all these matters.

Green Tide wrote:People that are keeping undersized fish won't be effected. There should be more effort to enforce current laws. I have seen many a person get just a warning and long speech. I am not saying warnings are not effective but a if fish were guarded like lobsters word would get around.
Rec fisherman should be the last effected in all these matters.

I also agree with this. They need to be stiffer penalties and more enforcement. How many times have all of us called only to get a noshow. But definitely raise the penalties. It should be $1000 for every inch short.

krash wrote:

Miami_Chris wrote:How about a ban on spear guns and scuba tanks? If you want to shoot a fish, use a sling or pole spear and hold your breath. The amount of fish taken (not just hogfish) would drop dramatically.

That's about a dumb statement.. what they should do is raise the minimum size to something like 16" or bigger.. I see plenty of hook and line and/or spear'd caught Hogs at the cleaning tables and most are barely 12" and way to many are not even that. Some enforcement would help too.

The closing is in Federal Waters, I think.. the closure of Biscayne Park will help also. My buds were out last week off Elliott and could not find a decent sized hogfish to shoot, said there were many many small ones though.

Last week at the Lloyd cleaning table we saw a dude with a bucket full of dolphin that were in the 14-15" size, cleaning away.. when I asked him about the fish he says "no peakie engli"...

Raising the size limit won't help much, a lot people will pretend they didn't know about the new regulations and most likely only received a warning. I do agree that some enforcement would help, I seem to many officers just give verbal warning to many poachers that pretend that they don't speak English or that they are new to fishing and didn't know the regulations.
The officer should at least make a report with the name of the poachers so next time they won't get off with just a warning. I seem too many officers at john Lloyd park give out just a verbal warning to people that was spearfishing snooks,and also to fisherman taking undersized snook.

Maybe make a spearfishing season? Half the year open to spearfishing other half closed

cantseeme47 wrote:

Green Tide wrote:People that are keeping undersized fish won't be effected. There should be more effort to enforce current laws. I have seen many a person get just a warning and long speech. I am not saying warnings are not effective but a if fish were guarded like lobsters word would get around.
Rec fisherman should be the last effected in all these matters.

I also agree with this. They need to be stiffer penalties and more enforcement. How many times have all of us called only to get a noshow. But definitely raise the penalties. It should be $1000 for every inch short.

The penalty should be base on the amount of fish that aren't legal size, and also on the amount of times the person has broken the law. Humans aren't perfect and sometimes they will make mistake so is understandable that in certain occasions officers will educate people instead of just giving out a ticket. At channel 5 i saw a big family that was fishing and one of the lil boys caught a undersized mutton, 20 minutes later an officer riding the bike notice the undersized mutton and he educated the kid about regulations and also talked to the father.

$1000 for every inch short would be kinda retarded. If the penalty is based of the amount of times the person has broken the law and the amount of undersized fish then i think it would be perfect, because most poachers and people that don't care about the law would received a nice ticket, and each time the ticket would get higher

I once witnessed an fwc officer open a guys cooler and he couldn't figure out whether he had a parrotfish or not! Friggin incredible....obviously it was a parrotfish..but he wasn't sure so he let the guy go..oh well...lol

The higher ticket cost per offense and penalty will sure turn them around . I dont have the answer but I would like to start with raising the ridiculous 12 in rule. The perpetual growth stunt if in place is a big issues and a good start will be raising that rule. How you guys dont see that is beyond me.

Just food for thought...Underwater with a speargun them fish do look big- takes aim, shoots the fish. Brings hoggy back to boat, high fives all over the place, only to find out later that that hog (or other fish) is short. that hoggy is only 11.5 inch. Fish now must be toss back dead- or risk that chance of a ticket if found. Hey, sharks have to eat too.

Line and hook-fish caught undersized is set to live again. Hey, Rare what if it's gut hooked, buddy?Good question- Well, I have caught permit, mutton snapper, greys with hooks in them and still living. Again, i say we need to start somewhere-

Line and hook-fish caught undersized is set to live again. Hey, Rare what if it's gut hooked, buddy?Good question- Well, I have caught permit, mutton snapper, greys with hooks in them and still living. Again, i say we need to start somewhere-[/quote]
no to be sarcastic but how do you know they still living after you released them, i mean they could've swam a few yards and then die because of the damaged it suffered after being gut hooked
think about it if you get gut hook pretty bad and they take the hook out of you, but your stomach and insides were tear apart would you be able to guarantee me that you would be fine and live forever happily?

Let me try it this way...I have caught fish with rusty hooks in their gut still living. Someone's else hook not mine....I know there is a hook, line etc cause i cleaned it and into the frying plan

Look very closely at my right foot. (our right since we are looking at the pic) see that stringy thing. That is braid line coming out of the permits anal.



Hook was falling apart after i did the operation and found it.


See my thumb- look closely at the upper section and you will see something silver.


Closer look

There it is-

I only speak of my accounts and what i have found. Even if the ratio is 2:1 for hook in gut...I dont think i can say the same of the spero fish.