The three-mile line: why one red snapper season split in two

If you fished for red snapper off Florida’s Atlantic coast this season, whether you had a season at all came down to one number: three.

Three nautical miles. The line where state water ends and federal water begins. This year it turned into the most consequential boundary in Florida fishing — and most of the coverage got it wrong.

What actually happened

The state had lined up a real Atlantic red snapper season — 39 days, a massive jump from the two-day federal seasons anglers had gotten used to. Then, one day before the Memorial Day opener, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction that pulled the permits the state was relying on.

Here’s the part that got reported sloppy: the state did not defy the court. The injunction only reaches federal water — from three nautical miles out to two hundred. Inside three miles is state water, and the court order doesn’t touch it.

So the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission pulled its emergency order and let people keep fishing snapper inside the three-mile line under the standard rule — two fish per person, twenty-inch minimum. Outside three miles, the fishery stayed closed. The appeal is underway.

What it means for you

If your spots are nearshore, inside that line, you had a season. If you run offshore past it, you didn’t — by court order, decided the day before the opener. Same fish, same week. The only variable that mattered was how far out you fish.

And the contrast that stings: over in the Gulf, the for-hire red snapper season is open 147 days this year — 19 days longer than last year. One coast expanding, the other frozen, the same species swimming under both. That’s not a fishing story anymore. It’s a map-and-a-calendar story.

The takeaway

Know exactly where the three-mile line sits relative to the spots you run. This season it was the difference between a legal box of snapper and an empty cooler. Until the appeal resolves, that line is the rule.

This post accompanies the episode Electric boats land in South Florida, and the three-mile line that decided red snapper. Sources are linked on the episode page.