It’s like déjà vu all over again.” This quote attributed to New York Yankees legend Yogi Berra could easily apply to US management of red snapper for recreational anglers.
Back in 2017, anglers in the then Gulf of Mexico were flummoxed when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a recreational red snapper season that was cut to just three days. It was baffling. From the dark days of near population collapse in the 1990s, through decades of closures and stingy regulations, NOAA’s own data finally indicated red snapper were recovering much faster than anyone expected.
Anecdotally, the Gulf red snapper population was booming. Charter captains and private anglers throughout the Gulf reported an inability to get baited hooks through clouds of red snapper to target other fish on the reefs. And therein lay the problem. Because there were so many fish, anglers were catching the quota faster.
NOAA, required by law to act on “the best available data,” was forced to use a heavy hand to stick to its rebuilding plan, which was not yet met as it pertained to the population’s age structure. The accuracy of that data and the effectiveness of NOAA’s data collection was—and still is—a subject of heated debate, but the authority of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 gave NOAA an anchor to stubbornly hold the line and all but ban recreational red snapper fishing.
Then the house of cards came crashing down. State fisheries management agencies of the Gulf, their politicians and recreational fishing advocates like the Coastal Conservation Association and the American Sportfishing Association
entered the fray with renewed vigor. They shouted a battle cry for “common sense management,” because existing management might have been legally mandated, but it didn’t make any sense at all.
After the feds and states struck a deal to extend 2017 harvest dates, momentum toward state management snowballed. Through exempted fishing permits (EFPs) that allowed pilot programs, the states developed their own data collection methods under NOAA oversight. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Texas were eventually granted management authority for recreational red snapper fishing in 2020.
Although there’s still bickering about how to calibrate state and independent statistics into NOAA’s historic data collection program, Gulf states proved they can effectively collect (likely more accurate) recreational data. They can manage the fishery with greater agility and increase angler access to a sustainable resource. Recreational anglers are happier, and so is the Gulf recreational fishing industry, which is responsible for more than $11 billion in annual expenditures.
Fast Forward to 2025
NOAA once again told fishermen they can’t harvest red snapper, ironically because there are too many red snapper, this time in the South Atlantic, off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Seriously. That’s the logic. After 15 years of severely limited harvest allowances, the red snapper population is booming… and that’s why we can’t fish for them?
“Everybody is saying record abundance, because that’s what the data is showing us,” said Martha Guyas, southeast fisheries policy director for the American Sportfishing Association. “And that certainly matches up with what fishermen are seeing on the water. It’s like they’re walking on red snapper out there.”
Great news, right? Not so fast. In the summer of 2024, based again on highly suspect data, NOAA said too many fishermen were catching and releasing too many red snapper. Despite regulations for circle hooks and descending devices, those released fish were supposedly dying at such a rate that the recreational sector used up almost all of its total annual catch limit (ACL) without even having a season. With an ACL of 509,000 fish, NOAA’s models predicted dead discards of 475,000 fish, allowing just 6.7 percent of the total ACL to be harvested.
In its benevolence, NOAA granted the recreational sector a measly two days of red snapper harvest in the South Atlantic in 2025, but only after proposing—ahem,
threatening—a three-month bottomfishing ban off the coast of northeast Florida that would have extended the season a few more days.
Florida had a better idea. If so many fish are dying after release, why not find a way for anglers to keep a few fish instead of forcing them to feed sharks? The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) was granted EFPs that allowed select private anglers and charter captains to harvest red snapper so scientists could study strategies to reduce discards of snapper and grouper species.
Those studies began in the summer of 2024. As FWC was about to release preliminary results from the first year of the two-year study, the South Atlantic states apparently decided they’d had enough of NOAA’s obstinance.
The Path Forward
In early November of 2025, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the submission of an EFP request for a 39-day South Atlantic red snapper season to US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.
Florida’s South Atlantic season would mirror the path taken in the newly rebranded Gulf of America. According to pundits, Lutnick, an administrator appointed by President Donald Trump, would surely and quickly approve a proposal to bring economic gain to coastal communities. But the measure would have to pass through NOAA’s hands first.
Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina quickly followed suit, requesting their own EFPs with varied season lengths, limits and structures that allow red snapper harvest to study data-collection and the potential for eventual state management of the fishery.
Read Next: Bottom-Fishing Tackle Built for Snapper Season
An interesting element in those exempted fishing permit requests is the argument that the data NOAA uses to manage the South Atlantic red snapper fishery is ridiculously flawed by NOAA’s own standards. State-level scientists cried foul over the continual and admitted use of imprecise data to manage recreational fisheries.
At press time, the exempted fishing permit requests were being presented to NOAA’s regional administrative body, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council. By the time you read this, we are hopefully well on our way to a significant 2026 summer red snapper season in the South Atlantic and eventual state management of recreational red snapper fishing.
The silver lining of having to battle through the same process all over again, is state agencies in the South Atlantic have a game plan that draws on lessons learned in the Gulf.
