The forecast is hot for state’s offshore anglers
The “high season” for Texas’ year-round offshore fishing unofficially began a little more than a month ago with a Memorial Day holiday weekend quickly followed by the June 1 opening of recreational red snapper season in federal waters, back-to-back benchmarks triggering anglers’ interest in the always-an-adventure that is fishing the open Gulf.
But July is when offshore action traditionally really heats up, fueled by what usually are increasingly longer stretches of lighter winds and calmer seas, the arrival of fresh waves of migratory pelagic fish such as king mackerel, cobia and dorado, as well as the opening of commercial shrimping season in the Gulf, all combining to benefit anglers. And this July shapes up to follow that welcomed tradition.
Not that this June wasn’t a good month for Texas’ offshore anglers. It was. At least it was for many of the anglers targeting red snapper. Truth is, it may have been too good. Texas anglers’ landings of red snapper over the first weeks of this season are significantly ahead of what they were a year ago, and if that pace continues, it could result in an earlier-than-projected closure of federal waters off Texas to fishing for this most popular of reef fish.
Texas anglers headed into this summer looking at what could be the longest federal-waters snapper season in more than a decade. Earlier this year, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced it projected the snapper season for anglers in private boats in federal waters off Texas would run 97 days, June 1 through Sept. 5. That’s a tad more than two weeks longer than 2018’s 82-day season and the longest since 2007.
The longer season is a result of a change in how snapper harvest by privateboat recreational anglers is managed. Instead of a one-size-fits-all federalwaters season set by federal fisheries authorities, as had been in place for two decades and resulted in snapper seasons as brief as nine days, each Gulf state has since 2018 been allowed to set private-boat recreational snapper season off their coast.
Each state is allocated a portion of the overall annual quota of snapper allowed to be taken and is responsible for monitoring landings, reporting them to federal officials and closing the season when that allocation is reached.
This past year, the first for this “state management” approach, TPWD set an 82-day snapper season for private boats fishing in federal waters. (Texas allows year-round recreational fishing for red snapper in state-controlled Gulf waters – those within 9 nautical miles of the coast.) State fisheries managers based that season length on creel surveys and other data used to estimate how long it would take anglers to land the annual allocation. They estimated conservatively to avoid exceeding the federal allocation, and it worked. Texas anglers in 2018 landed just 75.5 percent of the state’s red snapper allocation.
This year, with an increase in the annual red snapper allocation, TPWD officials lengthened the projected snapper season by 15 days.
Calm and collected
June usually is an “iffy” month for offshore fishing. Most Junes see windy conditions along the Texas coast, making for rough seas and uncomfortable, even dangerous, boating for most recreational vessels. “Fishable” days are rare and almost never come on weekends, when most anglers have a chance to make an offshore run. So, snapper landings – and landings of other offshore species – usually is modest or moderate during the month.
That was not the case this June. June 1, opening day of snapper season in federal waters, fell on a Saturday. And instead of being plagued by the usual blustery conditions and rough seas, Opening Weekend and much of the first half of June saw light winds, calm seas. Texas anglers responded.
“Anglers got a sweetheart deal as far as weather conditions,” Lance Robinson, deputy director of TPWD’s coastal fisheries division, said of early June. “They took advantage of it. They caught a lot of fish.”
Through the first two weeks of June, Texas anglers fishing from private boats landed a little more than 50,000 pounds of red snapper, Robinson said TPWD creel surveys indicated. That tally, combined with the 21,500 pounds of snapper landed from state waters between Jan.1 and May 31, put Texas’ total right at 72,000 pounds through June 14. That tally is just over 27 percent of Texas privateboat recreational anglers’ quota of 265,090 pounds for 2019.
That landing rate is significantly higher than what anglers took in 2018. This past year, it was almost mid-July until Texas anglers landed that percentage of what was a smaller annual quota.
“Last year, we had landed 29 percent of the allocation on July 13,” Robinson said.
Landing estimates based on TPWD creel surveys are compiled and reported to federal fisheries officials in two-week increments, and the estimates for the second half of June haven’t been completed, Robinson said.
Stormier weather and rougher seas the final two weeks of June almost certainly slowed what had been a very fast start to snapper season.
“I expect landings to be down for that period,” Robinson said. But even with light landings the last half of June, Texas anglers enter July having taken a considerably larger percentage of the annual quota than at the same time a year ago.
That 50,000 pounds of snapper landed the first two weeks of June is significantly higher than any two-week period in 2018. And that 2018 peak of 39,000 pounds came in the last half of July, underscoring how the month typically sees some of the highest fishing pressure and landings by Texas offshore anglers.
If snapper landings exceed projections and Texas anglers are on a track to reach TPWD’s target for the federal-waters season before Sept. 5, TPWD will be obligated to close the season earlier than projected.
“It’s something we’re going to be watching very closely,” Robinson said of snapper landings.
Any earlier than the projected closure of the red snapper season in federal waters would not affect Texas’ year-round snapper season, he added.
The opening of another “fishing” season this month is certain to help Texas offshore anglers; it always does.
Texas is the only Gulf state to close its offshore waters to commercial shrimping for a period each late-spring and earlysummer. The closure is designed to allow juvenile brown shrimp that migrated from coastal bays to offshore waters during spring to grow to maturity and spawn before being subject to harvest. Federal fisheries managers also close federal waters off Texas to shrimping during this period, which usually begins May 15.
The offshore shrimping season reopens this month. That opening is set for no later than July 15 but could be a few days earlier if TPWD surveys indicate the brown shrimp crop is mature enough. But bet on the opening to be July 15.
That opening sees scores of commercial shrimping vessels, many from out of state, pour into waters off Texas to take advantage of the shrimping opportunities. And those shrimp boats can be a boon to offshore anglers.
Gulf shrimpers typically pull their nets at night, when shrimp are closer to the surface. They usually anchor around daylight and cull their catch, shoveling the bycatch – small fish and other non-shrimp marine species – over the side. This creates a feast for fish and can draw swarms of predator fish — king mackerel, Spanish mackerel, dorado, ling, sharks, snapper, bonito and other species — to the anchored vessels.
Anglers who locate anchored shrimpers and fish around them can plug into some incredible action, often hitting several anchored shrimpers over the course of a morning.
Too, fishing around other structure in the Gulf – natural lumps and rock and ridges as well as artificial structure such as oil/ gas platforms, wrecks and mand-made “reefs” – can get as hot as a broiling July day. Summer draws pelagic migrant fish such as kings and dorado and ling to Texas waters and pulls them closer to shore than during the rest of the year.
And, as the past month has shown, red snapper, which are not highly migratory and typically are “resident” fish, have seen their numbers explode over the past several years, a result of more than two decades of conservative fisheries management aimed at rebuilding what had been a very depleted stock. Currently, as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of the red snapper biomass in the entire Gulf of Mexico fins off Texas.
Snapping up snapper
Most offshore anglers heading into the Gulf this month will find collecting a limit of snapper (two per day with a 16-inch minimum in federal waters; four per day with a 15-inch minimum if fishing exclusively in Texas waters) almost a sure thing. And if they hit the right anchored shrimper, drift a live hardtail around a platform or a wreck patrolled by the silver torpedoes that are king mackerel or find a patch of sargassum holding schools of dorado and maybe a few tripletail and a ling or two, they can have a world-class day of fishing.
Such a hot July of offshore action almost certainly kicks into high gear over coming days. The July Fourth holiday and the weekend nearest it traditionally see some large numbers of anglers heading offshore if weather and sea conditions are good. And they look good. Forecasts are for light winds and seas running less than 3 feet through the coming weekend. It should be a great start to what can be the best month for Texas offshore anglers.