Page 3 - Palm City Spotlight - October '22
P. 3
Palm City Spotlight, Page 3
Treasure Coast Outdoors
Can The Local Golden
Tilefish Population Handle
Commercial Fishing?
By Jim Weix
A number of years ago,
Tom Flynn of Palm City,
introduced me to deep
dropping for golden tilefish.
The next week I bought an
electric reel and an assortment
of weights needed to keep my
bait on the bottom in 600 to
1,200 feet of water. Doug Goethel, of Stuart,
My new typical fishing caught his first tilefish while The author is hooked on
day was to troll until I Tom Flynn (left) and Jimmy McDaniel found the tilefish bite fishing with the author. tilefish.
reached the 800-foot depth, and then try a few deep drops to be good last year.
for tilefish. Since the bag limit is only one per person, quite
often I got my limit, and then resumed trolling for dolphin
and sailfish.
Then a few years ago, I noticed a commercial boat
advertising that you could buy fresh locally caught fish at
the dock, while supplies lasted. Since the middlemen were
being eliminated, the prices were often low compared
to buying fish in the store. The ads on the Internet often
showed his boat with the locally caught fish available
fresh that day.
The pictures of dolphin, snapper, and grouper didn’t
surprise me. What got my attention though was the picture
of what looked like 100 golden tilefish. I’m not anti-
commercial fishing, so I didn’t think much of it.
However, over a relatively short period of time, I noticed
that catching a golden tilefish got harder and harder. My
normal fishing areas seldom produced and so I expanded
my range, with little success.
I mentioned this to another angler and he told me that
he has seen a local commercial fisherman “just hammering
them.” Tilefish live in pods and burrow into the mud, so
they don’t move around much. Overfishing can easily wipe
out a local population.
Which makes me wonder if our local population can
recover after too many are caught in one area. Although
the commercial fishing season for tilefish is closed from
July 6 through Dec. 31, I’m not sure that helps much if the
fish don’t migrate into the areas where the population has
been drastically reduced.
Editor’s note: Jim Weix is an avid hunter, angler,
conservationist, as well as an outdoor writer. Jim is
included in the Wisconsin Waterfowl Association’s Hall of
Fame, for his work in helping restore thousands of acres
of wetlands. Jim is a broker associate with The Keyes
Company. He can be reached at (772) 341-2941 or by
email: jimweix@jimweix.com.
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