The Red Snapper Glory Hole

ORANGE BEACH, ALABAMA, ANGLERS ENJOY GREAT RED SNAPPER ACTION BY JOHN E. PHILLIPS

Fifty-years ago, both anglers and biologists considered Alabama a have-not state in the world of red snapper. Today Alabama and the port of Orange Beach, claim the title of Red Snapper Capital of the World.

Dr. Bob Shipp, chairman of the department of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama in Mobile and a member of the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council, says, “With only three percent of the coastline on the Gulf of Mexico, Alabama had anglers who brought in 40 percent of the recreational red snapper caught in the Gulf during 2006 for a 30-day period. A National Marine Fisheries Service survey has found that Alabama produces more red snapper than any other state.”

ALABAMA’S RED SNAPPER PROGRAM HAS GROWN

At the Red Snapper World Championship (RSWC) held at Orange Beach, 11,103 anglers from 41 different states caught 85 red snapper weighing more than 20 pounds each in last year’s 30-day tournament, and took home cash and prizes for their catches. The biggest red snapper taken in the tournament weighed 34 pounds, 5 ounces. When anglers ask what has caused such a tremendous turn-around in the red snapper population off Alabama’s Gulf Coast, fishermen and marine biologists both answer, “Alabama’s artificialreef program.”

“Alabama has between 12,000 and 15,000 public reefs, including 100-decommissioned tanks, “ said Vernon Minton, chief of Alabama’s Marine Resources Division (AMRD). “Liberty ships, bridge rubble off her coast and more than 1,000 reefs per year built by private fishermen and charter-boat captains.” You’ll find the locations and the GPS coordinates of all these public reefs built by the state and the federal government at www.outdooralabama.com/fishing/saltwater/where/artificial-reefs/dgps_coordinates.cfm or by visiting www.outdooralabama.com and searching for the DGPS coordinates.

The news keeps getting better. Of the $5 entry fee that contestants pay for the RSWC, the tournament has donated $50,000 per year from the ticket sales to AMRD for the last four years, and AMRD has matched this $50,000 per year with federal grant money to build 800-new public reefs since the inception of the tournament.

“The locations of all but several of the reefs are published and made available to the general fishing public,” Minton adds. “The reefs’ coordinates that aren’t published are used for scientific research to learn how long after a reef’s deployed before fish populations begin to utilize the reef, how long snapper and other fish stay on that reef, whether snapper on one reef leave and move to other reefs, what effect weather events like hurricanes have on fish populations holding on these reefs, how well these reefs hold up after a major storm event, and whether the reefs only attract fish, or if they actually help to grow a larger population of fish. Each year scientists continue to learn more about the effects of deploying artificial reefs and the fish populations that build up around them.” Due to AMRD’s active role in studying red snapper populations, Alabama not only has become the red snapper- catching capital of the world, but today the state provides much of the information gathered and evaluated about red snapper.We can learn from Minton and Shipp’s ongoing research, and here’s some news you may not know about snapper.

TEN-THOUSAND SNAPPER CAN’T BE WRONG

When storms come, snapper get out of town. Dr. Shipp and his team of researchers have tagged and released more than 10,000 red snapper to study their migration and to learn what effect storm events have on the migration. According to Dr. Shipp, “We’ve learned that most reef species stay on the reefs unless the area has a tropical storm. Whenever a major storm event hits the Gulf Coast, many of these species move dramatically. We don’t know exactly why reef fish move so much during storm events, but possibly their habitats get destroyed, strong currents may sweep them away, or large wave surges may cause them to move.

“Of the more than 10,000 red snapper that we’ve tagged, we’ve had some of our tagged snapper be recaptured as far away as Tampa, Florida, to the southeast, and as far west as the west side of the Mississippi River,” Shipp continued. “Many of the snapper have been caught from Pensacola to Destin, Florida.We’ve learned that red snapper move much farther than we’d realized, and this movement by the fish is definitely storm related.”

Shipp’s research also shows that not all the snapper migrate when a storm event occurs. An angler caught a snapper during the summer of 2005 less than 2 miles from where scientists originally had tagged and released it in 2000. But Shipp’s research indicates that 25 to 50 percent of the snapper population seems to move when a hurricane occurs. Without a storm event, only 5 to 10 percent of the red snapper will move over a significant distance. Shipp’s study has identified a snapper’s home range as 1 to 2 miles.

YOU CAN CATCH BIG RED SNAPPER

These tips gathered from the anglers, charter-boat captains and first mates at the Red Snapper World Championship will help you catch big red snapper.

1. Remember that big red snapper usually become hook and line shy. Using light line and hiding the hook so the snapper can’t see it often will produce more and bigger red snapper.

2. Use big baits for big snapper. Although anglers will catch 20-poundplus snapper on cut bait, often fishermen take more big snapper on whole baits like a butterflied mangrove snapper or a large, live pinfish.

3. Fish with a squid pie. Force a dead cigar minnow inside a whole dead squid. Then hook the squid through the tail, and let the hook pass through the head of the cigar minnow. Use 6 feet of leader line away from your weight, and fish this bait well up off the bottom.

4. Chum snapper up. If you’re fishing from your own boat, sometimes you can bring big red snapper to the surface of clear water by throwing out chum or hanging a chum bag out in the water beside your boat.

5. Catch snapper away from a wreck or reef. In recent years, marine biologists have learned that the bigger snapper usually swim higher in the water, often as much as 20 or 30 feet off the bottom. Instead of letting your bait drop to the bottom, start fishing in the middle column of the water, and then slowly let your bait down. To catch a really big snapper, hook it away from the reef to keep the snapper from breaking your line off in the reef.

6. Keep a deck rod handy. A saltwater spinning rod and reel spooled with 20- to 30- pound-test line and a live bait already attached to the hook can prove the winning combination to catch big red snapper, gray snapper or amberjack. By using spinning tackle, you quickly and easily can cast the live bait to the fish you see.

7. Put out drift lines with no weights to float out behind the boat, and bait with live or dead bait. Often as you bring snapper up from the bottom, big snapper will swim up high in the water, and you can catch them on drift lines.

8. Wait for the second bite. Never set the hook as soon as you feel the bite. In most instances, you’ll miss the snapper because generally a snapper will attack a bait once before it eats the bait. Many anglers in the RSWC fish with circle hooks. When they feel the second bites, they’ll wait for the snapper to tightenup their lines and then start reeling. The design of the circle hook will let the fish set the hook.

Pay attention to these words of advice and you too might take home the red snapper of a lifetime. There’s no better place to find one than Alabama!

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