Garner and Patterson: Fishing effort, catch, and discard rates of charter boats in the Gulf of Mexico 
163 
baits makes them difficult to avoid when targeting 
other species (Patterson et al., 2012). For red snapper 
catch and number of red snapper discards during the 
months of November and December, Schirripa and Le- 
gault 6 reported declines of 22% and 46%, respectively, 
for mean values from the period of 1993-1997 to the 
year 1998, the first year of the recreational red snap- 
per season closure during those months. They conclud- 
ed that recreational fishermen were able to effectively 
avoid red snapper; however, we suggest that the lower 
discard rate in 1998 for November and December, com- 
pared with the yearly average in 1993-1997, may be 
attributed to seasonal changes in fish behavior or dis- 
tribution rather than to direct avoidance by fishermen. 
In our study, red snapper catch was 61% lower during 
closed seasons than during open seasons, but discards 
declined by only 23% and were not significantly lower 
during closed seasons. 
6 Schirripa, M. J., and C. M. Legault. 1999. Status of the 
red snapper in U.S. waters of the Gulf of Mexico: updated 
through 1998. Southeast Fish. Sci. Cent. Sustainable Fish. 
Div. Contrib. SFD-99/00-75, 86 p. [Available from http:// 
www.sefsc.noaa.gov/publications/.] 
Several reasons exist for the difference between 
this study and that of Schirripa and Legault 6 in the 
reported change in the number of red snapper dis- 
cards for open and closed seasons. First, red snapper 
abundance has increased in the northern GOM since 
the late 1990s; therefore, more fish are available to be 
caught now (SEDAR 5 ). Second, the daily bag limit for 
the recreational fishery has dropped from 5 to 2 fish 
per fisherman per day, increasing the potential for a 
greater number of discards. Lastly, fishermen’s behav- 
ior clearly played a large role in discard rates in our 
study, particularly during open-season trips. The vast 
majority (84.4%) of discards made during open seasons 
were of legal-size fish that were returned to the sea 
because fishermen wanted to catch larger fish to fill 
their daily bag limit. Discard rates during open sea- 
sons would have been substantially lower if each fish- 
erman simply had retained the first 2 legal-size red 
snapper caught and then switched to targeting alterna- 
tive species. 
Targeting and discarding practices increased the dif- 
ference in size and age composition between retained 
and discarded red snapper during open-season trips 
and between open and closed-season trips. The use of 
