Spotted Seatrout Season Opens Monday
North Florida spotted seatrout season reopens March 1
The recreational harvest season for spotted seatrout in North Florida reopens on March 1. This means all Florida waters will be open to the sport harvest of spotted seatrout beginning that day. Spotted seatrout harvest is prohibited in February in Atlantic Ocean waters north of the Flagler-Volusia county line to the Florida-Georgia border and in Gulf of Mexico waters north of a line running due west from the westernmost point of Fred Howard Park Causeway, which is about 1.17 miles south of the Pinellas-Pasco county line, to the Florida-Alabama border. This one-month closure helps maintain spotted seatrout abundance. The maximum daily bag limit for spotted seatrout in the reopened waters north of the established boundaries is 5 fish per person. In waters south of these boundaries, the daily limit is 4 fish per person. The statewide slot limit for spotted seatrout is 15-20 inches total length, but anglers may keep one spotted seatrout larger than 20 inches as part of the daily bag limit. Spotted seatrout may not be harvested by any multiple hooks with live or dead natural bait, and snagging or snatch-hooking spotted seatrout is illegal. Anglers may take spotted seatrout with hook-and-line gear and cast nets and must land the fish in a whole condition.
Surf Report 9/1/09
Pensacola Beach 8:30am: Surf is still flat. Looks like a long flatspell setting in. The Gulf of Mexico has been quiet thus far during this tropical season while the east coast is getting all the tropical surf. We will update if things change.
Surf Report 8/25/09
Pensacola Beach 8:00am: Surf is flat again today. Nothing in the Gulf of Mexico to churn up the summer waters. Looks like more action this week on the East Coast with another storm brewing.
Surf Report 8/15/09
Pensacola Beach 10:25am: Surf is picking up, flat here in the morning but some good tropical flow from the southeast should be bring surf through at least Tuesday morning. Some small storms out there associated with a weak low over the Gulf of Mexico that is not going to be over the water long enough to develop. The Atlantic is about to fire up as the tropical season is about to kick into full gear next week, possibly 3 storms out there by next week.
FWC Asks for Your Help!
FWC asks anglers to help gather reef fish dataBiologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) request angler assistance with a research project focusing on red snapper and other reef fish on Florida’s Gulf Coast. This project will provide fisheries researchers and managers with much of the catch-and-release survival information they need for assessing reef fish stocks.