Even though the ban has been repealed, charter fishermen say it's too late: The financial damage has been done in the peak season.
By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published November 18, 2005
A federal judge late last month repealed the November and December ban on recreational grouper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Sport fishermen all over Florida cheered the ruling. Then they started to assess what already had been lost.
Charter captains on the North Suncoast say this is better than nothing. But the damage has been done.
"I didn't have any trips at all" in November and December, said Frank Bourgeois, who runs Always Fishing Guide Service. "Now I've got some."
Bourgeois is from Rhode Island and has been a full-time charter captain based in Hernando County since 1991. He lives in Spring Hill and heads out of Hernando Beach and into the gulf. The peak season is the last two months of the calendar year.
Last November?
He did 20 trips.
This November?
Two so far.
"We would not have had any business," said Dan Ebbecke, owner of the Thunder Party Boat, a charter company also out of Hernando Beach. "None. Zero. Zip."
And some is better than none.
"But the thing of it is, people already decided not to come to Florida on vacation," Bourgeois said last week. "The hurt has already been done."
On Wednesday, the five-state Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council imposed a monthlong grouper ban, beyond 9 miles offshore, from Feb. 15 to March 15 - the peak spawning time for red grouper - that probably will not go into effect before 2007.
For charter fishermen, though, the latest court ruling means very little in the here and now.
What matters is this: "I'm not booked like I should be this time of year," said Ky Lewis of Reputation Charters in Yankeetown. "Everybody's waiting till January to go fishing."
The initial restriction was set back in July. The National Marine Fisheries Service called for a grouper ban in November and December in federal waters, meaning at least 9 miles offshore, in an effort to slow the depletion of the grouper stock.
It came after the 2004 season took a hit from the four hurricanes that slammed into the state. Red Tide hurt the industry this past summer.
"Everything about my business has depended on Mother Nature," Bourgeois said back in August. "Except for now. Now the feds are sticking their nose in.
"The hotels are going to lose. Wal-Mart's going to lose. Restaurants are going to lose.
"How many people are going to lose?"
"This is going to hurt everybody," Redington Beach fishing guide Craig Lahr told the Times when the ban first was announced in July. ". . . A closure will devastate the industry. This will impact boat sales, tackle sales, everything."
"I got people who were already booked, and I had to cancel," Angling Adventures charter captain Steve Soults said in August at his home in Spring Hill. "It's already taking business away from us."
November and December, after all, are the busiest, most lucrative months of any charter captain's year. The weather gets cold up North and stays warm down here, the snowbirds and vacationers start to show up, and the grouper-getting is good. Bourgeois estimates he can bring in up to a third of his annual income just in this 60-day span.
"Nobody's getting rich in this deal," Bayrunner Charters captain Tim Burke said in August in Spring Hill, "and when you take the peak season out of it . . . ."
"Those are the months I have to rely on to make it through," Bourgeois said.
So now they are back.
Judge John E. Steele in U.S. District Court in Fort Myers made sure of that.
"It's going to help us a bunch," Burke said. "Without the repeal, we'd probably be out of business. It's like a Christmas gift."
And better late than never.
"It'll probably be December before I really start going good again," Lewis said. "The phone's starting to ring now."
"The fish are out there, so that's a good thing," Bourgeois said. "People are happy. But it's going to take some time to catch up."
"It will come back," Thunder's Ebbecke said. "But it certainly won't be what it would have been. We took a shot."
