Recreational red snapper anglers across the South Atlantic have been dealt a last-minute setback, with the expanded 2026 seasons they had been promised halted by a federal court before a single permit fish could be landed. The reversal was laid out by Bill Hitchcock on his YouTube show the Saltwater Report. "Recreational fishing under the new exempted fishing permits, including North Carolina's planned season, is no longer authorized," he told viewers, framing it as the biggest story on the coast.
What has been suspended is a notably more generous arrangement than anglers are used to. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had signed off on a system of exempted fishing permits letting Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina run expanded recreational red snapper seasons in federal waters. Florida's was set at 39 days; Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina were each granted 62 days, with some seasons due to start as early as May 22.
That timeline collapsed when the framework was taken to court. A lawsuit lodged in the US District Court in Washington, DC, brought by the Southeastern Fisheries Association alongside commercial fishing businesses and individual fishermen, named Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the National Marine Fisheries Service as defendants.
At issue was the way the permits redistributed access. The plaintiffs contended, according to a press release cited in the report, that the seasons could push recreational landings beyond annual catch limits, risk overfishing, and tilt red snapper allocations toward the recreational sector without going through the normal fishery management process.
The court found grounds to hit pause. On May 21 a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, a procedural step rather than a verdict, that immediately stopped activity under the permits while the litigation continues. Hitchcock summed up the upshot in plain terms. "Bottom line: recreational red snapper fishing remains closed," he said.
The sting is sharpened by history. South Atlantic red snapper anglers have endured years of ultra-short federal seasons, sometimes a single weekend, even as scientists call the stock healthy. The exempted-permit route had been seen as the breakthrough that would finally deliver long, usable seasons, so an injunction landing on its eve is a bitter outcome for fishermen who had already cleared their calendars.
The immediate reality is straightforward, if unwelcome: across all four states, the expanded recreational red snapper seasons under the exempted fishing permits are not running, and the species cannot be targeted recreationally in federal waters under that framework while the case is live. Because only a preliminary injunction has been granted, the fate of the 2026 seasons will hinge on how the lawsuit ultimately plays out.