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Pat Judge, an avid sport fisherman, has been walking around with a $500 check in his pocket for a week, trying to decide whether to cash it. That’s because the money comes with a catch: Judge must agree to turn in his $10 recreational saltwater fishing license for the year. In an unusual experiment being conducted only in Massachusetts, the federal government is surveying anglers to figure out how much it would cost to persuade Judge and 1,899 others not to fish off the coast. But officials say the purpose is not to actually reduce fishing. Instead, they say, the...

Congrats on a new world champion from the Red River event just a minute ago. World champion and a cool $500,000 to go with it.

Last week saw the launching of this Weekly FR Boating Thread. 15 posts with 6 boating links – nice start! Launching ~ Weekly FR Boating Thread ~ Vol. 1 ~ Jan. 27, 2012 Everyone is welcome to come aboard – come on it, the water is fine!This time of year almost all boaters are mired in the midst of ‘off-season’. What do you do to survive your ‘off season’? Listen to boating music, watch boating movies, surf boating YouTube and blogs, busy yourself with Winter boat upgrade and maintenance projects, catch up on non-boating stuff? Where you do your boating...

http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=8642

… Commercial fisherman Jonathan Robinson took issue with that. “Those resources belong to the public,” he said. “They’re not just exclusively for the rich, who can afford boats and trips to the coast. Commercial fishing is a channel that provides access to these resources for all the citizens — for the blacks in the cities and the poor working people in farm towns in North Carolina.” Commercial fisherman Chris McCaffity of Morehead City echoed his sentiment. “I recently had a disabled veteran thank me for defending his freedom to eat the fish he once caught himself,” McCaffity said. Over the...

SARASOTA, Fla. (CBS TAMPA) – A man fishing from his kayak a half-mile from Point of Rocks off Sarasota was shocked when a dog that was involved in a deadly DUI crash swam up to his boat terrified. Once pulled to safety, Barney shrunk into a corner of the small craft, shaking and traumatized over the event. He sustained minor injuries, including one to his paw and several cuts. The man brought Barney to a local vet, who used a tracking chip implanted in him to discover his owner was Donna L. Chen, who was struck by a Nissan Altima...

The giant Black Tiger shrimp that Ron Pockrus caught off the Texas coast might be the biggest threat to the $700 million Gulf shrimp industry to come along in years, marine biologists said. Pockrus, the owner of a 13-vessel shrimp fleet operating out of Brownsville, caught the 12-inch, 13-ounce specimen last week. Pockrus said he’s been aware of the species for about three years but hadn’t seen one. Now, he has turned in two to marine and wildlife officials this season. “I have another boat coming in with one on it now,” Pockrus said. “That makes the third one we’ve...

New England lawmakers are asking the U.S. Commerce Secretary for an emergency assessment of the abundance of cod in the Gulf of Maine. ... The six lawmakers also are asking Bryson to freeze the cod catch limit at its current level until the study is complete. Fishermen are facing devastating cuts in cod catch next year

Dec 13, 2011 4:10am South Korea Furious Over Illegal Chinese Boats Public anger in South Korea has escalated a day after a Chinese boat captain stabbed a South Korean coast guardsman to death and seriously injured another with a knife. The captain is charged with murder while resisting arrest by coastal police patrolling illegal Chinese fishing boats at the West Sea’s exclusive economic zone. In one indication of South Korean rage, a 34-year-old man smashed his SUV three times into a police bus guarding the Chinese Embassy inSeoul. And South Korean headlines today strongly criticized the increasing number Chinese fishermen...

Maine’s congressional delegation is supporting Gov. Paul LePage’s request seeking a federal fisheries disaster declaration to provide aid to Maine’s groundfishing fleet. ... His request followed a recent report documenting a sharp decline in Maine’s fishing fleet due to changes in federal fishery management plans.

For one New Bedford fisherman, the big one that got away was the one that was taken away -- by federal fisheries agents. Carlos Rafael, owner of Carlos Seafood, has 15 boats that hunt for groundfish like haddock and flounder, but they have tuna permits just in case. So when one of his captains called to report that his crew had caught an 882-pound tuna in their trawling gear about a week ago, Rafael thought he would legally be able to sell the fish. “I called the hotline for tuna to make sure I was doing everything by the books,”...

A catastrophic landslide 22,500 years ago dammed the upper reaches of northern California's Eel River, forming a 30-mile-long lake, which has since disappeared, and leaving a living legacy found today in the genes of the region's steelhead trout...about 60 miles southeast of Eureka. The river today is 200 miles long, carved into the ground from high in the California Coast Ranges to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean in Humboldt County. The evidence for the ancient landslide, which, scientists say, blocked the river with a 400-foot wall of loose rock and debris ... "Perhaps of most interest, the presence of...

Almost impossible to avoid slowing the pace down when you hear these two telling you to take it easy. What I love about the song is the reminder that in this modern world, when so much of our daily life appears to happen in the fast lane, there is a need to sometimes drop down through the gears and just unwind.

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown is calling on President Obama to fire the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saying she’s worsened the fishing industry’s problems. Brown said Saturday in a press conference at the Gloucester waterfront that Obama should replace Jane Lubchenco. In a statement, Brown said Lubchenco was indifferent to the industry’s struggles and wrongly committed to a new management system he says is destroying fishing jobs.

Wilderness is clean, well-stocked, thanks to outdoor recreation communityIt is sad to admit that hardly anyone knows what the acronyms SCI, DU, NSSF, NWTF and RMEF stand for or what those organizations do. That’s not your fault but rather the hunting community’s dismal failure to conduct fundamental public relations. As public relations go, the hunting community couldn’t sell a blanket to a naked man in a blizzard. The accomplishments of SCI (Safari Club International), DU (Ducks Unlimited), RMEF (Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation) and many other hunting/conservation organizations are extraordinary. But because of their failure at relating to the public, the...

Bass Pro Shops have developed a devoted following by packing cavernous stores full of rods and reels, camping and hunting gear, camouflageclothingandanimal trophy-heads. Behind the scenes, the retailer discriminates in hiring, the government said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday. Among the allegations: Bass Pro managers repeatedly refused to hire non-white workers as clerks, cashiers or managers, and used discriminatory language to explain their reasoning, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed its suit in federal district court in Houston. For instance, the government alleged a Bass Pro human-resources executive told federal investigators that the assistant ...

Janet Parker has a clear shot at becoming the first woman to compete in the Bassmaster Elite Series. From Little Elm, Texas, Parker said if she qualifies she won't hesitate to commit for the 2012 Elite Series season. "I am on top of the world," she said. "I can't tell you how excited I am to have this chance." Parker took a big step toward the Elite Series on Sept. 10 with a 10th-place finish on the Arkansas River in the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Central Open division. The high finish jumped her from sixth to second place in the...

Commercial fishermen will no longer have their regulatory cases heard by Coast Guard Administrative Law Judges. Instead, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that as of Thursday, Environmental Protection Agency ALJ’s will preside over all new fishing law enforcement cases. This measure is being taken in response to an inquiry made by the Inspector General into complaints by commercial fishermen that NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service’s regulatory system was being excessive with its penalties and actions. Jerry Slaff, NOAA public affairs officer, said the EPA will provide judges for regulatory cases for the next two years. He said NOAA...

Friends say Dan Dodds of Coupeville, WA, fought the big king salmon nearly 20 minutes, running up and down the beach at Keystone Spit and wading waist-deep into the water before finally landing the 28-pounder he called "the fish of my dreams." Minutes later, Dodds, 62, suffered an apparent heart attack and fell face down in the water. Efforts by fellow anglers to perform CPR failed, and he was pronounced dead at Whidbey General Hospital. "If I have to go, I’d like to go in that manner," said angler and friend Joe Biller. Whidbey News Times.

So the offer from Theophile Bourgeois was this: How'd you like to go fish Breton and Gosier islands Monday morning? My answer was: Not sure I've got the time Monday. Have an interview I can't miss (with an MRI machine). It's a two-hour drive to Venice, then a 45-minute boat ride. That means if we fish an hour or two, the round trip would total about eight hours. How about another day? That's when Bourgeois, owner/operator of Lafitte's Bourgeois Charters, went a little crazy -- which is a real warning for a guy who's already casting with a half-empty spool....