Tidelines – March 10, 2011
First the inane, and then the serious.
As per the terms of the bet, I am noting in my first Tidelines column of the year that Fryingpantower.com (Zach Tilley, age 13) beat Fisherman’s Post (Eddie Hardgrove, middle aged) in a wing eating contest during the weekend of the Raleigh Bass and Saltwater Expo.
Big Dave Tilley actually beat both Zach and Eddie, but nobody counted Dave as his calves are the size of tree trunks.
So Zach Tilley, barely a teenager, is now Eddie Hardgrove’s Daddy, and my debt is paid.
Now for the serious.
I want to encourage our readers to get involved in the politics of fishing. Since our last issue on December 9, 2010, a lot has happened, and I think it’s everyone’s responsibility to not only be informed but to get active on some level.
The NC Department of Marine Fisheries in response to the winter freezes has issued that recreational anglers can’t keep a speckled trout until June 15. In addition, the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council said the recreational quota on black sea bass was reached on February 12, so that fishery is closed until June 1. And grouper, once again this year, are currently closed and reopening May 1.
There are also potential changes coming down the pipe in wahoo and dolphin catch limits.
These fisheries issues, combined with the possibility of high gas prices, threaten to undermine the optimism I witnessed at the January boat shows. The exhibitors and attendees at the Raleigh Bass and Saltwater, the Richmond, and the Raleigh Convention Center boat shows were way more excited about this upcoming year than I’ve seen since the economy did its turn. And Fisherman’s Post, too, chooses to move forward in 2011 with a positive attitude.
You can still go catch those speckled trout. You just can’t keep them. So to make the trout release more rewarding for more anglers, Fisherman’s Post plans to dedicate more space than normal to publishing speckled trout release photos. Catch that trout, take a photo, release the trout, and then email us at photos@fishermanspost.com.
Something else that Fisherman’s Post is doing in reaction to the trout closure is creating a new division in our annual Spring Inshore Challenge. Typically this early June event is a flounder and trout fishing tournament, but this year on June 3-4 we will feature flounder and red drum divisions.
You can check out more on page 6 in the Spring Inshore Challenge ad copy.
Trout photos and a red drum division won’t change what many perceive as a broken system of North Carolina (and South Atlantic) fisheries management. Ultimately it comes back to the standard response: everyone has to get involved on some level.
Fisherman’s Post wants to hear what our readers have to say. We welcome all opinions, recreational or commercial or somewhere in between, as long as the language is respectful. And we’ll be publishing these opinions in a new feature of the newspaper, Letters to the Editor, starting with our March 30 issue.
These letters to the editor will also be published on our new Facebook page at www.facebook.com/FishPost.
So if you’d like your opinions on anything fishing to be read by the 30,000+ saltwater fishermen readers of Fisherman’s Post (plus all of our online readers), then email us your thoughts. You should direct them to Max Gaspeny, Editor of Fisherman’s Post, at max@fishermanspost.com. Letters and emails of 500 words or less will have the greatest chance of being published.
Here’s to making the most of 2011.
