Page 166 - South Mississippi Living - June, 2018

SPORTS & OUTDOORS 1 fish, 2 fish, red fish
166 SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living • June 2018 FOR MORE REFLECTIONS OF THE GULF COAST >> www.smliving.net
story and photos by Frank Wilem
ay 25th marked the opening day for pearl bellies, a slang name for red snapper. My family loves
fishing for red snapper and at least the female members of my family are quite good at it.
A few years ago, the crew of our boat Vixen was catching nice fish in the 8-10 pound range when my daughter, Brittany, hooked up with a much larger fish, over 24 pounds. Britt was thrilled to land the “fish of the day,” but on the trip home, she became even more excited.
were granted at such times, the fishing season topic has been the source of hot debate between angry anglers and state
A quick check of the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) world record book showed that Brittany’s red snapper not only broke the female junior angler world record but the adult women’s 30-pound class record as well! Not bad for a 12-year-old girl, but it got even better. She had broken the same record that her mother, DeeDee, had set four years earlier with a fish nearly twice the size.
and federal fisheries representatives.
We submitted a sample of the 30-pound test line to IGFA for testing but it broke at 10 percent over line class which caused her to be bumped up to the next higher 50-pound line class but she still broke that line class record! And this was after fishing the inaugural IGFA Junior Angler World Championship held in Key West at the age of eight when she caught a world record 35-pound king mackerel.
Under a mandatory reporting program called “Tails N’ Scales,” anglers must obtain a trip number and are required to report their catches within 24 hours. These catches are tallied and compared against Mississippi’s annual quota of 137,949 pounds. If necessary, the season may be closed from July 9-22 to ensure that our quota is not met before Labor Day.
A decade or more ago, the snapper season extended for months. But over the past few
years, anglers have been frustrated with the short seasons which often times were interrupted by tropical storms or hurricanes. While extensions
The Tails N’ Scales program has an app which is available through iTunes and Google Play.
But now under
a pilot program
authorized by the
Gulf of Mexico Fishery
Management Council,
five Gulf States, including
Mississippi, will be allowed to manage their own recreational red snapper harvest for the next
two years. This means the 2018 season is now projected to run through September 3, Labor Day. Of course, it’s not quite that simple.
DeeDee holds on to her catch, a world record breaking red snapper.