FISH FIGHT
Debate over who can catch red snapper off Texas’ coast creates ‘a really ugly situation’
PORT O’ CONNOR — As the sun climbed toward its apex on a late morning in June, Capt. John Irvine piloted a 54-foot Bertram through a series of rock jetties and toward the white-capped waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Mark Ray, one of Irvine’s passengers, marveled that the day wasn’t a washout as forecasters had predicted.
The boat bobbed through choppy seas and eventually came to a stop about 25 miles offshore. Several boats had already dropped anchor. As the Allman Brothers sang “Ramblin’ Man” on a radio, fishermen hauled red snapper into boats as fast as they could bait hooks and drop lines.
Ray grimaced at the sight of one boat, an 18-foot Majek, getting pushed around by 3- and 4-foot waves. Four men, each with lines in the water, occupied every square inch of the boat, which was more suited for shallower bays.
“That guy has no business being here today,” Ray said. “I’ve been running boats in the Gulf of Mexico for 40 years and knowing what I know about the weather forecast, there’s no way I would have broken the jetties on that boat today. … If a squall pops up, they are done. Just done.”
Still, Ray understood why the fishermen had taken the risk.
Over the past decade, the federal government has drastically reduced the amount of time some anglers have to chase what is arguably the most iconic and economically valuable fish in the Gulf. The restrictions have helped red snapper recover from a low point in the 1980s, when some scientists feared it might be headed to the brink of extinction, but they also created windfalls and disadvantages, inspiring a clash between recreational and commercial fishermen.
This year, recreational anglers were initially given only 72 hours, the shortest season on record.
Joe Terry, top, gets help as he brings in a red snapper on June 3 in the Gulf of Mexico. Buddy Guindon, left, is the star of “Big Fish, Texas.”
They see the rules as an all-out assault on their right to a public resource, and even as the season was unfolding, they were arguing for more time.
Commercial fishermen in the Gulf have year-round access to red snapper in federal waters under a strictly regulated quota system.
The conflict between fishermen has triggered several lawsuits and intense lobbying of government officials to come up with a new management plan for red snapper. Doing so likely would mean rewriting the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the benchmark 1976 law governing fishing in federal waters.
Both sides agree that the current system doesn’t work for recreational fishermen. But how it’s ultimately fixed — and how red snapper is allocated between the two groups — is the subject of intense debate.
“It’s a really ugly situation where there are a lot of people who stand to make a lot of money fighting like cats and dogs,” said Greg Stunz, director of the Center for Sportfish Science and Conservation at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies in Corpus Christi.
Coastal communities across five states depend on the $10 billion-a-year fishing industry. That includes boat dealers, bait and tackle shops and marinas.
Randy Hudson, who owns the Port O’ Connor Fishing Center, estimates he will lose about $50,000 as a result of this year’s three-day red snapper season.
“This isn’t farming,” he said. “We can’t rely on subsidies to keep us afloat if we have a bad year. If people don’t come in to buy bait, or fuel, or ice, that’s it for me.”
On a gray morning in May, Buddy Guindon and his sons Hans and Chris threaded gelatinous chunks of squid through a series of about a dozen hooks that they then dropped from the stern of his boat, the Hull Raiser, anchored about 50 miles offshore.
Within minutes, they caught a dozen 8- to -10-pound red snapper, which fetch about $8 a pound at the family’s fish house, Katie’s Seafood Market. An hour later, the Guindons had landed almost 400 pounds of red snapper.
“As you can see today, our catch was high and our effort was low,” Guindon said as he and Hans worked quickly to pack the fish in ice.
Guindon is arguably one of the most influential commercial fishermen in the United States. He is the star of National Geographic’s reality series “Big Fish, Texas” and one of the founding members of the Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders Alliance, a group of about 70 commercial fishermen.
In 2014, Guindon was the lead plaintiff of a lawsuit against the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that compelled the agency to force snapper recreational fishermen to stay within catch limits because they had gone over in previous years.
Since then, it’s not uncommon for recreational fishermen to approach him on the water and hurl obscenities before speeding away. Thanks to his television appearances and his signature look — a grizzled long beard and ever-present baseball cap advertising the Shareholders Alliance — Guindon is easy to spot.
“You know when someone doesn’t want you to know what he’s doing, he points the finger at another guy?” Guindon asked. “Well, I’m that other guy. But I’ll do what it takes to protect my family and my family business.”
Under the quota system, Guindon has the right to about 5 percent, or a little over 300,000 pounds, of red snapper each year. That allocation, made in 2007, is the largest in the Gulf of Mexico and was a calculation based on historical catch rates.
Critics argue that the system has made Guindon and a few other “sea lords” rich, while penalizing commercial fishermen with smaller fleets and fewer resources.
“I’m not entitled to anything,” Guindon said of his quota. “I have a job catching fish, and I love my job. I know a lot of people would like to take my job away from me. But we’ll see how that goes.”
Guindon and his sons arrived back at Katie’s by 5:30 p.m., giving his employees plenty of time to prepare the fish for market. Outside, hungry pelicans waited for scraps while Hans and Chris shoveled the snapper out of coolers.
Katie’s employees wearing yellow aprons quickly cleaned and dressed the fish, as others sprayed down the gut-splattered concrete floor.
A couple looking for something to throw on the grill for dinner perused the day’s fresh catch — red snapper, grouper and vermillion snapper — all nestled in ice next to a cash register. Meanwhile, Guindon trudged up a wooden staircase to his office.
It’s not really a second floor as much as it is a perch, where Guindon can survey the business that he and his brother, Kenny, spent decades building.
Katie’s Seafood sells not only to the public but also to Louisiana Foods/Sysco, which sells to H-E-B and Central Market, bringing in millions each year. The merchandise is drawn from Guindon’s fleet of roughly 20 boats, about half capable of staying out in the Gulf for weeks at a time.
When the quota system first went into effect, more than 500 commercial fishermen were given allotments known as “catch shares.”
In exchange, the fishermen agreed to regulations, such as: using fish tags, installing GPS trackers on their boats so the Coast Guard can monitor them, and declaring arrival and departure times, which makes them more susceptible to inspection by law enforcement authorities.
Shareholders have the opportunity to buy and sell shares as they see fit, so they essentially control whether new commercial fishermen enter the marketplace.
Guindon initially voted against catch shares.
He favored the old rules — a fishing “derby” that allowed fishermen to catch an unlimited amount. But fishermen often would chance bad weather, as they could fish only a few days each month. They also dumped fish on the market at the same time, creating a glut and driving down prices. Prior to the quotas, red snapper was fetching less
than a dollar per pound.
“It opened up the market,” Guindon said. “We had 365 days a year instead of 70. We used to watch the price of imported fish skyrocket out of reason. That was depressing as hell.”
By reducing the number of commercial fishermen allowed to catch fish in federal waters and spreading out their efforts over the course of the year, the red snapper population started to rebound, federal studies show.
That’s the primary reason the system has received support from environmental groups, notably the Environmental Defense Fund.
EDF has donated to Guindon’s group, the Shareholders Alliance, and sees catch shares as a sustainable way to manage fisheries, especially overfished populations like red snapper.
“Now you have guys like Buddy who are supporting naturally sustainable caught seafood,” said Robert Jones, director of EDF’s Gulf of Mexico program. “There’s a lot less incentive for any commercial fishermen to highgrade.”
“Highgrading” is when a fisherman throws a fish back in favor of a bigger catch. The practice almost always kills the fish, harming the population.
Indeed, Guindon said the quota system has transformed him from a pirate into a steward of the Gulf.
He said most people are benefiting from the way it works.
“There are cases where people aren’t doing better, but they haven’t done anything to improve their condition,” he said.
For days leading up to this year’s 72-hour window, Alan Starling checked the weather forecast. Heavy rain, rain and some rain. He flirted with the idea of loading up his boat from its slip in Flower Mound and heading down to Matagorda Bay anyway.
In the end, he decided not to go, drawing the line at predicted 2-foot waves. His boat could probably handle getting tossed around a bit, but he worried about his kids.
“I’m just not going to do that. It’s not safe,” he said.
Across the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of recreational fishermen like Starling are opting to sit out federal red snapper season.
Sometimes, they are hampered by the weather. Early June is always dicey in Texas. More often, it’s the expense.
Tommy Nolan, owner of Texas Sports Fishing and Yacht Sales in League City, said customers used to hesitate to buy boats because they were worried about the oil and gas industry recovering from the slump. Now, they worry about whether they will be allowed to fish for red snapper in the future.
“They’re not spending the money,” Nolan said. “These marinas need people to show up on the weekends and get excited about fishing again.”
By law, the National Marine Fisheries Service is required to prevent overfishing and rebuild fish stocks once depleted.
The details of such plans are formulated by eight regional councils.
In 2014, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council made the controversial decision to split the recreational sector into two groups: private fishermen and charter-for-hire vessels.
Charter boats, which can charge recreational fishermen more than $1,200 for a daylong offshore excursion, were granted a 49-day season for 2017.
That decision, as well as the reduced federal season and tighter bag limits, has made recreational fishermen feel disenfranchised, said Ted Venker with the Coastal Conservation Association, a national advocacy group.
“We submit hundreds and hundreds of comments on red snapper plans, but it still feels like we have no place,” he said.
Thomas Hilton, a recreational fisherman from Arcola, sees parallels in the feuds between private ranchers and the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights on public lands in the West.
“You know what makes a great analogy? The federal highway system, which is a public resource that every American has a right to,” he said. “But to show you how ridiculous this is, imagine that owners of private vehicles only have access to federal highways for one to three days a year. But if they want more, they can pay a taxi driver to drive them around for 49 days. Owners of commercial trucks have access 365 days a year. That’s nuts, right?”
Federal officials contend that recreational fishermen are not being shortchanged.
In fact, those fishermen are now catching about three times the amount of fish they caught in 2007. In 17 out of the past 22 years, recreational fishermen have gone over their catch limits.
At least they think that’s what’s happened.
Texas and Louisiana generally survey fishermen at the dock to get a count. Alabama, Mississippi and Florida utilize a federal system that relies on dockside surveys and surveys mailed to licensed saltwater fishermen. That has generated more accurate estimates but wildly deviates from state counts.
For example, in 2014, that system estimated that recreational fishermen in Alabama caught 1.2 million pounds of red snapper. Alabama officials said the amount was 455,522 pounds. That same year, the federal system determined that recreational fishermen in Mississippi didn’t catch any red snapper.
“Really, the problem here is the feds have no idea how many fish the recreational anglers are landing and how much effort they are expending,” said Stunz of the Harte Institute, who is a member of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. “A lot of us believe that there should be a lot more opportunities for recreational fishermen, and the first step in doing that is getting the numbers right.”
Federal and state fishery managers say one of the more promising solutions to getting an accurate count may be iSnapper, a phone app developed a few years ago by the Institute and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The app allows anglers to quickly report how many fish they caught, how long it took them and the size of the fish.
But the tension over snapper management has led to mistrust among fishermen.
A reporter for the Houston Chronicle observed fishermen in Port O’ Connor berating a volunteer from Harte who was trying to encourage the use of iSnapper.
The fishermen believed cooperation would count against them during the next federal season.
Likewise, a Chronicle photographer observed fishermen lying about their catch to Texas Parks and Wildlife employees conducting surveys.
“That’s one of the sad things about this whole 72-hour season,” said Hudson of the Port O’ Connor Fishing Center. “It’s made outlaws out of people who would normally tell the truth.”
On a Monday night in mid-June, Robin Reichers sat in front of 100 angry fisherman.
Reichers, the head of Texas Parks and Wildlife’s coastal fisheries division, was tasked with leading a discussion about the 2017 red snapper season.
One after the other, fishermen ambled up to the podium at a Galveston County extension service building, several clad in baseball caps, Magellan shirts and the tan lines of men who rarely take off their sunglasses.
“Who in here believes anything the (Gulf ) Council does is going to screw us?” asked one man.
Most of the fishermen in the room raised their hands.
Reichers did his best to explain the development that had materialized less than 48 hours after the federal season drew to a close on June 3.
The U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees the National Marine Fisheries Service, had offered to extend the season by 39 days if the states would effectively close state waters to snapper fishing after Labor Day.
This was great news for fishermen, especially those in Texas and Louisiana who had bad weather to contend with during the first two days of this year’s federal season. But it also would likely mean that the recreational sector again would exceed its allocation, jeopardizing future federal seasons.
Reichers acknowledged that possibility.
“This will not solve the longterm problem, and they are going to have to deal with it going forward,” he said.
A few days later, the extension was approved, though officials with the Labor Department confirmed what had been predicted: Such an extension would cause the recreational sector to “substantially” exceed its catch, possibly delaying the projected recovery of the snapper population by six years, to 2038.
It’s unclear what will happen next. On July 17, the Ocean Conservancy and Environmental Defense Fund sued Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service over the extension, arguing the move jeopardizes the future of the red snapper population.
There also appears to be momentum behind legislation that ultimately would hand red snapper management over to the states, though the legal complexity of such a move is no small matter.
Some Houston-area recreational fishermen have recently formed a nonprofit to continue to push for the federal government to relax its rules on red snapper.
Hilton is one of the organizers. He worries that other sports fish in the Gulf ultimately will be managed like red snapper if recreational fishermen don’t stand together now.
“It’s like a boa constrictor wrapping around you,” he said of current federal management. “You exhale and it tightens up a little more. Once they start taking this resource from us, they’re never going to give it back.”