The harvest of snook on the Florida Gulf Coast, including the Keys and Everglades, will be closed for one more year. The state’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission voted five-to-one for the closure on Thursday. The season will re-open on the east coast on September 1, as scheduled.
Staff recommended that the season re-open on the Gulf Coast as well, after a two-and-a-half year closure following 2010′s cold-kill, but commissioners preferred caution. “If we have a bad winter this year, we will benefit from this caution,” commissioner Kenneth Wright said. “If we don’t have a bad winter, we will let all these breeding fish come through the slot. We’ll really have done something good and we’ll have protected some of these fish.”
