FWC presents Charlotte Harbor plan to manage spotted seatrout regionally; seagrass loss and red tide cited

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) staff presented a proposed regional management approach for spotted seatrout and solicited public feedback at a Charlotte County workshop. Kaylee Spurgeon, a regional biologist with FWC's Division of Marine Fisheries Management, led the presentation and described a plan to divide Florida into nine management regions, evaluate each region annually using six metrics, and bring proposed rule changes to the commission in November 2025.

The proposal would apply the same “holistic” management framework previously used for snook and redfish. Spurgeon said the six metrics are spawning potential ratio (SPR), harmful algal blooms (HABs), stakeholder feedback, fishing effort and landings, habitat trends (notably seagrass), and relative abundance. She told the room that “SPR is determined at a stock wide level and it's not appropriate to assess at a smaller regional scale,” and that the last statewide stock assessment (2024) showed the Gulf stock exceeding the management target of 35% SPR.

FWC staff emphasized that local conditions can differ from stockwide results. Spurgeon noted localized factors — including how often people fish, environmental conditions, fish behavior and distribution, and harmful algal blooms —…