SOUTH ATLANTIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL SNAPPER GROUPER ADVISORY PANEL Crowne Plaza Charleston, SC April 24-26, 2019 SUMMARY MINUTES Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel Members James Hull, Jr., Vice Chair Vincent Bonura James Freeman Rusty Hudson David Snyder Jim Atack Randy McKinley Jack Cox, Jr. Robert Freeman Dr. Todd Kellison Robert Lorenz Fentress “Red” Munden Andy Piland Gary Manigault, Sr. Jim Moring Lawton Howard Cameron Sebastian Council Members Jessica McCawley Mel Bell Tim Griner Deirde Warner-Kramer David Whitaker Council Staff Gregg Waugh John Carmichael Dr. Brian Cheuvront Myra Brouwer Julia Byrd Dr. Chip Collier Cierra Graham Dr. Mike Errigo Kim Iverson Kelly Klasnick Cameron Rhodes Christina Wiegand Kathleen Howington Observers and participants attached. Snapper Grouper AP April 24-26, 2019 Charleston, SC The Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel of the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council convened in the Crowne Plaza, Charleston, South Carolina, April 24, 2019, and was called to order by Vice-Chairman Jimmy Hull. MR. HULL: This is the spring 2019 Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel meeting. I will be the chairman of this meeting, and I’m asking every advisory panel member for full participation through questions and comments or concerns throughout the meeting. We have all given up a lot to be here, and we all represent different sectors and gears and stakeholders, and your input is needed badly, and so let’s have eyes open, wide open, and let’s begin. The first item of business is going to be approval of the minutes. The minutes of the last meeting, you have all had an opportunity to read, and is there anyone that would like to change the minutes from the last meeting? No changes? Then we will accept those minutes and move on. Usually, at the beginning of these meetings, we have time for public comment, and so, at this time, I think that we should invite anyone in the audience that would like to submit public comment to come forward and give that comment. I know we have one, I believe. MR. SURRENCY: First of all, my name is Ron Surrency, and I would just like to thank all of you all of you all for giving me the opportunity to drive here today and give you my public comment about my fishery and give you an explanation of who I am and what I do. My name is Ron Surrency, and I have a couple of boats. I’ve got a bandit/dive boat out of Jacksonville, Florida, Mayport, and our main fishery is spearfishing. We bandit fish, and I have been in and out of the shark research fishery and the golden tile fishery, but, when all else fails, I go back to spearfishing, because that’s where I started, and I have seen and learned the best at. I know you all have had some concerns, and we put some topics towards the spearfishing group, and so I wrote a comment, and I would just like to read my comment. After I read it though, I am going to probably stick around all day, or I will definitely stick around all day, and I will probably spend the night and be here tomorrow, and so, if anybody has any kind of questions that I could clear up or give you my opinion on, I would be more than happy to talk to any of you all, and so here it is. Spear and powerhead divers are the smallest user group in the South Atlantic, and they have the lowest bycatch and dead discards, and no discards. We already have commercial trip limits in place for basically every species that are managed in the South Atlantic. The recreational spear fishermen are limited to the same as hook-and-line and charter fishermen. How they choose to catch their grouper or their limit of fish is really their right, and so they’re already under the same limit. The landings, according to Myra’s report, of all snapper grouper species from 2007 to 2017 was about 7.5 million pounds each year, and, out of that 7.5 million pounds, 280,000 pounds, or just under 4 percent, was actually caught by spear. That was back in the heyday, and I’m just going to go off topic just real quick, but that was back in my heyday, and my people -- The people that I looked up to, it was back in their heyday. There was a lot more dive boats out of Florida, especially north Florida, and that was like the biggest area. 2 Snapper Grouper AP April 24-26, 2019 Charleston, SC On the commercial side, that has drastically changed, and I’m basically the only commercial dive boat left in the Mayport area, and I don’t do it full-time. I am not getting any younger, and so I don’t get in the water nothing like -- Come hunting season, I stop, and I haven’t been in the water for going on six months now, and so, the recreational sector, yes, it’s getting a little bit bigger, but, overall, there is so many more people in the water fishing, period, compared to 2019 and what it was back in 2007, that it ain’t like this giant increase of divers versus the overall people that’s out there in general. If we did away with the vertical line fishing, we would have a lot more fish to harvest across-the- board, because the numbers that are driving the stock assessment are uncertainty with dead discards and release mortality, and so it would take all of that out of the equation, which would probably give us a whole lot more fish to harvest. Divers cannot efficiently fish as deep as other user groups. A large part of the grouper habitat is hook-and-line only. Most of the large male gags can be found below 160 foot and beyond. Barotrauma is much worse outside of twenty-seven fathoms, and release mortality is high. Inside of 150 foot, where I dive, over 90 percent, and it’s more like 99.9, of the gags harvested are fifteen to twenty-pound female fish. When I do harvest the male, it’s like a trophy. In that depth or range, I don’t see that many of them. A diver can carefully select the sex and size of each fish harvested. With rigid trip limits firmly established for both the commercial and the recreational sector, the focus of management should be on reducing dead discards and release mortality. Spearfishing and powerhead use are the only gear type that can claim to approach no dead discards and zero release mortality versus huge barotrauma issues on hook-and-line, as well as the major predation problems. Spearfishing is a far cleaner method of harvest, which fits nicely with National Standard 5, conservation and management measures shall, where practicable, consider efficiency in the utilization of fishery resources, and it’s said that no such measure shall have economic allocation as its sole purpose. I don’t know what I just read, but Jason made me write that. The presentation shows that there is no statistical or scientific leg to stand on and any reason to slow or further limit through new management or stop commercial spearfishing. Spearfishing is landing well under the ACL, and it makes up a tiny fraction of the overall commercial harvest of just under 4 percent. Spear fishermen have no representation on the AP panel, and, because our fishery is so clean, it hasn’t really been an issue until the AP panel wants to start sending recommendations to the council based on jealousy, discrimination, and prejudice instead of best available science, and so, due to the lack of representation on the panel, the anti-spearfishing motion should be viewed as biased and taken with a grain of salt. Management should be based on the best available science and not the preference of individuals or the jealousy of a hook-and-line fisherman. If we need to reduce the catch rate to protect a certain species, we don’t need to be attacking the smallest user group in the fishery. Instead, look at the harvest as well as accidentally killing the most, due to high release mortality and dead discards. 3 Snapper Grouper AP April 24-26, 2019 Charleston, SC Then, last, but not least, while we’re all busy hating on divers, there is a new species in town that eats everything and reproduces constantly and is taking over habitat, displacing traditional species like black sea bass and everything else. I say good luck on that in North Carolina, because they really love your habitat up here, and so, to add to that, in my last couple of years of being really active in the lionfish fishery, and the people in the Gulf, the divers in the Gulf, and down through the Keys are crying that they’re not seeing the biomass of that species like they were, and I am thinking that the whole biomass has shifted to the Carolinas, and so that’s all I’ve got to say about that, and thank you, all, for your time. MR. HULL: Thank you, Ron. We appreciate that comment and the information that you’ve given us on your sector and your gear type. I think the next order of business would be to approve the agenda that’s before us. Unless anybody has any concerns about this agenda, I will approve it. Okay. Seeing none, we will move forward.