Great Amberjack Count Estimates Far More AJs in the Gulf

Kevin Anson, Director of the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources' (ADCNR) Marine Resources Division (MRD), said the results of the study are promising.

"Over the last ten to twelve years there have been significant changes in Gulf of America greater amberjack size and bag limits, commercial daily trip limits and season lengths, but the fishery just hasn't responded as anticipated," Anson said. "This research may provide managers better information on important biological or behavioral factors that could help with identifying more impactful management options."

Powers said the research team tries to keep its methodology as simple as possible when conducting these abundance studies.

"The way stock assessments are done now is you measure the catch, which is very difficult to do, particularly for the recreational sector." he said. "Then you make a series of assumptions about how big the population has to be to produce that catch.

"My career has focused on an alternative - let's just get out on the water and get more observations and actually count the number of fish at selected sites and randomly selected sites."

Powers said Alabama, through USA and MRD, have pioneered the way the study was conducted.

"Senator (Katie) Britt and Senator (Richard) Shelby before her were intrigued that we had to make so many assumptions and that we just needed to be out there counting fish," Powers said. "We do that with underwater video. The water in the western Gulf is too cloudy, so we use acoustic cameras that use sound. As long as you have a sample size, and you do enough samples in enough different areas, then you can produce the estimate. For example, you take the number of fish on an artificial reef multiplied by the number of artificial reefs, plus the number of amberjack on natural hard bottom multiplied by the amount of natural hard bottom.

"It takes a whole lot of work. Obviously, it's not as simple as that, but I prefer those models because if nobody believes us, we can go back through our videos and recount."

ADCNR Commissioner Chris Blankenship is appreciative of the work of Senator Britt and the Congressional funding support of the research.

"Congressional support was needed to help us find out more about this species," Commissioner Blankenship said. "The information may lead to more access to amberjack for Alabama anglers and throughout the Gulf which would be beneficial to coastal communities."

Powers said the obvious question is how to resolve the differences between the NOAA Fisheries amberjack assessment and the Greater Amberjack Count.

"We have two different numbers, especially in the Gulf, and we're working with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) to try to figure out which parts of each study we can take to produce a better estimate," he said. "This was two years of fieldwork and four years for the total project.

"If we can do these studies on the important species or the economically viable species like red snapper, amberjack and triggerfish, we can get independent estimates and check that with what the stock assessment is telling us."

Powers said greater amberjack is considered a reef fish, but it does travel more than species like red snapper.

"Amberjack are also pretty migratory," he said. "They'll be here (northern Gulf) most of the summer around our reefs. One of the really cool other things we've found is that amberjack in our area will stay on a reef for 30, 60 or 90 days, a long time. On the south Atlantic side, those fish are on a site for three or four days. We also did a lot of tagging to make sure that the south Atlantic and Gulf fish are really different stocks. They may meet up around Key West at certain times of the year, but they are really separate stocks.

"We also found that the fish caught off Alabama and Florida don't get that big, but off Louisiana and Texas, around those oil platforms, they get gigantic. It's not unusual for our colleagues to catch amberjack from 60 to 100 pounds. In our neck of the woods, it's more like 20 to 30 pounds with an occasional big one. I think that is because of less fishing pressure in the western Gulf."

Powers hopes the Gulf Council will come up with a solution to provide some sort of amberjack season in the Gulf for 2026.

"We went over the amount we were supposed to harvest last year, so the season has been delayed, and no season has been set," he said. "We're hoping the Gulf Council will reconsider it, especially when the fishermen are saying they are abundant. I think that's what they're going to look at under an emergency rule."

Visit https://gulfseagrant.org/reef-fish-extension/greater-amberjack-research-program/ for more information about the Greater Amberjack Count, including a copy of the final report.

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