Not taking bait

For several reasons, the take of grouper from the gulf is down, just as the fishing fleet is facing higher costs.

By STEPHEN NOHLGREN, Times Staff Writer
Published November 5, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Martha Rial | Times (2006)] Half-pound batter battered fried grouper sandwich at Dockside Dave's in Madeira Beach.

Maybe the adults have thinned out. Maybe they just can't compete with resurgent red snapper. Maybe they disdain hooks because their bellies are gorged with teeming bait fish. Whatever is going on with Gulf of Mexico grouper, there is no disputing that the commercial catch has plummeted.

Through August, fishermen have landed less than 3.5-million pounds of shallow-water grouper - the kind that adorn sandwich buns up and down Florida's West Coast.

Two years ago, the commercial fleet had caught twice as much by August.

"Fishing is so bad," says veteran captain Ed Small. "Christmas isn't going to be as good as last year."

Where 600-pound days used to be common, 300 pounds is now more the norm, Small says. "I'm staying out 10 and 12 days per trip," trying to fill the boat. "I've never had to fish that long."

Restaurant diners may not notice dramatic shortages or skyrocketing prices. Fresh grouper from Mexico, Panama or Brazil can often fill gaps in local supply.

But that's no consolation to the Tampa Bay area's aging fishing fleet, already teetering on insolvency. Several veteran captains have left for Louisiana's oil fields, ferrying workers to offshore rigs in exchange for steady pay, decent hours and health benefits.

Two years ago, federal regulators were so worried about overfishing that they limited commercial grouper catches to 6,000 pounds per trip. At the time, some of the bigger boats were bringing back 15,000 pounds in 10 or 12 days.

These days, captains might stay out 18 days, until their fuel and ice runs out, and struggle to catch 5,000 pounds, says Jack Golden, who owns several commercial boats.

"We cannot keep this up," Golden says. "Higher fuel cost is killing us. Bait has gone up, everything has gone up."

Grouper populations in the gulf are notoriously difficult to monitor. Speculation about the poor catch centers on several theories:

- Reduced fleet: Higher fuel prices, regulatory shutdowns in recent years and now the slower bite are driving many of the best crews out of the business. "I can think of eight people who didn't fish this year," says Bobby Spaeth, who owns a Madeira Beach fish house and dock. "Boats are lying there, with motors broken and no captains. You take the trip limits and $3 fuel, and nobody can make money."

- Natural cycles: Red grouper, which makes up 60 to 70 percent of the catch, must be at least 20 inches long to keep and sell. While mature adults seem in short supply, juveniles are plentiful. "There is a huge stock of fish 18 to 19 inches long," says Mark Nahon, a buyer for TW Wholesale, a Madeira Beach fish house. "Guys are throwing back thousands and thousands of these things. In a year or two years, these are going to be marketable fish."

Gag grouper, the other main species, have been overfished, according to federal scientists. Tight new restrictions will be imposed in 2008. Yet anglers report that bays and estuaries, nature's nurseries, are choked with more juvenile gag than they've seen in years. St. Petersburg lawyer Joseph Saunders, an avid recreational fisherman, says he caught five off his Bayway Isles dock last week. "I get home from work, open a beer, cast a plastic shrimp to see if I can catch a snook. Almost every time, I start catching gags, maybe 10- 12- 14-inches long."

Mature red and gag grouper come and go in waves, says commercial captain Bill Tucker. "Unfortunately, they are both in a down wave right now."

- Resurgent red snapper: Common in the muddy bottom from Texas to Florida's Panhandle, red snapper essentially avoided west-central Florida waters for decades. In the last two or three years, however, they are repopulating like crazy. "Twelve years ago, you didn't catch red snapper; now you can't get away from them. There are billions of them," says charter boat captain Steve Papen. "I have done 17 charters in a row where we got our limits on red snapper in one stop."

Papen subscribes to a widespread theory that a natural gas pipeline laid a decade ago from Louisiana created an artificial reef that snapper followed to Florida. Grouper and snapper cohabitate the same bottom, but snapper swim to the top when hook and bait hit the water.

"Red grouper are the laziest, gag are more aggressive, but snapper are faster than greased lightning. He goes up in the water column and, bam!, he gets you," says Spaeth, the fish house owner. "If you or I were a grouper, we would have to move away or die of hunger."

Unfortunately, commercial fishermen can't keep the tasty snapper they are nailing. Federal regulators recently doled out individual red snapper quotas based on historical catch. Gulf fisherman west of Panama City got the quotas because they always caught the snapper. Tampa Bay fisherman got little or none.

Spaeth says his captains are now hooking 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of red snapper a trip, but must throw them overboard. Worse, snapper are fragile and often die from the catch-and-release trauma.

- Red Tide: Bait fish sometimes show up in droves the year after a bad Red Tide, like the western gulf experienced last year and the year before. Dennis O'Hern, a recreational fishing advocate and diver, theorizes that Red Tide kills off midlevel predators like trout and redfish, while giving faster regenerating bait fish a break for a few years.

When he dives on wrecks and rocky bottom lately, he encounters thick clouds of bait fish, often called white bait. He also sees plenty of satisfied grouper. He has tried returning to the boat to drop a hook and line, but to no avail. "It's not that the fish aren't there, they're just eating all that bait fish," O'Hern says. "They won't hit our frozen baits when they are pigging out on all that white bait."

From the gulf to plate

Here's how much your grouper costs at each step of the process:

Step 1

$3 to $3.60 a pound

Fisherman sells to fish house for about $3 to $3.60 a pound for gutted, whole fish.Step 2

$8 to $9 a pound

Fish house or wholesaler fillets it, which yields 40 to 45 percent meat, depending on the type and size of grouper. That makes the fillet worth about $8 to $9 a pound. The wholesaler tacks on 50 cents to $1 for cost plus profit, then sells to restaurant.Step 3

$10 to $13 for a sandwich

Restaurants, with food costs usually running about 40 percent of price, sells a 5- to 8-ounce sandwich with trimmings for $10 to $13.

[Last modified November 4, 2007, 21:40:11]