Florida Shuts Down the Big Three of Inshore Fishing

Florida Shuts Down the Big Three of Inshore Fishing on SW Coast

Florida snook fishing shut down


Snook are no longer on the menu starting May 11 and continuing for more than a year in Southwest Florida due to a shutdown by FWC. (Frank Sargeant Photo)
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) made a pre-emptive strike on restoration of inshore fish on the state’s southwest coast devastated by red tide–and shocked many anglers–by moving to shut down all harvest of the Big Three of Florida fishing, snook, redfish and spotted sea trout. The closure, which begins May 11 this year and continues until May 31 of 2020 as it now stands, will likely have a significant financial impact on guides, bait shops, fishing-oriented resorts and tackle and kayak and boat sales to say nothing of individual recreational anglers–but will be very good for the fish.

It won’t be the first time one of the state’s premiere fisheries has been shut down to allow recovery–in 2010 after a massive winter kill of snook, the commission shut down all take for almost three years.

Millions of adult fish were killed in the most recent red tide, which extended from November 2017 to early 2019, 15 horrendous months. Countless tens of millions more fry-size fish as well as the bait all gamefish feed on were also wiped out.

While some estuarine areas where the tide did not reach remain very good–or even better than before in a few places because the noxious water pushed fish off the coast and well up the bays to escape–others like Sarasota Bay, a narrow bay with three inlets direct to the beach, had a devastating complete kill. Beaches and residential canals were littered with tons of rotting fish, and spending a day on the beach became impossible–many beachfront hotels all but shuttered their doors as thousands canceled vacations.

Rotting fish not only wiped out anglers’ hopes but also decimated the beachfront resort business during the extended red tide. (Photo credit FWC)

The red tide finally dissipated as mysteriously as it came, in February this year. The state still has no cure and perhaps never will, though the new conservation-oriented Republican governor Ron DeSantis has appointed a commission and created a department to attack the problem along with blue green algae, a separate issue mostly affecting fresh water but also a major issue in the Indian River Lagoon near Jensen Beach in recent years. (Why there are not more Republican’s tapping into the conservationist/boater/angler/outdoorsman vote these days is a mystery well worth exploring.)

The closure will extend from the Pasco-Hernando county line near Tarpon Springs south (including all waters of Tampa Bay) through Gordon Pass in Collier County, just south of Naples.

The area traditionally has been the heart of snook country in Florida. Redfish and trout were already down when the red tide struck, some think from overharvest as a result of Florida’s booming population of inshore anglers, guides and kayak fishers. There have also been some water quality issues, particularly on Tampa Bay, where the city of St. Petersburg has had several massive sewage spills in recent years. (In general, though, 40 years of conservation efforts on the bay have brought steady improvement in clarity and consequently in the amount of sea grass, a mark of a healthy estuary–until the disastrous red tide struck.)

There’s no question that a complete shutdown will go a long way towards rapidly restoring these important fisheries–the extended snook closure of 2010 to 2013 produced the best snook fishing seen in decades immediately after, and the effect is still obvious, with anglers outside the red tide zones routinely catching and releasing 40 to 50 linesiders in a day when fishing with live sardines.

FWC has been working with partners including Coastal Conservation Association Florida, Duke Energy and Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium to raise and release red drum and snook into southwest Florida waters to help address red tide impacts–a popular move with anglers.

Restocking of juvenile fish may help kick start some areas, but research indicates the best solution for recovery is a healthy stock of natural spawners. (Photo credit FWC)

However, past efforts with limited stockings have shown very small returns relative to the cost–most released fingerlings wind up as chum for larger fish. Nature functioning the way it should is the best cure, by far, and shutting down the harvest to allow spawners to survive is the quickest way to recovery.

For those who enjoy eating fresh fish they’ve caught themselves, there are still plenty of targets; flounder and pompano from spring through fall, sheepshead and mangrove snapper–two of the best tasting fish in the sea–in cooler months. Off the beaches, there are Spanish and kings, and on the reefs adult mangrove snapper, yellowtail snapper, red and black grouper and of course red snapper, which seem to be doing exceptionally well these days as a result of very tight management for several years.

It’s going to be a trying year for many who depend on the inshore fishery for their livelihood. Though many guides have already gone to very limited harvest just to protect their own turf, a complete shutdown will surely cause some customers who would have chartered them to choose something else to do during their Florida visit, or perhaps to head to northwest Florida for a charter, where the fisheries remain open.

The good news is that barring another visit from Karenia brevis and related nasties, anglers are likely to see some exciting fishing when the closure comes to an end next year, and hopefully a strong year class of spawning fish may mean even better fishing ahead.

The Surprising Story of Swordfish

The Surprising Story of Swordfish You May Not Know
From NOAA Fisheries
from The Fishing Wire

Today’s North Atlantic swordfish stock is fully rebuilt and maintaining above-target population levels. But there’s work to be done to ensure management measures better support the fishing industry.

Swordfish in the depths


Swordfish. Credit: Shutterstock/Joe Flynn.
Today’s North Atlantic swordfish population is a great fishery rebuilding story.

Twenty years ago, this predatory fish was in trouble. Their population had dropped to 65 percent of the target level. This means there weren’t enough North Atlantic swordfish in the water to maintain their population in the face of fishing by the many countries who share the resource.

Fast forward to 2009 and the international commission that manages species like swordfish declared the Northern Atlantic stock fully rebuilt. That announcement came a year ahead of the 2010 target date set in the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna’s (ICCAT) 10-year rebuilding plan.

“If it’s U.S.-harvested swordfish, consumers can feel confident it’s a smart seafood choice,” said Rick Pearson, NOAA Fisheries fishery management specialist. “We should reward our sustainable stewardship practices at the seafood counter.”


Rebuilding an Important Population
Efforts to restore a dwindling population of North Atlantic swordfish date back to 1985 when NOAA Fisheries implemented the first U.S. Atlantic Swordfish Fishery Management Plan. This plan reduced the harvest of small swordfish, set permitting and monitoring requirements, and launched scientific research on the swordfish stock. Minimum size limits and enforcement processes came shortly after when ICCAT issued its first recommendation on swordfish in 1990.

Despite these and other management strategies implemented over the next eight years, the stock continued to suffer. By the late 1990s, the average weight of swordfish caught in U.S. waters had fallen to 90 pounds, a drop from the 250-pound average fishermen enjoyed in the 1960s. This was in part because the population decline meant fishermen were catching younger fish.

What ultimately reversed their downward course was the broad suite of actions built up by the beginning of the 21st century.

“There is no one measure that could have brought this population back from the decline,” said Pearson. “Sustainable fishery management requires a comprehensive science-based approach that considers the biological needs of the fish population, the health of fisheries, the fishing industry, and coastal communities.”

In the United States today:

A limited number of vessels can target swordfish commercially with longline gear.

All fishermen must abide by minimum size limits, and many must also abide by retention limits.

Closures prevent pelagic longline fishing in waters with historically high levels of bycatch species, including undersized swordfish.

Satellite tracking systems are mandatory on some vessels that target swordfish.

The use of circle hooks is required in commercial fisheries to increase the survival of sea turtles and other animals caught accidentally.

Commercial fishermen must attend workshops where they learn to properly handle and release bycatch, including undersized swordfish.

Observer programs provide fishery scientists and managers with needed data.

Leading the International Community
Some of these measures can be traced back to the ICCAT rebuilding plan, but many are the result of U.S.-led efforts to protect swordfish, reduce bycatch of other species, and sustainably manage fisheries that interact with swordfish.

Pearson and others also point to the key role the U.S. commercial fishing industry played in helping to establish these domestic efforts and supporting greater international collaboration.

“The United States led the charge internationally to adopt measures to recover North Atlantic swordfish,” said Christopher Rogers, director of International Fisheries. “We pressed our international partners to adopt measures U.S. fishermen were already practicing, such as catch limits, minimum sizes, recording and reducing dead discards, and appropriate observer coverage. Strong U.S. leadership helped ensure the international community shared the burden for rebuilding this iconic species.”

Support for a Valuable U.S. Fishery
In the decade since ICCAT first declared that North Atlantic swordfish are not being overfished, the United States has seen a fall in its total annual catch. In 2017, U.S. fishermen caught just 14 percent of the total swordfish catch reported to ICCAT.

There are several reasons for this decline, says Pearson, including rising fuel prices, an aging commercial fleet, and competition from often lower-quality imported frozen products.

To help more U.S. fishermen take advantage of our national ICCAT-allotted quota, NOAA Fisheries has made several changes in the last decade to commercial and recreational restrictions, such as:

Removing vessel size and horsepower restrictions on pelagic longline permits.

Increasing retention limits on some permits.

Launching a hand gear permit, allowing fishermen to participate in the fishery without spending more to buy a longline permit from another vessel.

Making it easier for fishermen to get and renew permits.

But there is more work to be done to ensure our regulatory program is effective in both maintaining swordfish populations and supporting the fishing industry. We are currently examiningwhether some area-based and gear management measures that affect swordfish fisheries could be modified in light of the success of a program that has reduced bluefin tuna bycatch.

“The U.S. fishery management process is a dynamic process,” said Pearson. “Protecting the North Atlantic swordfish population from overfishing while ensuring fishing opportunities for our recreational and commercial fishermen requires the best available science and responsive management.”

Planting A Garden

The flooding rain Good Friday caused a lot of problems and delayed those that like to plant their gardens. Folklore around here says Good Friday is the time to plant tomatoes, peppers, squash and other cold sensitive plants. We seldom have freezes after that date.

Growing up we depended on our huge garden to feed us year-round. We never bought anything we could grow. As a kid, I hated all the work but loved eating the results of it.

Potatoes, turnips, radishes and cabbage was planted early in the spring. Daddy always spread the tiny turnip and radish seeds, not trusting us kids to do it right. But we spent hours cutting up seed potatoes, carefully leaving an eye on each piece, to plant. And the cabbage plants were transferred from small containers to rows in the garden.

I enjoyed watching the potato plants break the surface and a few weeks later scratching around the base of them for new potatoes. Those golf ball size nuggets were carefully removed and cooked. Later, when the plants started dying, daddy would use a turning plow to expose the mature potatoes and we would gather them. Many were eaten fresh but bushels were spread on the concrete floor of an old barn where they stayed cool and lasted well into the next winter.

String beans, butter beans, butter peas, black eyed peas, corn and okra rows followed the tomatoes and peppers put out on Good Friday. Dropping seeds for them in the prepared furrows daddy had made was tedious and I wanted to just drop handfuls and get it over with, but I knew that even if I got the seeds covered before he noticed, sprouting plants in a few days would give my laziness away.

For weeks an almost daily job was carefully pulling weeds from the rows of plants we wanted. I learned a lot about identifying good plants from unwanted weeds. It was hot, dirty, boring, tiring work but had to be done.

When string beans were ready, we picked them by the bushel and spent hours at night stripping the “string” from them and snapping them into short sections. Some too mature ones had developed beans, and those were shelled out to be cooked with the snaps. I still buy “shelly beans” with the beans in them when I can find them, they remind me of real ones from home.

The beans were carefully put into jars and canned in our pressure cooker, about a dozen jars at a time.
Our pantry had well over 100 jars of them by the end of summer, at least two jars to eat a week until the next year when fresh ones were available.

Butter beans and butter peas also meant hours at night in front of the TV, shelling them into pans and filling big pots. Mom would spend hours in the kitchen the next day blanching them to freeze. We had a big chest freezer and it would be full by the end of the summer.

Nothing is better than fresh corn-on-the-cob, pulled just a few minutes before boiling, slathering with butter, and eating. Daddy planted short rows a few days apart to extend the time we had it, but there was a huge patch down in the corner of the field.

That patch was watched carefully for the perfect day and at daylight we would be pulling ears and filling the truck bed. Under the shade of a pecan tree we would shuck and silk the ears and take buckets of them inside where mom or one of us kids used a board with a perfect groove to slide the ear over a blade the cut and creamed it.

That cut corn was carefully processed and put into containers to freeze. While mom worked inside doing the cut corn, we had a fish cooker with a huge pot of water boiling under the carport. Ears of corn were dumped into it and blanched, then taken inside to an ice water bath to cool. Each ear was then carefully rolled in tinfoil and frozen. In the middle of winter those ears were almost as good as the fresh ones of summer.

All that work was worth it for the excellent eating all year long.

When I bought my house in Pike County in 1981, I wanted a garden. I cut all the trees in the back yard, clearing about a quarter acre. After buying a tiller I got it ready and planted a smaller version of daddy’s big garden.

I’ll never forget him coming to visit and looking at it, and saying it looked like good dirt. It was, and I was encouraged when my efforts started producing small plants. But I had a problem. The whole area around me drains right through my back yard. Just as the plants started growing a heavy rain flooded it, drowning most of my garden.

I tried a smaller plot on the high side of the area the next year. It did not flood, but just as the butter peas started getting ready a dry spell killed the plants. My well did not produce enough water to keep them alive.

I now have a tiny 20 by 20 foot area where I plant peppers and tomatoes. I set up a pipe from my shower drain to a buried 40 gallon drum with a sump pump in it. Every time we shower the water is pumped to the small garden, keeping it well watered.

Fresh tomatoes are fantastic and I have them during the summer, but I still miss all the other good eating from a big garden.

Bassmaster Classic Returns To Alabama in 2020

Bassmaster Classic returns to Alabama in 2020 on Guntersville
By Frank Sargeant, Editor
from The Fishing Wire

(Photo Credit B.A.S.S.)

Bassmasters Classic

The 50th annual Bassmasters Classic has been announced for Alabama’s Lake Guntersville March 6-8, 2020, with daily weigh-ins and the associated Outdoors Expo set for Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Center in downtown Birmingham.

The event has become a sort of World Series and Superbowl combined for those who love competitive bass fishing, and holding it in Alabama for the golden anniversary is bringing it to the heart of the sport—Ray Scott of Montgomery came up with the idea of a national bass tournament circuit in 1970 and the first Classic was held at Lake Mead, Nevada in 1971.

Bass Anglers Sportsman Society—B.A.S.S.—was the membership group Scott put together to support the tournament system as well as educate bass anglers and promote fishery conservation, a relatively unknown concept in fresh water at that time. The time was right and Scott’s promotional abilities, combined with smart use of media, soon built the ranks to a half-million members, largest paid fishing club membership in history by a large margin.

The group was headquartered in Montgomery for many years before being moved to Celebration, Florida, just outside Orlando, when purchased by ESPN in 2001. It came back to Alabama and its current headquarters in Birmingham in 2011 when sold by ESPN to a group of investors, including fishing TV mogul Jerry McKinnis and Time, Inc. exec Don Logan.

The Classic—which is a life-changing experience for the annual winner, awarding a prize of $300,000 in cash—is also a boon for the communities where it’s held, filling up hotels and restaurants for days leading up to and during the event. This year’s event in Knoxville, Tenn., generated an estimated $32.2 million according to the Visit Knoxville Sports Commission, and was visited by a total of over 150,000 people considering all the venues including daily take-offs, weigh-ins at the convention center and the daily gate at the Outdoors Expo. Local and state governments also benefit—the Tennessee Classic generated $2.75 million in state and local tax revenue, including taxes on sales, restaurant purchases and lodging.

The Guntersville/Birmingham event is more spread out than the Knoxville Classic, with the lake some 75 miles from the weigh-ins. The weigh-ins require a large venue, and Legacy Arena can seat close to 20,000—nothing else near Guntersville approaches that. The adjacent expo halls also have the vast square footage necessary to hold the Expo, which has become the largest consumer fishing show on the planet. Many companies in the tackle and fishing boat business use the Expo to reveal their new-for-the-year products.

It also probably does not hurt that this Classic will allow the B.A.S.S. staff to sleep in their own beds—the home offices are located on the southeast side of town.

The daily Classic weigh-ins are worth a visit even for those who have no interest in fishing. With thunderous music, mind-bending light shows and lots of stage smoke, they’re more akin to a big-budget rock music show than a fishing tournament, and the anglers are made into stars.

The program has worked very well for a lot of the top tournament anglers, who are now wealthy men, not only from tournament winnings but also from endorsement and sponsorship deals with companies in the fishing and bass boat business. (We advisedly say “men”—though women are welcome to compete in B.A.S.S. events, none have ever made their way to the Elite Circuit level.)

(Photo Credit B.A.S.S.)
Unfortunately, a lot of those wealthy men won’t be at next year’s event. They fled the home group seeking even greater financial rewards with the new Major League Fishing circuit. Van Dam, Evers, the Lee brothers, Howell, the Lane brothers, Iaconelli, Powroznik and many others are gone—understandably, for it is about business, after all, on all sides. The new MLF made-for-video circuit has proven an exciting and competitive venue so far, and live broadcast combined with the pocket viewing devices that are universal these days seem to spell success.

B.A.S.S. has responded to the new rival by reducing the size of the Elite field (and thus increasing the percentage of each angler winning a given event), vastly increased payouts (including three no-entry fee events that will pay out $1 million each), reducing entry fees and providing every angler with a check—the last place angler in each event earns at least $2500, the first $100,000.

There are not a lot of household names left in the Elite field, but Kevin Van Dam was an unknown boat salesman from Kalamazoo before he entered his first major B.A.S.S. event in 1990. The Classic and the media know-how of the B.A.S.S. team likely will create a new generation of bassing heroes, and it will all get underway next March in Birmingham. It should be well worth attending. (Visit www.bassmaster.com for details.)

Mysteries of Pacific Salmon Survival

International Voyage Aims to Unravel Mysteries of Pacific Salmon Survival

Pacific Salmon Survival


Contributed by Michael Milstein, Northwest Fisheries Science Center
from The Fishing Wire

An international team of biologists is setting out into some of the roughest waters in the North Pacific Ocean in the middle of winter to try to solve the fundamental mystery of Pacific salmon: What determines whether they live or die?

Pursuing Answers in the Remote Ocean

Perhaps the most critical, but least known, part of the salmon life cycle is the few years the fish spend on the high seas, gaining energy to return to their home rivers and spawn. This is where most of the salmon that stream out of Northwest and Alaska rivers each year disappear, most never to be seen again. Now the science team is headed into the remote Gulf of Alaska to try to find out which fish survive, and why.

“What we most need to know about salmon, we mostly don’t know,” said Richard “Dick” Beamish, a longtime salmon researcher in Canada who, with Russian colleagues, launched plans for the research expedition as a centerpiece of the International Year of the Salmon in 2019. He also raised about $1 million to fund the voyage. NOAA Fisheries contributed as well.

“Nothing like this has ever been done before to my knowledge, and I’ve been doing this for 50 years,” Beamish said. “I believe that we will make discoveries that will change the way we think of salmon and do salmon research.”

International Scientists Join Voyage

NOAA Fisheries has three scientists on board the survey, which includes top salmon researchers from Russia, Korea, Japan, and Canada. Scientists believe that Pacific Rim salmon, whether from Alaska, the west coast of the United States, or the east coast of Asia, all spend time in the Gulf of Alaska during their years at sea.

Fisheries biologist Laurie Weitkamp, who is based at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center’s Newport (Ore.) Research Station, will be the chief U.S. scientist for the trip. Weitkamp’s previous research has mainly focused on estuaries and coastal areas, she said, while the open ocean has largely remained a “black box” to scientists searching for better tools to predict salmon returns to west coast and Alaska rivers.

“This is not a place that is very easy to go and do science, especially in winter,” said Weitkamp, who recognizes she will likely get seasick in waves known to tower 50 feet or higher, but is O.K. with that. “To understand what is affecting these fish, you have to go where the fish are, and now we are finally about to do that.”

Fisheries biologists Charlie Waters and Gerard Foley from the Alaska Fisheries Science Center will be collecting samples for several studies to learn more about salmon condition and diet. In particular, they want to learn more about what pink salmon are eating and whether they are in competition with sockeye, Chinook, and coho for prey resources. All of these salmon species support important commercial, recreational, and subsistence fisheries in Alaska.

“We have a vested interest in knowing what’s going on during the winter months,” said Foley. “It is a critical, critical time in the life history of these fish.”

The science team will set out in mid-February 2019 from Vancouver, B.C., on a Russian research ship named Professor Kaganovskiy, backed by funding from the Canadian government, the Pacific Salmon Commission, the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association, and others. The ship will spend a month crisscrossing the Gulf of Alaska with trawl nets and examining the salmon they catch with tools that range from microscopes to DNA fingerprinting.

Salmon’s Race for Survival

Scientists have long suspected that the fate of salmon migrating into the ocean is sealed during their first year at sea. The fish that grow large enough, fast enough to elude predators and make it through the first winter are the fish that will return to rivers to spawn–and to be caught in fishing nets. For the first time, the scientists aboard Professor Kaganovskiy will be able to test that theory, using clues like the tiny bones in the ears of fish, known as otoliths, that reflect each fish’s growth.

Roughly 99 of every 100 salmon that leave rivers for the ocean never return. The team wants to know what distinguishes those fish from the rare salmon that make it back alive.

“This is the time of year when we think most of the mortality is occurring, so this is when we want to be there to understand the fundamental mechanisms that regulate the production of salmon,” Beamish said. The better they understand the most influential factor affecting fish, he said, the closer they will be to providing more accurate forecasts of salmon returns to west coast rivers.

That, in turn, will help fisheries managers, fishermen, and others effectively manage salmon in a changing ecosystem, Beamish said.

Researchers also believe that different salmon stocks, such as those from rivers including the Snake and Columbia, migrate through certain parts of the Gulf of Alaska, capitalizing on the food available in different areas. The carrying capacity of those areas will also help determine how many fish return to the rivers.

“We’ve never been able to test that before,” Beamish said. “Now we have a chance to be there and see it happening in real time.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Gulf of Alaska expedition
The next link/button will exit from NWFSC web site https://yearofthesalmon.org/gulf-of-alaska-expedition/

International Year of the Salmon
The next link/button will exit from NWFSC web site https://yearofthesalmon.org/

Ocean ecosystem indicators of salmon survival
https://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fe/estuarine/oeip/index.cfm

Do You Remember Catching Your First Bass?

Last week I received a picture from a grandfather in Colorado of his 5 year old grandson and the first bass he caught. This picture was posted to my website and his comments “Remember when? Look at his smile.” got me to thinking about my first bass.

I really don’t remember the first fish I ever caught. I am sure it was with my mom or grandmother since most of my early fishing was with one of them. I would follow them to local ponds and fish with them all day. We would sometimes get rides from dad but if he could not drop us off, we would walk to nearby ponds. A mile or two walk was not too far to go fishing.

Both mom and grandmother had 5 gallon lard buckets they kept all their fishing tackle in. Hooks, sinkers, corks, an old pair of pliers, stringer, extra line, towel for wiping hands and anything else we might need was in there. Our cane poles were the only thing that did not fit, and these were carried over our shoulder or stuck out the back window of the car. The lard bucket was good for carrying tackle as well as a place to sit while fishing.

We kept everything we caught, no matter how small, since even the tiny bream would “make the grease smell.” Picking around bones was a normal problem while eating fish back then, we had no idea of filleting fish. And I can still taste the crispy tails of the fish fried to perfection. I miss that part of the catch while eating filleted fish.

One place we liked to fish was Usury’s Pond, a big watershed lake about 5 miles from the house. It had a concrete dam and fishing for catfish and bream was often good near it, but the place I liked best was the pool and creek below the dam. Where the water came over the top of the dam and fell to the creek bed it hollowed out a nice pool. And the creek draining from it was deep enough to hold catfish and bream.

I would often walk the creek dropping my bait into holes along the creek. My bait was a gob of red wigglers I dug behind our chicken houses and they were put on a #6 hook suspended about two inches below a split shot. A couple of feet up the line was a cork – a real cork, not a plastic or Styrofoam kind you see now.

One day I was below the dam, sitting on the sandbar and letting my worms drift with the current. Suddenly my cork popped under the water, much quicker than what I was used to seeing. When I raised the tip of my cane a fish went crazy, pulling, running and jumping. It was the first fish I had ever hooked that jumped, and I was hooked, too.

That little bass was probably no more than 10 inches long but it fought harder than anything else I had ever caught, except for some catfish. And it jumped, clearing the water in thrilling splashes. I loved that! I knew then I had to catch more bass.

Over the next few years I got my first spin cast reel, a Zebco 33, and learned to cast lures with it. Then “rubber worms” hit the market. Back then when they first came out you had two choices of colors. Creme worms came in either red or black and they were in plastic bags three to the pack. They were so stiff they kept the curve from the package even after being removed from it.

You could also buy pre-rigged plastic worms that had a two or three hook harness in it, with a spinner blade and some beads in the front. We cast them like a lure and worked them back with a steady action much like a lure. If they sunk to the bottom they would get hung up.

Eventually we learned to use a single hook and rig the worm with the hook buried in the worm. We used split shots in front of the worm for many years until bullet worm weights got popular. We even fished them with no weight, much like floating worms are fished today.

Back then when we felt a bite we let the bass run off with the worm, waiting for it to swallow the hook. I don’t know where we thought the bass had the worm, it had to be in its mouth since they don’t have any hands! Now we know to set the hook quickly before the bass spits the worm out. Back then we would let the bass run till it stopped, then set the hook.

Do you remember your first bass? Share that experience with your children this summer. Tell them about yours, and help them catch their first bass if they have not already done so.

Florida’s Saltwater Fisheries Boundaries

How Florida’s Saltwater Fisheries Boundaries Came to Be
from The Fishing Wire

Florida’s Saltwater Fisheries Boundaries


When you are on a boat, it’s hard to imagine boundaries. The sea is the sea. Wave after wave, it all looks the same. Above-water landmarks are few and far between. There are no signs that say, “now entering federal waters.”

Regulatory boundaries are sometimes hard to fathom. In Florida, one of the biggest fishery management boundaries is that between state waters, where the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) makes the regulations, and federal waters, which are mostly managed by federal fishery councils and NOAA Fisheries with input from FWC. Sometimes regulations are the same in both state and federal waters, but not always, which is why it is important to know there is a line, and where that line is.

Florida is the only state where that boundary shifts depending on which coast you are on. State waters in the Atlantic extend out to 3 nautical miles, while in the Gulf they extend out to 9 nautical miles. But why, as many people ask? How did this come to be?

State boundaries in open waters of the United States first began to be defined in the 1940s, mainly due to concerns about rights for oil beneath submerged lands.

In a 1947 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against California saying the federal government possessed rights in all submerged lands of the Pacific seaward of the low-water mark. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled similarly against Louisiana and Texas.

Congress reacted by creating the Submerged Lands Act of 1953.

This act declared that states owned the submerged lands, and the natural resources within, out to three geographic miles. The act included a provision that a state’s boundary could be extended if it was beyond three geographic miles from the coast prior to when statehood was achieved.

Florida immediately asserted their boundary went beyond 3 geographic miles before it achieved statehood in 1845 and that Congress approved its boundary when Florida was readmitted into the Union after the Civil War. The claim did not make it to the Supreme Court until 1960, where it was proven that Article I of Florida’s Constitution (1868), which was approved by Congress, described the boundary off Florida’s Gulf Coast as “three leagues from mainland.”

Florida’s Atlantic coast boundary was settled at 3 geographic miles from shore.

One nautical league is equal to 3 nautical miles, therefore the “three leagues from mainland” is equal to the 9 nautical miles we manage in the Gulf today. For fishery management purposes, federal waters extend from where state waters end out to about 200 nautical miles (less so in areas where our waters butt up against other country’s waters such as in the Caribbean). Federal waters are also known as the Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ. For more on the history of this nation’s boundaries, visit NauticalCharts.NOAA.gov/data/us-maritime-limits-and-boundaries.html.

For those interested in measurements, while we use nautical miles today, you may have noted that the original language used geographic miles. There’s really not much of a difference between the two. A geographic mile ( 1 minute of arc along the Earth’s equator) is slightly longer than a nautical mile (a geographic mile is 6,087.08 feet and a nautical mile is 6.076.11549 feet), but the difference between 9 geographic miles and 9 nautical miles is less than 100 feet. (Note a geographic mile is also different than a standard English mile, 5,280 feet.)

Another interesting tidbit comes from the creation of the 3-mile limit itself, which sources say stems from how far a cannon ball could reach when fired from land. It is also said that, due to the earth’s curvature, 3 nautical miles is how far it is to the horizon.(Of course, this depends on how high your eyes are above the water.)

For fisheries management, we’ve created many additional boundaries throughout the years. We have species-specific management zones for fish such as red drum, and FWC manages some species in both state and federal waters. We take into account many different aspects when creating these boundaries, including differences in fish populations, fishing practices and stakeholder needs.

There may not be signage, but it’s always important to know where you are. State/federal boundary lines are marked as the natural resource line on NOAA nautical charts and these lines are also preloaded on most marine GPS units.

Need a map? Check out our maps page at MyFWC.com/Marine by clicking on “Recreational Regulations” and “Fisheries Maps.”

Have a question about marine fisheries regulations? Want to know more about catch and release? Send your questions, photos and fishing tales to Saltwater@MyFWC.com. Make sure your photo meets our photo requirements by visiting MyFWC.com/Fishing and clicking on “Saltwater” and “Submit a Photograph” under “Get Involved.” Don’t forget to record all of your catches on the iAngler phone app or at www.snookfoundation.org/data.html. And learn how to submit your catches and get rewarded through our Saltwater Angler Recognition Programs at CatchaFloridaMemory.com.

The quarterly Gone Coastal column is one of many ways that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Division of Marine Fisheries Management is helping recreational anglers understand complex saltwater regulations and learn more about saltwater fishing opportunities and issues in Florida. We are also available to answer questions by phone or email anytime, and we would love the opportunity to share information through in-person presentations with recreational or commercial fishing organizations. To contact the FWC’s Regulatory Outreach subsection, call 850-487-0554 or email Saltwater@MyFWC.com.

Endless Summer of My Youth

Years ago when I was a teenager, the movie “Endless Summer” impressed me . It was about searching for the perfect surfing wave, following summer around the globe, visiting beaches everywhere. Growing up, my endless summers were quite different, and I would not swap memories of them for any beach full of perfect waves.

My endless summers started with the last day of school. I attended a small elementary school consisting of grades 1 – 8 and a total of about 215 students. We all knew each other and the last day of school was full of songs like “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers with dirty looks.” I am surprised the teachers let us get away with it back then.

As we left school my mind was full of plans for camping, fishing , building tree houses, picking blackberries and plums and many other activities. It seemed we had endless days ahead to do all the things we wanted to do before school started again.

One of our first activities was a big camp out. We would gather camping equipment ranging from lawn chairs to mess kits with the same care British explorers planned trips to Africa. And we probably carried more stuff than they did! Fortunately, we usually did not go much over a couple of hundred yards from the house on these excursions, so return trips home for additional supplies were not bad.

We always had a great supper the first night of camping consisting of a full meal in a foil pouch. It had a big hamburger patty topped by sliced potatoes, carrots and onions and butter. This was placed on fire coals to slowly cook to that perfect state of burned black meat and still crunchy potatoes. Nothing ever tasted better!

If you have never slept on a lawn chair, you have missed one of the most miserable nights of your life. There is no way to get comfortable on one of those things. I have no idea why we kept trying. The ground, even when covered with rocks, was much more comfortable!

Our “pup” tents were so named because they were probably suitable for a few puppies, not kids. But we loved them, anyway. So what if they leaked, let bugs in, were hard to put up and take down and were heavy to tote. Maybe that is why we kept trying lawn chairs!

Picking blackberries was always anticipated with much more fun than the actual picking. We would watch the blackberry vines as they bloomed and the berries slowly started turning red. We knew exactly where the best vines grew, and loved dewberries because they were so much bigger and filled the containers faster.

Momma made a blackberry cobbler with the first picking of berries, and we ate as many as went into the container. One summer we got real industrious and decided to sell the berries we picked. Back then, 25 cents a quart was a good price and we sold several gallons that summer. I would not pick them for sale at 100 times that price now!

Fishing ranged from tying and fishing home-made “flies” in the local branch, catching small bream and other fish, to bicycle trips to local farm ponds. We did not have a boat back then but an old pair of tennis shoes and jeans allowed us to wade around the edge, casting for bass and bream. And wading kept us cool while in the water and on the ride home.

Another cooing activity was damming up the branch to make a swimming and fishing hole. We worked many hours filling croker sacks with sand and dragging cross ties to the dam site. Our dams often created a great pool of water that lasted until the next hard rain washed out the dam. If we had been made to work that hard around the house we would have been furious.

Summers end too quickly now. It seems school starts months sooner that it did back then, and I know it seems even worse to kids returning to classes. I hope everyone can enjoy the time left and make some memories for the future.

What Is Stacking Braided Line

The Art of “Stacking” Braided Line
By Ben Seacrest, Accurate Fishing
from The Fishing Wire

With the introduction of braid by Russ Izor in the 80’s, fishing as we know it changed drastically. With the diameter of the braided line being reduced significantly, many anglers started to realize the larger reels of yesteryear could either hold a ton of braid, or they could start looking for alternative reels to fish. Once braid was accepted by a few peer group leaders its popularity with the west coast anglers surged, sparking reel manufacturers to design smaller reels that would put out more drag and handle more pressure internally.

This is the little BV-300 which is our smallest reel with 30 lb on it that has caught numerous tuna upwards of 70 lbs.
The revolution was started with new, smaller reels being designed for cranking power plus drag, and rods that had a more forgiving action for the non stretch in the braided line to effectively fight fish of considerable size. The phrase “Small Reels, Big Fish” came to light which changed the way anglers had fished since the beginning of time. Guys are using reels a little bigger than your fist and landing fish over 100 lbs regularly. With the adoption of lever drags on these reels, the angler knows exactly where his drag setting is during the battle.

As anglers became more familiar with braid and its properties, new knots were developed and people took time to experiment with setting up line on their reels. On the west coast there is a group of anglers we refer to as “Long Rangers” that get on a bigger boat (100′ to 130′) and travel down to the islands and banks outside Cabo San Lucas and mainland Mexico for up to 21 days at a time. These anglers are fishing from dead boats for trophy yellowfin tuna up to 400 lbs and its critical to have the most line capacity possible on a reel. A group of these anglers who are always looking for a better way to skin a cat came up with the idea of stacking braid and perfected the connections to increase their catch rate percentages.

The reasons to stack braid on smaller reels is to gain maximum line capacity. Manufacturers give line capacities that is with one line pound test meaning one diameter line. When stacking braid you want to understand exactly what you will be using the tackle for species wise. There are a lot of gamefish that have enough power to spool reels so capacity is key. When stacking braid we put a smaller(test) diameter on the bottom, maybe 200 yards and the higher test on top. The rationale behind this is its very difficult to break braid on a dead pull unless its been frayed. The rod will likely break before the line would.

So on a 400 size reel that holds 325 yards of 50Lb braid I will take 40 lb braid and put 300 yds on the bottom with another 75 to 100 yards of 65 lb braid on top. It gives me a little more line capacity but the key is with the heavier line on top I can actually put the drag up on the fish and pull harder at the end of the battle. Most fish are lost coming to the boat. You want enough capacity to handle a good run early in the fight, then once he is close to the boat you can tighten the drag on him to get him within gaffing distance. This is a common practice with a lot of anglers fishing smaller tackle for bigger fish. The thought behind it is not to fight the big bulky tackle but have more comfortable tackle that is easy to handle over the duration of the fight.

There is no set combination of line sizes to stack but lines within 20 to 30 lb differences work well. Putting the capacity line size on the bottom(smaller diameter) and the heavier on top seems to be what most anglers do. One example we have been doing the last couple years is taking our Dauntless DX2-600N and putting 65 lb braid on the bottom and putting one hundred yards of 80 lb on top with a short fluorocarbon leader. The 65 lb will handle 20 to 25 lbs of drag no problem, then once we get a couple wraps on the spool of 80 lb we can increase the drag pressure as the fish approaches the boat into gaffing distance. This setup is used primarily for casting surface iron or poppers to foaming fish with an 8 ft heavy rod that will go directly to the rail once the fish is settled in. Stacking braid is a more specialized thing to do when targeting bigger gamefish but will also work when fishing bottom fish in deeper water.

Stacking the braid on the reel is a fairly easy process and there are a couple ways to do it. One of the easier ways to do this is to tie a 25 turn Bimini Twist for the line on the reel and that line coming off the spool. Put both loops together and pass the spool through them three times. Make sure the line is even as you pull them apart holding the Bimni knots on each end. Slowly pull them making sure as they get taut the line is straight. Once the line is straight you can pull them tight. This will leave you with a cats paw knot in the middle of the connection; I have never seen one break yet. The cool part of this connection is it will go through the guides the same way a solid line would.

The other way of connecting braid is by using hollow core line and splicing lines into each other. They are held together similar to a Chinese finger puzzle. The harder they are pulled the tighter they hold. This takes needles and practice to get good at doing it. Very important here to test all your connections. Last year I had one fail on a fish that was a real trophy on another persons tackle that had a spliced leader. It’s up to the angler which connections to use when stacking braid. One thing that is important is whichever one you use, you must be very proficient. Only way to become good is to practice and the perfect place is in front of the TV or at home in the back yard. It’s super important to test every knot and put your weight into it for maximum results. Don’t get discouraged if your first few fail; you will get the hang of it. Personally I stay with the double Bimini connection which works great but it is not as clean as the splice.

There are two schools of thought when you are fishing braid .

One way is fishing enough drag on a reel so its more like hand to hand combat which lets the rod wear the fish out with the main objective of getting his head coming up. This way you continue to put pressure on the fish without letting him get his head down as you are bringing him to gaff. More experienced anglers will do this and line capacity is usually not a factor. They are dealing with using the power of the rod and stopping power of the drag. You need to know what you are doing and be in some kind of shape to exert that much energy on those larger fish. The rail is extremely important too as your fulcrum while using your rod to gain maximum action and power out of the rod.

The other way anglers tend to fish is to rely on the line capacity of the reel and fish a little lighter rod with less drag and “play” the fish. This technique lets the fish wear its self out versus exerting all your energy trying to break his spirit. Its extremely important to have all connections solid so knots, crimps, splices all should be tested by pulling on them with some weight. Its important to make sure you stay clear of the boat and other anglers hooked up. Deckhands will be there to assist or on a private boat someone will put the boat where it needs to be. Trying to play out the fish with lighter drag with more line out means the fish is on longer and with big fish on the line, time is not your friend.

Always use the maximum test leader wise that will still get bit. Its a nightmare when a good fish wears through the leader.

Put the package together right, test it carefully before going on the water and you’ll be ready to take on some serious big game fish on tackle that fights the fish instead of your muscles.

Get more fishing tips at www.accuratefishing.com.

Locking Up Gun Owners

I bought an AR-15 rifle about 20 years ago. It was one of the models banned under the Clinton “assault weapon” ban that stopped manufacture and sale of types of rifles that some consider too ugly to own but did not ban possession of them.

My rifle has a high-power scope on it and I use it for deer hunting, shooting varmints and target shooting. It is light weight, has little kick and is fun to shoot.

The NRA estimates there are between 8.5 and 15 million similar guns owned by folks like me in the US. Even liberals like the staff of Gabby Giffords, gun ban crusader, say there are about ten million of us owning them.

Gun banners claim those type guns are a huge problem and are used in crime often. But FBI statistics show, for example in 2011, of the 12,664 murders in the
US that year, 323 were committed with any kind of rifle, including so called “assault weapons.” Compare that to 1694 committed with knives and 496 with hammers and clubs. Other years show similar numbers.

California Democrat Congressman Eric Swalwell, one of the gaggle running for president, has a solution to this huge, according to him, problem. He agrees with the NRA that there are about 15 million law-abiding US citizens that own these guns.

His solution? Make it illegal to own one of these guns, confiscate them from us and lock anyone of us up that do not turn them in.

So this democrat president hopeful wants to put up to 15 million law-abiding US citizens in federal prison. Of course, he is the same one that in previous interview, said he would be willing to use nuclear weapons against US citizens that owned the guns he does not like.

Even if the federal government could confiscate every gun from law-abiding citizens, it would not stop criminals. If such laws worked, we would have no illegal drugs in the US.

Every new gun control law introduced points out how in-effective those laws really are. There are already an estimated 20,000 federal, state and local gun control laws in the US. If any of them affected crime, there would be no need for more.

Every democrat running for president has called for more and stricter gun laws controlling law-abiding citizens