Purpose


At the September 8, 2016, Commission meeting, the Commission considered changes to rules for mutton snapper that would increase the minimum size limits, reduce the recreational bag limit, establish a year-round Atlantic commercial trip limit, reduce the Atlantic commercial trip limit during the spawning season, and remove the spawning season commercial trip limit in Gulf state waters. One of changes the Commission approved to set the recreational bag limit for mutton snapper to five (5) mutton snapper per day. The Commission also approved a commercial bag limit in Atlantic state waters of 5 mutton snapper per day or five (5) mutton snapper per trip, which is more restrictive. The original Notice of Proposed Rule timely filed in advance of the September Commission meeting states the bag limit for recreational mutton snapper and commercial mutton snapper in Atlantic state waters would be three (3). The Commissioners, however, approved a higher bag limit of five (5). This change was inadvertently omitted by Commission staff when the rule was filed for adoption. Rather than a Notice of Change being submitted to reflect the increase in bag limit from three to five; a Notice of No Change was filed. The end result incorrectly reduced the bag limit from ten all the way to three. The Commission approved bag limit should have been changed to five. Chapter 120, Florida Statutes, provides procedures for correcting errors, however, since a Notice of No Change was filed reflecting the incorrect bag limit and the final language has been published, this unique situation was not contemplated by Chapter 120.