Saturday, April 4, 2009

Permit, tarpon and bonefish are the Triple Crown of Florida Keys backcountry fishing. Of the three, only permit are edible and found offshore, making them most at risk for overfishing.

Permit, which can weigh as much as 50 pounds, are known as fighters. While Keys guides catch and release the fish, not all spear and offshore fishermen are as conservation-minded.

State officials are considering a ban that would prohibit spearfishing and limit hook-and-line fishing for permit. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission will review and discuss such changes to recreational and commercial permit fishing rules at a meeting in Tallahassee April 15 and 16.

The state already prohibits permit spearfishing in state waters, but there are no federal rules that regulate permit fishing in federal waters, the commission discovered about a year ago. Absent of federal rules, the state can enforce its own fishing regulations in adjoining federal waters, spokesman Lee Schlesinger said.

The proposed ban is being prompted by complaints that spearfishermen and some hook-and-line fishermen are fishing at wrecks and towers where the fish congregate and targeting them during their spawning season, which runs from March to August with a peak in May, June and July.

"There has been several issues that have come up in the past several years," Schlesinger said. "It's just time to take a look at this. We are basically asking the commission if they want us to look into the issue and come back with them with some proposals."

After hearing a report from a state marine biologist, the commission is expected to decide whether to have more public meetings statewide, Schlesinger said. The commission took public comment in Key West in December, but took no action.

Permit, which typically summer off North and Central Florida, are year-round residents in South Florida. Because permit are considered one of the top catch-and-release fish, backcountry guides are regularly booked to catch them off the Key West flats. Offshore sport charter-boat captains also do a healthy business of catching them with crabs on artificial reefs, a favorite hiding place.

The introduction of GPS has made them even easier to hunt.

"Artificial reefs have changed their habitat and their behavior," said commercial diver and spear fisherman Don DeMaria, who has hunted fish underwater for the past four decades. "We have artificially aggregated this fish ... . We have created habitat for them and told people where to go and hunt them."

Some spearfishermen have begun to lobby the state not to approve the ban, saying permit are not overfished in state or federal waters, as evidenced by the fact that they are not listed on endangered species lists. Tony Grogan, executive director of the Spearfishing Industry Alliance based in North Palm Beach, has said spearfishing's effect on the permit fishery "is insignificant compared to hook-and- line."

There is not enough information about permit to conduct a formal stock assessment, according to a report by state biologist Jessica McCawley. The fishery, however, is stable and has been so on both coasts since 1996, according to her 2008 Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute report. The commission has measured fluctuations in permit, finding lower levels on both coasts from 2001 through 2003, an increase through 2005, and another decrease in 2006 and 2007, McCawley wrote.

In response to increasing reports of large charter fishing boats targeting spawning permit, the commission in 2005 imposed a per-vessel limit of two pompano or permit larger than 20 inches.

In 1996, the commission had imposed a 10- to 20-inch slot limit and a 10-fish bag limit for permit and pompano combined, with a single fish allowed over 20 inches. The rule designates permit as a restricted species, banning commercial spearfishing and allowing harvest by hook-and-line only.

tohara@keysnews.com