THE current recreational snapper fishing season in South East waters will close next week with the set allocation of the popular species snapped up by fishers in just six weeks.
After opening on February 1, the the five-month recreational allocation of 1077 snapper has already been reached and will close on Wednesday, March 10 at 11.59pm.
Primary Industries and Regional Development Minister David Basham said following the quick quota catch, daily bag and boat limits will be reduced to three when the fishery reopens on July 1.
“I considered advice from both the Minister’s Recreational Fishing Advisory Council and the Snapper Management Advisory Committee and decided to reduce the daily bag limit to one and daily boat limit to three when it reopens on July 1,” he said.
“This will allow more recreational fishers to share the opportunity to fish for snapper in the South East.
““The snapper fishery will reopen in the South East on July 1 and the recreational fishing allocation will be 862 snapper,” he said.
“The fishery will close on October 31, unless the limit is reached earlier.”
Mr Basham said the overcatch taken between now and next week’s closure will be subtracted from the July to October total allowable catch.
He said this year’s allocation allocation of 1077 snapper was more than double the actual recreational catch from last year.
“Around 3000 snapper tags were distributed for the whole of last year, but only 452 snapper were caught in the South East, and following feedback we moved to this year’s mandatory reporting system for recreational fishers instead,” Mr Basham said.
“We wanted to broaden the experience of catching a snapper in the South East and mandatory reporting via the SA Fishing app has achieved exactly that.
Mandatory reporting will remain unchanged – any snapper catch must be reported via the SA Fishing app or by calling Fishwatch on 1800 065 522.
