Outdoors column: Goldfinch Jr. continuing family tradition of diving, fishing

Having grown up on the Garden City point, the peninsula on the beach side of Murrells Inlet, Stephen Goldfinch Jr. was immersed in saltwater at an early age.

Growing up in a family with an affinity for diving and spearfishing, Goldfinch’s first diving experience came at the age of 5, when he helped his father, Steve, at the 10-Mile Reef.

“I still remember him letting go of me to stick a flounder in the square holes of the barge,” Goldfinch said.

Goldfinch, now 32, has since gone on approximately 5,000 dives on the ledges and artificial reefs off the South Carolina coast, including over 1,000 on deep-water locations in depths of over 130 feet.

Clearly, diving and spearfishing is a tradition that runs deep in the Goldfinch family.

His now-deceased grandparents, Mac and Maribel Goldfinch, took part in family dive outings at over 80 years of age and his deceased uncle, Will Goldfinch, is memorialized by a brass angel hidden among the wreckage on the Goldfinch Reef, located about 20 miles offshore in 60 feet of water between Murrells Inlet and Georgetown.

There is a plaque on the reef site dedicating it to Maribel and Will Goldfinch.

Aside from his diving exploits, Goldfinch is an experienced offshore fisherman, both trolling and bottom fishing. Goldfinch is familiar with the status of the numerous species of fish, both pelagic and reef fish, found off the coast from perspectives above and below the waves.

With such a background, it was a natural fit that Goldfinch would keep his finger on the pulse of issues affecting the marine fisheries found off the Palmetto State coast when he was elected in 2012 to the South Carolina House of Representatives from District 108, a Republican representing coastal areas of Georgetown and Charleston counties.

“Unfortunately, I’m truly one of the only saltwater fishermen in the General Assembly,” Goldfinch said. “Obviously, there are a few that dabble in it here and there, but no one is nearly as involved or as passionate about it as I am.”

In his short legislative career, Goldfinch has already been at the forefront of legislation that enabled South Carolina to take control of black sea bass fishery laws in state waters and has been involved in General Assembly resolutions against proposals to establish more Marine Protected Areas off South Carolina and vessel monitoring systems. He also sponsored a bill that placed a limit of 50 fish per day on any combination of spot, whiting and croaker, which was approved and put into effect in June, 2014.

The latest issue Goldfinch is taking to task is the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Snapper Grouper Amendment 36.

The amendment is designed to identify important areas of spawning habitat for snapper grouper species, including deep-water speckled hind and warsaw grouper, that can be designated for protection to enhance spawning and increase recruitment by closing snapper-grouper fishing, or bottom fishing, in those areas.

One of the 11 candidate spawning sites from North Carolina to Key West, Fla., under consideration for a Special Management Zones (SMZ) is the Georgetown Hole, located about 55 miles southeast of the Winyah Bay jetties.

Trolling would be unaffected as the spawning SMZs would only consider prohibiting fishing for snapper-grouper species.

There are four sub-alternatives for closed Spawning SMZs in the Georgetown Hole area ranging in size from one to 15.2 square miles. The council could also decide to take no action.

Goldfinch and other opponents of the proposal are quick to point out there are already 700 square miles of Marine Protected Areas, which prohibit snapper-grouper fishing, in the South Atlantic region including 170 square miles off South Carolina.

There are also nearly 24,000 square miles of existing deep-water coral Habitat Areas of Particular Concern in the South Atlantic region in which bottom fishing is restricted by prohibitions on anchoring and bottom longlines.

Shallow-water species of grouper also cannot be harvested each year from January through April, meaning that for one-third of the year virtually no grouper fishing takes place in the South Atlantic.

Furthermore, since the MPAs were established in 2009 there has been no plan to evaluate the effect the closed areas have had on the population of snapper-grouper species.

“Until the SAFMC and NOAA can properly assess spawning activity and other fishery biological information within the existing MPAs, it’s wrong and unfair to fishermen and fishing communities to close more fishing areas without solid justification,” Goldfinch said.

Instead, Goldfinch points to a pair of artificial reefs off the South Carolina coast that have received very little publicity as a blueprint for boosting snapper grouper stocks.

Areas 51 and 53 are a pair of small artificial reefs that were established by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to test the feasibility of using such reefs as MPAs.

“These two areas have had tremendous success, and spawning for the affected fisheries is happening at rates much higher than anticipated,” Goldfinch said. “This is the model we should be using for protection of spawning habitat.

“The total cost to the state for these two areas was less than $500,000. In comparison, the federal government has spent over $100 million establishing MPA’s, which are natural hard bottoms, already in existence. Nothing new was created and only current fishing grounds were closed.”

In short, Goldfinch feels the answer to boosting spawning potential and thus increasing snapper grouper stocks is creating new structure in the form of artificial reefs to be designated as MPAs in strategic locations where the bottom is flat and sandy.

“The state should be actively establishing and protecting small but important spawning habitat areas,” Goldfinch said. “If five, 10, 15 years from now we have an abundance of South Carolina marine protected areas, the federal government will have little ability and little rationale for closing additional waters.”

This story was originally published September 11, 2015 at 4:24 PM with the headline "Outdoors column: Goldfinch Jr. continuing family tradition of diving, fishing."