Question kind of off the subject for Wes and any of you coastal dwellers. I talked about my fishing excursion last week and one thing that was strange were the seasons and limits for certain fish. It's late June and grouper is out of season? Just 2 snapper per person? Year before last, I was fishing for snapper on the last day of the season in September but this year, I understand the season goes out in mid July. The Captain said there's' no rhyme or reason to it and every change seems to be geared more and more towards helping the commercial guys squeezing out the charter industry. Is this the case and why would you not want to help what I believe is one of the big attractions to the coast for tourism?
Supposedly, these schedule and limit modifications are driven by fish populations, and the fish populations are getting decimated by the commercial boats. When I was younger, none of these controls were in existence. You caught what you could, and you kept what you wanted. We would literally fill garbage bags with snook and snapper, especially when bridge fishing down in the Keys. Over-fishing wasn't a problem back then.