Gonna have to say youre wrong on that goat. The fishery is in good shape, but the real reason is that we have more sharks now, because a big portion of them are no longer legal to take and there has been a huge push in protecting all sharks. Shark fishing is banned on most of the gulf piers and to be honest, I'm surprised that they havent banned shark fishing from the beach too. There used to be literally hundreds of sharks weighed in each year in the Destin fishing rodeo. Very few now. Back in the day, if you were pulling up a fish and a shark hit it, you simply sent the other half back down, hooked up the shark, fought it to the top and then either gaffed it in the gills or shot it in the head and cut the line, waited about 10 min and went back to catching your target species. Now days, taking care of sharks like that is highly frowned upon. We've got more gamefish for sure, but we've also got 100X more boats in the water and way more sharks and porpoises, and they have learned that boats equal fish being reeled up off the bottom and an easy meal, so the problem is compounded. As someone who has lived on the coast his whole life and spent thousands of hours on the water, in cobia/tuna towers, and on the gulf piers, we've always had plenty of sharks, but there are definitely more now than 30 yrs ago. Sharks have always had plenty to eat in the gulf, so it's not the fishery being in decent shape that is causing the larger shark population and problems. With very few now being harvested or killed regularly, the population expands, even inshore. There were always sharks in Choctawhatchee bay but it is now absolutely slap full of bull sharks and blacktips. Pensacola and Mobile bays are the same way.
Last edited by abolt300; 08/03/23 11:21 AM.
