The eyewitness account stunned state wildlife officers: a 3-foot-high stack of grouper, piled as far as a football field, on a Georgetown dock. Commercial spear fishing was stripping clean artificial reefs that were meant for recreational fishing, anglers claimed.
Two years later, after The Post and Courier’s 2009 report of the alleged abuses, a federal law has been put on the books to restrict to tight recreational bag limits the commercial harvest and possession of sought-after fish on more than 50 artificial reefs offshore.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service law was requested to stop “commercial exploitation of our artificial reefs,” said Robert Boyles, deputy director for the Marine Resources Division at S.C. Department of Natural Resources.
One of the anglers who initially complained isn’t satisfied.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said recreational fisherman and charter boat Capt. Eric Heiden, of Georgetown. But he opposes allowing any commercial harvest on reefs that were created for recreational anglers and paid by their fees. “It’s still fewer fish for recreational fishermen. I don’t feel any recreational reef should be allowed to have fish harvested for sale. Period.”
Enforcement remains a problem. State wildlife officers are the only patrolling presence offshore enforcing fishing laws; the patrols are paid for by federal funds that have been cut back. Dock inspections are hit and miss, both anglers and regulators have said.
“Manpower is always an issue,” said Maj. Chisolm Frampton of DNR law enforcement. But he’s confident that DNR can work with federal agencies for the funds and assistance to get the job done.
The “special management zone” reef law restricts the catch of prized snapper-grouper species and migratory fish, such as wahoo and tuna.
State officials sought the restriction when angling groups protested the reported 2009 harvest of thousands of pounds of grouper by two Florida-based boats. The boats’ owner conceded then that the crews harvested a lot of fish, but said he didn’t think they were taking so many that other anglers were deprived.
Any regulatory fix was ticklish, because the offshore reefs belong to the state but the waters are governed by federal regulation. Recreational divers and anglers are limited to a bag limit that is usually only a few of each species. Commercial divers had no limits except for large federal quotas. When state officials said they wanted to hold everybody to the recreational limits, federal regulators frankly conceded they had never tried anything like that.
By Bo Petersen
bpetersen@postandcourier.com
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