Tidelines – June 5, 2014
Allen Earnhardt (left), Jacob Frick, Jake Frick (age 6), and Jasper Frick (age 2) show off their aggregate in the 2nd annual Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge. The red drum was caught near Sunset Beach, and the flounder came from the Shallotte River.
My plan for this week’s Tidelines column was to share some memories from this past weekend’s Ocean Isle Inshore Challenge, but that plan has changed in the wake of a controversial anti-gill net advertisement that ran in the May 22 issue and upset some readers.
So instead of talking about a record number of junior anglers weighing in in Ocean Isle and being awarded the cast net prize, or the strong leaderboard of fish that appeared in a relatively quiet early summer of fishing (prize flounder ranging from 4.11-7.96 lbs., and red drum from 5.24-6.83 lbs.), I’d like to take some time to talk about Fisherman’s Post and the politics of fishing.
We believe Fisherman’s Post to be an “evenhanded” publication, perhaps even to a fault. To me, the purpose of Fisherman’s Post is to promote North Carolina fishing in general and to celebrate our shared love for the resources that so many of us enjoy. We have no official stance on gill nets or any other of the myriad of polarizing fisheries management issues—politics, we believe, is not our job or our role. I said earlier “to a fault,’ as others would argue (and some do email us over the course of the year) that we should be politically-aligned and take official stances on fisheries issues.
The controversial ad copy was by NCFMY, which featured an anti-gill net message. They created their own ad copy and purchased ad copy space from us to run an advertisement promoting their organization. It wasn’t an article or a story by Fisherman’s Post—it was ad copy space that we sold. And while we take responsibility for selling that ad space, the financial transaction of any ad copy in any of the pages in Fisherman’s Post doesn’t automatically come with an endorsement of the captains, boat dealers, tackle shops, fishing products, and seafood markets, nor does it come with the automatic implication that we are against those captains, boat dealers, tackle shops, fishing products, and seafood markets whose ad copy doesn’t appear in our pages.
Our opinion at the time of purchase was that we don’t censor anyone—we would have sold the space to run an Outer Banks Catch ad or a promotion for NC Watermen United.
In a similar fashion, we wouldn’t censor a Democrat or a Republican candidate that was running for office—we would sell ad space to either candidate from either party regardless of our own political beliefs.
However, the NCMFY ad was clearly inflammatory to some, as we are a fishing publication with readers, advertisers, and distribution points with varying opinions in regards to the various marine fisheries “hot buttons.”
The experience has taught us at Fisherman’s Post that our instincts to stay out of politics and keep focused on promoting and celebrating North Carolina fishing (especially junior and lady anglers) is the correct path.
All of us here at Fisherman’s Post are underpaid, so it’s important that we enjoy our work, and posting photos and putting together fishing reports is what we most enjoy doing. It’s also what we’re best at.
So I will continue to disappoint some who charge that Fisherman’s Post should take a strong political stance, whatever that stance may be, and get back to Tidelines articles that talk about spanish mackerel fishing with my kids, Inshore Challenge events, trips with local captains/guides, and the like.
And I will continue to hope for common sense solutions to the challenges that our resources face, as I both enjoy buying and eating local shrimp, crabs, and oysters, and enjoy catching flounder, red drum and many other species on hook and line.
