Terry Gibson
Senior Editor
A life-long fly and light tackle angler, Terry has served in a number of field and in-house editorial capacities for highly respected fishing publications, including Saltwater Fly Fishing, Shallow Water Angler, Florida Sportsman and Outdoor life. He also has contributed to leading fishing, hunting, surfing and dive publications since the late 1990s. Terry has fished abroad in seven countries plus the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, and in more than 40 states. As a multi-lingual journalist covering the issues, or as an advocated working them, he has engaged in conservation issues in more than 20 countries, including the frontlines of water-management, habitat and fisheries management issues in the U.S. Beyond guiding editorial content and feature writing, Terry will write Fly & Light Tackle Angler’s STEWARDSHIP column.
I just read the commentary that was offered by Dr. Bob Shipp about the upcoming recreational red snapper season. Dr. Shipp is not telling the whole story. What Dr. Shipp is failing to acknowledge is that the large number of snapper we are seeing now are derived almost exclusively from the strong 2004-2006 year classes that soon will be aging out the fishery, that is of course if we don't fish them so hard that too few make to age 10 or so when they become less vulnerable to the fishery. In fact, if the Gulf Council would recognize this and take measures to protect these year classes, this would go a long ways towards rebuilding the age structure of the population, thus hastening recovery. In my more that 20 years of experience with Gulf fisheries management I have seen fishers go through this 3 times now. Recall that following the strong year classes in 1989-1990, and again in 1999-2000, allowable catches were ratcheted up as these year classes moved into and through the fishery. In both cases catches were increased to >9 million pounds, after which catches fell, as did bag limits and allowable catches. It is always much more difficult when we have to ratchet down the catches, as we will inevitably have to do again in 3 or 4 years. It seems as if we should have learned to deal with the problems associated with strongly year-class dominated fish species, but alas it appears we will never learn. I would also point out to Dr. Shipp that in the most recent Status of Stocks Report to Congress by NMFS published this year lists Gulf red snapper as being overfished and that over fishing is occurring.
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