Barracuda Blues II

Just finished up the story for The Drake on barracuda in the Keys. Long story short, Cuda are getting hammered by commercial fisherman largely because there are no regulations on commercial harvesting.

“A lot of them shipped to Miami, the tropics and some of them go up north,” Keys guide Doug Kilpatrick said. “There’s no telling if they’re sold for fish sticks in a restaurant at the o’doeuvre bar or what they’re actually sold for. They are a white-meat fish and actually not a bad eating fish. They’re actually very good.”

What’s happened is the spear fishermen as well as the commercial fishermen are going out to the areas where these fish spawn in the spring and summer,” Kilpatrick said. “Then they come into the flats in the winter. All these fish that they’re spearing or catching on hook and line are basically sexually mature fish that are (going to spawn) in deeper water. We’ve seen a significant decline on the flats over the past 10 years. There’s NOOA data where $1.2 million pounds have been taken in the last 10 years.”