If you often fish for reef fishes like snappers, groupers, amberjack, triggerfish and cobia in the U.S. Gulf of America, you’ve probably caught some individuals that you were required to release (i.e., discard) based on fishing regulations. These regulations can include bag limits (the number of fish each angler can keep per day), size limits (minimum, maximum or slot sizes), and/or seasonal closures (prohibition of fishing during certain timeframes, particularly spawning periods) depending on the species at hand.
Although regulations function to reduce fishing-associated mortality and thereby protect fish stocks, they also generate increases in discarded fishes, colloquially called “discards.”
Discards have largely been overlooked
Recreational fisheries effort and catch data are important for fish stock assessments. These data have been documented via the Marine Recreational Information Program’s (MRIP) Fishing Effort Survey (a mail survey) and Access Point Angler Intercept Survey (an in-person survey). Because recreational discards are difficult to quantify, they’ve been largely overlooked in the past. However, acknowledging the significance of recreational discards, MRIP and fishery management agencies are currently exploring and trialing methods for collecting discard data.
Project to quantify discarded fish
On Jan. 1, 2026, NOAA Fisheries and the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission funded a new project, led by Marcus Drymon of Mississippi State University and Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium, titled “The disCARD: A Novel, Hybrid Catch Card for Quantifying Reef Fish Discards Across the United States Gulf of America.” The goal of the project is to collect information about the numbers and species of discarded reef fishes across the U.S. Gulf of America using electronically submitted catch cards.
The catch cards, cleverly termed “disCARDs,” are paper cards that will be distributed to anglers at dockside intercept locations across the five Gulf states by each state’s fishery management agency. The cards will differ somewhat by state because each state chose its most important species for the project. There are five species in total: red snapper, greater amberjack, cobia, gray triggerfish and gag grouper. State agencies will begin distributing cards on May 15.
Anglers will fill out the disCARD while fishing, then take a photo of the completed card and submit the photo via a messaging app of their choice (e.g., SMS, WhatsApp, iMessage). The data from the disCARD will be processed automatically by Bluefin Data’s existing VESL infrastructure and subsequently provided to each Gulf state as well as NOAA Fisheries.
Ultimately, this new hybrid (paper + electronic) approach will increase the efficiency of recreational fisheries data collection processes and enhance the capacity of future stock assessments.
Meet the author
Amanda Jargowsky
Marine Fisheries Specialist
Amanda Jargowsky is a marine fisheries specialist with the MASGC-supported Marine Fisheries Ecology Program at the Mississippi State University Coastal Research and Extension Center. She conducted... Read more
Phone: 443-812-1995
Email: [email protected]