News_10_X_SeatroutReopen
News Release
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Media contact: Lee Schlesinger, 850-487-0554
The recreational harvest season for spotted
seatrout in North Florida reopens on March 1. This means all
Florida waters will be open to the sport harvest of spotted
seatrout beginning that day.
Spotted seatrout harvest is prohibited in February
in Atlantic Ocean waters north of the Flagler-Volusia county line
to the Florida-Georgia border and in Gulf of Mexico waters north of
a line running due west from the westernmost point of Fred Howard
Park Causeway, which is about 1.17 miles south of the
Pinellas-Pasco county line, to the Florida-Alabama border.
This one-month closure helps maintain spotted seatrout
abundance.
The maximum daily bag limit for spotted seatrout in
the reopened waters north of the established boundaries is 5 fish
per person. In waters south of these boundaries, the daily
limit is 4 fish per person.
The statewide slot limit for spotted seatrout is
15-20 inches total length, but anglers may keep one spotted
seatrout larger than 20 inches as part of the daily bag limit.
Spotted seatrout may not be harvested by any
multiple hooks with live or dead natural bait, and snagging or
snatch-hooking spotted seatrout is illegal. Anglers may take
spotted seatrout with hook-and-line gear and cast nets and must
land the fish in a whole condition.
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