Red Snapper in the Gulf

Last Sunday we went scouting for big kingfish, since there is a king tournament coming up in Freeport, Texas the following week. We knew snapper season was closed to recreational anglers, but figured we’d still catch something to eat, while running all over the Gulf in a center console Contender boat. We found the kingfish, in a narrow band of water beyond what appeared to be a large dead zone of dark water that stretched further offshore than we’d ever seen before. We landed a half dozen big kings, tailed them into the boat, and released them all. No need to hurt them.

After all, there is a health advisory against eating kingfish bigger than about 16 pounds. There is no reason to kill one of these bigger trophy 12-14 year old fish, without a very good reason. (Like first place in a tournament). So, we had fun with these big kings, and even got a couple to skyrocket, jumping 10 or 12 feet in the air. I missed those two photo shots, but I didn’t want to spend half the day peering through a camera viewfinder, waiting for such a picture. Maybe next time…

We also caught red snapper before we found the kingfish. Snapper are plentiful offshore these days, and I dropped a bare jig deep without even bait, and almost had the rod pulled from my hands.

A nice fish…We didn’t weigh it, just deflated it, took pictures, and watched it swim back down. Caught a half dozen snappers before tiring of that game. We talked about how, back in the late 1960s, we could fish all day at one of the few oil rigs we had offshore and never see a snapper bigger than a pound. There were no limits of any kind and the population seemed plundered. At Gaidos’ Restaurant in Galveston, you could order snapper and they served two to the plate. As in very small snapper. 

So, here we were many years later in a much nicer boat, floating over schools of red snapper, both big and small. But we had no fish in the box. We saw no ling (cobia). The barracuda we landed sometimes have ciguatera toxin, so we released them. 

The amberjack appeared to be even further offshore in blue water. And we were too far offshore to find edible pompano or Spanish mackerel. They were back there in the dead zone, so catching fish there was very problematical. A big patch of sargassum weed some 50 miles offshore appeared completely devoid of life. We circled it slowly, looking underneath, and never saw a minnow or crab. Much less a dolphin.

Then, further offshore and later in the day, a commercial snapper boat hove into view, one of only a few boats to be seen on a Sunday. The Chelsea Ann out of Galveston eased up to the platform, and we were impressed how many baited circle hooks were draped up and down the their boat, ready to fish.

They used electric bandit rigs, able to drop almost 20 baited hooks on each line, weighted with a heavy sash weight. And they cranked up a minimum of a dozen snapper on each drop. Lots of action on their part, and no fish released. About a hundred fish hit their deck in the first 20 minutes.

Commercial snapper boats in the Gulf of Mexico now have an individual fishing quota (IFQ) that allows them to catch their quota at any time of year, when the weather is favorable, and while spreading out the catch all year long, when prices are more good. This went into effect in 2006. I’m not sure how many million pounds of snapper they’re allowed, but it can’t be more than a few hundred boats (perhaps far less) Gulf-wide, catching these fish.

The new system of commercial fishing in good weather makes sense, avoiding the insane derby-style fishing at the start of each year, fishing in cold fronts and 15-foot seas like I used to see Captain Buddy Guindon do in Port O’Connor. The Federal rules and regs of the newer commercial IFQ system can be viewed at: 

http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/sf/pdfs/Red%20Snapper%20IFQ%20FAQs%20July%202009.pdf

Apparently there is now no trip limits for commercial boats. They can keep thousands of pounds of snapper from a single spot, which might explain why former honeyholes offshore are sometimes found completely devoid of snapper during the same time of year.

Meanwhile we had to sit there and watch, our fishbox empty. (Beans and rice for dinner). We burned about $300 bucks worth of fuel. We had apparently deflated each snapper we caught, so they could end up in a fish market back in Galveston. Whoops! What’s wrong with that picture? It was a long ride back to port.

Someone mentioned that snapper season may open up again this year, because recreational anglers haven’t caught their quota yet. The BP oil spill closure of a large section of the Gulf kept many boats in port this summer. And of course our snapper season was the shortest in history, less than two months. I’m guessing if the Feds re-open the season again it will be after Labor Day, when many offshore fishermen have turned their attention to hunting or football…   

Papa Joe’s Ashes

My dad always wanted his ashes spread in the Gulf Stream, the big current flowing past Florida that eventually crosses the Atlantic and warms Europe. He wanted his ashes traveling all the way to Ireland, on that current. He had conducted lots of research on sea turtles and their relationship to ocean currents, while working at the University of Miami. His urn and ashes had to wait four years in my living room, but last week we finally got around to making the trip, my siblings arriving from as far away as Colorado. After living in Siberia-like conditions this winter, they were rather pleased with the Florida Keys on a balmy Spring Break weekend in March. Jackie, my brother Matt’s sun-starved daughter from Colorado State, was dressed for Spring Break.

At any rate, Captain Don Clark at Whale Harbor Marina in Islamorada, a good friend, volunteered to take us out on his comfortable charterboat Sea Horse. Though it had been windy or breezy in the Keys for weeks, the wind completely stopped during or three-hour tour. We headed offshore into glassy blue water and perfect conditions. Don has done a number of these ceremonies in the past, after 30 years at the same dock. Once offshore, he positioned his boat so that the ashes would drift away from us, heading north with the current. We didn’t have to worry about the wind blowing dust back into our faces, as sometimes happens during these ceremonies. (As in the movie The Big Lebowski).

It all went well. We dropped 10 small wooden sea turtles into the current, along with red Bougainvillea flowers now blooming in the Keys. Also a few of his orange drift cards, that faithfully follow the current without interference from the wind. Everything drifted off to the northeast, where the current curves around Miami. A northerly breeze later that night pushed the arrangement further into the Gulf Stream, towards Cuba, where they probably picked up speed.

We all sipped from a bottle of Guinness Stout, his favorite beer that had been sitting in the cabinet with his ashes these few years. The beer was way past its prime, of course. The remaining beer went into his beer mug, then into the Atlantic. His favorite engraved ceramic beer mug, stored and used in McGuire’s Pub in Pensacola for so many years, was saved at the last moment; somehow we couldn’t pitch it overboard, down to the reef far below. 

A somber event, but it went well. Captain Don said he hopes his kids can do the same for him in a similar classy style, when his time is due. We returned to port at a leisurely pace, and dockside gawkers and tourists wanted to know where our fish were. At midnight that very night it became St. Paddy’s Day, so well before then we set up chairs under a huge ficus tree behind the motel and between the cars, cranked up the music and sang many an Irish tune. The Jamesons smoothed the way. We sang many a maudlin tune like Fields of Athenry, since the Irish have a colorful and sometimes tormented history. My dad would have liked that one.

Meanwhile, his ashes continue their progress towards Ireland and we will miss him. What was that song by Guy Clark about his dad, called The Randall Knife…

My father died when I was forty
And I couldn’t find a way to cry
Not because I didn’t love him
Not because he didn’t try
I’d cried for every lesser thing
Whiskey, pain and beauty
But he deserved a better tear
And I was not quite ready

So we took his ashes out to sea
And poured `em off the stern
And threw the roses in the wake
Of everything we’d learned
When we got back to the house
They asked me what I wanted
Not the lawbooks not the watch
I need the things he’s haunted