Mission Statement

Gulf Fishermen's Association (GFA) is a Florida, not-for-profit corporation dedicated to ensuring the fishing future for all fishermen. GFA is made up of primarily commercial fishermen who are concerned about their industry and their future. 

The Gulf Fishermen’s Association has been promoting science based fishery management now for over 15 years, A small group of fishermen in the Eastern Gulf started this organization to get involved with the fishery management when it looked like the fishery was crashing and stocks were going down.

We were going from a year round fishery to three month closures with the inshore grouper and six month closures for the deep water grouper. The snapper fishery was already limited to only being open to the first ten days of the month for six months (60 days) which didn’t really matter to the fishermen in Florida because the snapper disappeared from here years ago. As quotas went down limiting fishermen, the pressure went up for a fisherman to catch as much as he could as quick as he could before the next closure. This caused a Derby fishery affect, fishermen were all competing against one another to catch as much as they could as quick as they could flooding the markets and having to freeze a lot of fish. Fish quality declined and we weren’t getting paid very much for the fish we were landing.

We helped develop and promote a new fishery management plan called an Individual Fishing Quota. ( IFQ). When this plan went into effect fishermen were allotted their own quota based on their history of landings. Those fishermen who were more dependent on certain species got larger allocations of those species.

In this type of management fishermen do not have to compete with their fellow fisherman, they have their own allotment of fish to catch at a pace that works best for them and the market conditions over the entire year. The derby went away, we could fish when we wanted to, and avoided market gluts. We also wasted less fish – we threw a lot of fish overboard during the derby, now we could keep them and sell them under a quota system.

This type of fishery management plan has worked very well, we report all of our landings in real time, fishing quotas based on science and conservation, we never go over our quota, we have fewer discards, and we fish year round supplying consumers fresh seafood. Snapper is abundant in the Eastern Gulf again and we have a year-round fishery with the IFQ management plan

As good as this fishery management plan is we are always having to defend it, there are anti commercial fishing groups constantly lobbying against not only the IFQ but commercial fishing. In reality the recreational fishery has grown from 3% about 20 years ago to 18% 2022 (50 million). Fishing technology has gotten better, outboards have gotten larger and there are now recreational boats with three 350-horsepower motors that can fish farther offshore than ever before. Recreational effort has skyrocketed and many of us are concerned that this fishery is taking more fish out of the ocean than what’s considered sustainable., The non fishing public (about 300 million) of Americans depends on commercial fishermen to get there fresh domestic seafood, and people who fish for a hobby are now impacting my business that supplies American seafood consumers with fresh, sustainable, protein.

Over the years we have Joined and aligned with other organizations , The Gulf of Mexico Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance www.shareholdersalliance.org who has taken the lead in defending science based management and the IFQ along with Southern Offshore Fishermen’s Association, the Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen’s Association. ,Southeastern Fisheries Association and others. Some of these organizations are also members of national fisheries coalitions that work with commercial fishermen from the Gulf of Mexico to Maine to Alaska, like the Seafood Harvesters of America and Fishing Communities Coalition.

As we all send the same messages to our fishery managers we get stronger with one voice whether it’s at the federal level or the individual gulf states level. (Science based management, sustainability, and accountability)

Our fresh seafood products go to restaurants, retail markets and grocery stores all across the USA creating access to fresh domestic seafood to all American citizens

Sincerely, Glen Brooks 
brooks3glen@yahoo.com