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COLUMBIA – Scout Boats, a designer and manufacturer of luxury coastal fishing boats, is expanding its existing Dorchester County operations, the S.C. Department of Commerce announced Thursday. The company is adding multiple new boat models to its product catalog, bringing $10.9 million of capital investment and creating 370 new jobs. Founded in 1989 and headquartered in Summerville, Scout Boats designs and manufactures a wide variety of luxury coastal fishing boats, including center-console, dual-console and bay-boat models. Ranging from 17 feet to 53 feet lengths, Scout Boats’ products can be found in more than 70 dealers across the nation and the...

Or you'll end up like this guy. Getting a good photo of the big lunker you just caught has never been easier than it is in today's age of cell phones and small digital cameras. Now you just have to remember that the big fish you just pulled out of the water wants back in real bad. Here's how you get a wet photo of your fishing buddy: To the guy taking the video and laughing his head off: enjoy it now because your time is coming. After that, raise your hand if you or your fishing partner have lost...

House lawmakers kicked off their effort to push back against national monuments designations, targeting the large swaths of ocean the Obama administration made off limits to fishing. “I don’t believe the Antiquities Act should have ever been applied to oceans,” Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young said during a Wednesday hearing on marine monument designations. “There was never intent of that.” Republicans on the House Committee on Natural Resources have long criticized former President Barack Obama’s use of the Antiquities Act to put millions of square miles off limits to commercial fishing with little to no input from locals. With President...

A volatile buildup of weapons and resentment along the northern Somali coast culminated in the hijack of an oil freighter this week, the first such seizure by Somali pirates since 2012, experts and locals told Reuters on Wednesday. Gunmen hijacked the Aris 13, a small oil tanker, on Monday and are demanding a ransom to release the ship and its eight Sri Lankan crew, the EU Naval Force that patrols the waters off Somalia said. Now shipping companies are scrambling to find out whether the attack is a one-off, or whether pirates could once again threaten one of the world's...

A coalition of commercial fishing groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday to challenge the creation of a national monument off the coast of New England. President Barack Obama created the monument in September using executive authority under the Antiquities Act. The monument is called the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, and it is made up of nearly 5,000 square miles of underwater canyons and mountains. The creation of the monument closed the area to most commercial fishing and has been opposed by fishing groups for months. A coalition of the groups filed their lawsuit Tuesday in federal court....

Radiation inside one of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power facility has reached an “unimaginable” level according to experts. Because so much nuclear material from Fukushima escaped into the Pacific Ocean, there are many scientists that believe that it was the worst environmental disaster in human history, but most people in the general population seem to think that since the mainstream media really doesn’t talk about it anymore that everything must be under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. In fact, PBS reported just last year that “it is incorrect to say that Fukushima is under...

A commercial fisherman in Florida made a costly mistake that could land him in prison for life. Thomas Breeding, a 32-year-old boat captain, was out fishing in the Gulf of Mexico when he came across a mysterious package floating in the water. Inside the package was 45 pounds of cocaine. Breeding reportedly said he knew the right thing was to turn it over to the police, but Breeding decided to go a different route. Instead of doing what he knew was right, Breeding gave the package – worth $500,000 to $620,000 on the street, says AL.com – to four other...

State says four inches of clear ice is needed before stepping onto the iceThe New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is reminding ice anglers to use caution and common sense when ice fishing across much of New York State. Four inches or more of solid ice is considered to be safe for anglers accessing ice on foot. Ice anglers should note that ice thickness can vary on every body of water and even on the same body of water. "Ice fishing is a popular sport in New York and interest in it increases every year," said DEC Commissioner...

Roman Fedortsov is a deep sea fisherman in Russia. And he’s been taking photos of OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT? Seriously, I just took a quick three-minute scroll through Fedortsov’s Twitter page, and he has photos of ocean creatures that look like they’re from the most twisted Jim Henson movie ever produced.

County officials in western Colorado have regularly lambasted Planning 2.0 and this week, Garfield County joined in with five other counties in the western United States considering suing to halt the rule, which they have criticized as a central-planning measure. The BLM this month announced that the rule was final and on Monday, Garfield County agreed to spend as much as $40,000 with the Texas-based property-rights organization, the American Stewards of Liberty, to halt it. While Garfield County is taking an active role, Mesa County officials are looking to Congress and a Republican administration under President-elect Donald Trump to deal...

The pickup line to reel in a catch. It's a classic when it comes to catching the attention of the opposite sex. There are pickup lines in every Angler walk of life. So, I asked some of my fishing buddies about some of the best lines they've heard of (or used). These guys are serious anglers that they started telling me about different types of fishing lines used for different fishes, literally. Guess that's why they're single, or haven't been on dates in quite a while. However, once I explained what kind of "line" I meant, they came up with...

A Joint Resolution Proposing an Amendment to Article 1 of the Constitution of the State of Indiana Concerning Natural and Cultural Resources. Summary Provides that the right to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife is a valued part of Indiana's heritage and shall be forever preserved for the public good. Provides that the people have a right, which includes the right to use traditional methods, to hunt, fish, and harvest wildlife, subject only to the laws prescribed by the general assembly and rules prescribed by virtue of the authority of the general assembly to: (1) promote wildlife conservation and management; and...

Western Washington fishermen are planning a rally later this month at a state Chinook and coho hatchery on the Skokomish River, the lower end of which is off limits to salmon fishing this year because of a tribal land claim. Organizers expect several hundred anglers young and old to gather at WDFW’s George Adams Hatchery near Shelton for the 1 p.m. July 30 rally. Their goal is to reopen the river for the August fishery, and they fear that if it isn't, it may never be again. The rub is that while typically a river’s bed below the ordinary high...

In the marine world where the bigger fish you are the better. This muskie with a famish appetite goes after a trout half his size. But then again, muskies will eat just about anything that swims near them, with no prejudice to size or species. In this amazing footage below, a muskie tries to scarf down a big trout. The trout is much too big for the muskie to swallow, like snakes muskie don’t care. If i'st hungry, it eats now. While there’s debates in the Youtube comments whether that’s a Tiger Muskie or a Northern Pike (Feel free to...

"Shark proof" is maybe more "Shark resistant". "Don’t worry," they said "The cage is shark-proof" they said. I'm sure that's what the diver in this video was thinking when a great-white busted through the allegedly shark-proof cage. (Actually, I suspected there was a lot more we can't print on a family-friendly website going on in their mind). While this looks -and undoubtedly is- a terrifying experience, it's really not entirely the shark's fault. The shark couldn't see the diver -or the cage- while lunging at the shark bait, and sharks can't swim backwards, so after not moving forward, the shark's...

Found on facebook, this fish appears to be guzzling a can of beer with his fisherman buddies– but is it? Of course not. As many commenters on facebook point out, the fish is trying to breathe as it’s stuck on the side of the boat, and these fisherman thought they'd give it a drink. If they caught the fish and ate it later it might be considered a very odd way of pre-seasoning your meal, but at the end of the video, the fish gets away. Fishermen, if you’re going to treat your fish to a beer, make sure it’s...

Saving the reefs and getting a good meal– with a gun! Consuming eighty per-cent of a reef’s edible baitfish in mere weeks and overpopulating like mad, the Lionfish is a deeply invasive species with no natural predators in the area– at least until now. Here in this video, the crew with Go Fish Productions opted to go Lionfish hunting– and with a gun! They used nontoxic, lead-free ammuniton and ate what they caught, all while doing their best to preserve the reef and keep its more native inhabitants happy. Not a bad job, and it looks like fun! Kudos to...

Commercial fishing boat owners and groups are reacting to the executive action taken by President Obama that created a marine national preserve in the North Atlantic on Sept. 15. They say that banning commercial fishing there is unnecessary, since the fishing industry has already been working with government agencies on conservation measures.

The following press release is courtesy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: Two Southern California men have been convicted and fined for abalone poaching and other resource crimes, stemming from a September 2015 California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) enforcement case. CDFW wildlife officers assigned to the patrol boat Thresherdiscovered the two men poaching abalone at Catalina Island. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office subsequently prosecuted both individuals. Hee Won Chai, 75, of Los Angeles was charged with taking and possessing six pink abalone. Chai pleaded no contest to all six poaching counts. He was ordered...

Population: These terrifying fishWhen you're at the waterslide and you see this terrifying feeding frenzy, don't worry too much; piranhas don't tend to eat humans, but just in case, maybe you should find another day to go scuba diving? I'd love to see what that looks like underwater. Someone stick a GoPro in there and see what happens, would you? I'll be over here. On dry land. Away from the water. See the video here.