Florida Seafood Season Advisories
- The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announces that the season closes for the harvest, possession and sale of stone crab claws in Florida on May 16. This closure occurs each year to help protect and sustain Florida’s valuable stone crab resource. Stone crab season will reopen on Oct. 15.
Stone crab claws may be possessed and sold during the closed season only if they have been placed in inventory prior to May 16 by a licensed wholesale or retail dealer.
Stone crab traps must be removed from the water within five days after the close of the stone crab season, unless a special extension is granted under certain conditions by the FWC. - The commercial harvest season for spiny lobster in Florida waters closes April 1. The season will reopen as usual on Aug. 6.
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NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service has determined the 520,312-pound commercial run-around gillnet Gulf group king mackerel quota has been met. Therefore, this fishery in the southern Florida west coast subzone is closed, effective 6 a.m. (local time) February 5, 2008, through January 19, 2009.
The king mackerel commercial gillnet fishery in the Gulf of Mexico is closed from 26o19.8’ N. latitude (a line directly west from the Lee/Collier, Florida, county line) to 25o20.4’ N. latitude (a line directly east of the Monroe/Miami-Dade, Florida, county line).
For more information on this closure, please click here. - The new fishing year for the shallow water grouper commercial fishery will also begin January 1, 2008. This fishery did not close during 2007.
- National Marine Fisheries Service has announced the closure of the commercial king mackerel fishery in the Gulf of Mexico’s western zone (U.S./Mexico border to the Alabama/Florida boundary), effective 12:00 noon, local time, November 3, 2007, through June 30, 2008.
