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Posted: 5:54 pm EST November 11, 2009 Updated: 6:53 pm EST November 11, 2009 BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -- Fishermen say an effort to protect the red snapper could kill Brevard County's fishing industry. They're gathered in Cape Canaveral to fight a ban on "bottom fishing."

The one that didn't get away     Nibble ... Sean and his massive catch GEOFF ROBINSON         By RICHARD MORIARTY Published: 12 Nov 2009     AN angler has netted a giant catch — a huge catfish weighing more than new heavyweight world boxing champion David Haye. Sean Kinnear, 27, was amazed when he felt a fierce tug on his fishing line and pulled in the 9ft monster, which weighs a whopping 17 STONE. He waged a 15-minute battle to land the beast, which hits the scales at an incredible 233lb 6oz — more than...

LOVELAND, Ohio, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- An Ohio man landed a 95-pound blue catfish in Lake Isabella, a park district record and only one pound less than the state record holder, park officials said. Lake Isabella Harbor Manager Harry Scott said the massive catfish, which he weighed twice for accuracy, dwarfs the previous largest catch in Hamilton County Park District's history, a 50-pound blue catfish, and weighs in at only one pound under the 96-pound state record, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Wednesday. "I've never seen anything this big in my whole life, and I've seen lots of fish," Scott said....

"OBAMA DON'T KNOW 'JACK”: Fishermen take to the street in FWB to protest amberjack lockdown (UPDATED with PHOTOS) November 03, 2009 10:52 AM Tom McLaughlin and Tina Harbuck More than 100 fishermen, family and friends showed up Monday morning at the corner of U.S. 98 and Perry Avenue carrying signs in protest of the recent fish closures by the National Marine Fisheries Service. “It’s terrible what they’re trying to do to this fishery,” said Capt. Kenny Aziz, who bay fishes from his pontoon boat, The Toonpang. The idea of bringing the Destin charter boat fishermen’s beef with the federal government...

October 5, 2009 - Alexandria, Va. – A sweeping oceans and Great Lakes management policy document proposed by the Obama Administration will have a significant impact on the sportfishing industry, America’s saltwater anglers and the nation’s coastal communities. The draft policy, the Interim Report of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, issued on September 17, will govern federal Pacific and Atlantic Ocean waters and Great Lakes resource conservation and management and will coordinate these efforts among federal, state and local agencies. This past June, President Obama created the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, led by the Chair of the Council...

Obama White House to 60,000,000 Anglers: We Don't Need You Obama White House takes on 60,000,000 American anglers. (Hawaii Leisure) A recently released White House document could result in the closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas.Shimano reported: Feds to 60 Million American Anglers: We don't need you A recently published administration document outlines a structure that could result in closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas across America. The White House created an Interagency Oceans Policy Task Force in June and gave them only 90 days to develop a comprehensive federal policy for all U.S....

Obama Administration task force closing in on deadline for 'health care' for nation's shorelines, waterways IRVINE, Calif. USA - October 5, 2009 - A recently published administration document outlines a structure that could result in closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas across America. The White House created an Interagency Oceans Policy Task Force in June and gave them only 90 days to develop a comprehensive federal policy for all U.S. coastal, ocean and Great Lakes waters. Under the guise of 'protecting' these areas, the current second phase of the Task Force direction is to develop zoning which...

North America's largest freshwater fish, the predatory alligator gar, is now protected to preserve its numbers, as Kevin Connolly discovered on a fishing trip in Texas. We are at the top of the food chain - the most dangerous predators on the lazy Navidad River, where it crawls stealthily around the town of Lolita, Texas, as though hoping to amble on unnoticed to the Gulf of Mexico. By local standards, I must admit we did not really look the part. The alligators that slumbered in the quiet creeks and pools around us bristled with a quiet sense of menace, and...

Some big-game registration stations, upset over a $4 fee increase to tag bears, have stopped providing the service in Maine. For many years, store owners charged hunters $1 to register animals, pocketing the money. The Legislature added $4 to be sent to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife... Hunters cannot keep an unregistered bear, deer, moose or wild turkey at home or any place of storage for more than 18 hours...

Two weeks ago a group of four men, Steve Hoyland Jr. with friends Bruce, Ken and Erik, set off on an overnight offshore fishing trip. They left at noon on a Tuesday and went about 120 miles out into the Gulf. They were having a great night of fishing, catching big snapper, grouper, ling and kings. About 3 am, two of them went down below to catch some sleep. The two remaining on deck were catching fish and drinking beer, enjoying the warm tropical night air. All at once, Bruce got a big run on his line. This thing went...

Here is video of a man who caught a record-setting brown trout on the Manistee River in Michigan. The trout weighed 41.45 lb., a new state record for Michigan, and maybe a national record. The vide shows the man with the trout . . . (VIDEO)

DENVER- First there was President Obama the golfer. And now – President Obama the fisherman? Mr. Obama’s trip out West later this week — to promote his health care plan in states like this one and Montana — is going to include a few hours of trout fishing in Montana. Jim Messina, the president’s deputy chief of staff, who grew up in Montana and Idaho and is a wildlife enthusiast, will be taking him. Mr. Messina disclosed the president’s plan while talking at a conference of Western Democratic leaders here, discussing Democratic gains in the region over the past six...

<p>EOUL, South Korea — This is a developing story. Please refresh for the latest update.</p> <p>North Korea seized a South Korean fishing boat early Thursday after it accidentally crossed the countries' sea border, a news report said.</p> <p>Yonhap news agency quoted a Defense Ministry official as saying that the incident took place at about 6:30 a.m. in the East Sea and that four people were on board the South Korean boat.</p>

How brave of Kate Snow. Not only making the trek to Flyover Country North, but even getting close to some yucky fish. That seemed to be Diane Sawyer's attitude in congratulating Snow for snagging an interview with Sarah Palin. The soon-to-be-former Governor of Alaska invited Snow out for some salmon fishing. At one point the intrepid ABC reporter observes to Palin: "you have some fish guts on you." Back in the studio, Sawyer saluted Snow's guts. View video here.

Texans Kill Crafty Critters With Crossbows; Fishing Limits Are the Order of the Day CROCKETT, Texas -- The sadly misunderstood alligator gar, reviled for its frighteningly huge and prehistoric appearance and rows of razor-sharp teeth, has been hunted for centuries. Fishermen despise the gar because they believe the fish devour prized bass and crappie. Swimmers and boaters fear the gar's alligator-shaped jaws could take a chunk out of them in the water. But in recent times, alligator gar have experienced a kind of trash-to-trophy renaissance as sportsmen discovered the thrill of hunting the beasts, which can weigh up to 300...

USS Chinook provided assistance to an Iraqi fishing boat in the North Arabian Gulf after it experienced mechanical problems leaving it unable to operate at sea, June 22. Photo courtesy of U.S. Naval Forces, 5th Fleet Public Affairs. USS CHINOOK, At Sea — USS Chinook provided assistance to an Iraqi fishing boat in the North Arabian Gulf after it experienced mechanical problems at sea, June 22. U.S. and Iraqi Sailors aboard the Basra Oil Terminal, as part of Combined Task Force Iraqi Maritime, received a distress call from the fishing boat Kadem Alabbas approximately 50 miles from the Kuwaiti coast,...

Enormous mats of the spiny creatures are infesting pockets of New England waters from Narragansett Bay to Cape Cod Bay this spring, charming beachcombers but tormenting some fishermen who worry they could devour the region's bounty of oysters, scallops, clams, and mussels. Starfish have little economic value - even seagulls gag when eating them - but their colorful skin and iconic shape bring squeals of delight from children and have made them a popular trinket in beachside tourist shops.

Ok ya'll. Let me start this off by saying I was raised in the south. A Pure Bred Dust Bowl Okie. My entire family has been fishing for food as long as I can remember and for several generations. Needless to say, we can catch enough as to feed a whole gaggle of family. So in 2000, I got to move up to the Blue state hell of Minnesota. Lots of fisherfolks up here...but they don't fish for catfish...in fact they turn their noses up at the humble whiskered beast. Thus, you can go to just about any body of...

SEWARD -- The biggest winner in the Armed Services Combat Fishing Tournament staged out of this Alaska port on Thursday was Master Sgt. Brent Johnson from Elmendorf Air Base, but there were no losers.

EVERY visitor to Caddo Lake on the Texas-Louisiana border seems to come away with a profoundly personal impression. Anglers prize Caddo, the only naturally formed lake in Texas, for its trophy bass; canoeists rate its twisting, interlocking bayous among the most challenging to navigate.

PORT O’CONNOR, Texas, May 21, 2009 – Because soldiers spend most of their time with other soldiers, their everyday lives seem completely normal to them. But every once in a while, they run into someone who tells them that what they do is extraordinary. Motorcyclists from the Patriot Guard Riders show their support to servicemembers at the Warrior's Weekend in Port O'Connor, Texas, May 16, 2009. Local residents treated wounded soldiers and veterans to free fishing at the event. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Stephen Decatur  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Pvt. Michael Varner, a cannon crew...

A Peruvian fisherman takes a paiche, a giant South American tropical freshwater fish, to sell at a market in Iquitos, Peru, in 1993.

The Women of Pro Bass Fishing are Making Their Mark Janet Parker accepted a commendation given to her and Aaron’s by the U.S. Army Freedom Team Salute on the Talladega driver introduction stage. Pam Martin-Wells of Bainbridge, Ga., has a shot at being the first woman to qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series and the Bassmaster Classic in the same year. Women's Bassmaster Tour angler Janet Parker of Little Elm, Texas, lapped the entire Academy Sports + Outdoors Women's Bassmaster Tour field April 25 in Louisiana on the Ouachita River when she took her first BASS win by a margin...

I'd just returned home after an exciting morning of scouting turkeys and even before I could climb out of the truck my son came running over with a can in his hand. "Daddy look what I found under the black plastic by the side of the garden," he yelled with a big smile as he held out a tin can filled with worms. "I looked under the plastic and there were worms everywhere. I'm sure I found enough for us to go fishing... So can we go down to the lake and try to catch some yellow perch?" I'd never...

Fishing season kicks off tomorrow and it seems more and more fisherman casting their reel not just for fun, but for food. At Dee's Bait and Tackle shop on Clay Street in New Haven, they're busier than ever selling licenses and all the accessories needed for Opening Day. But lately, they tell us, they've noticed a shift with their customers. More and more people are fishing, not for fun but for food. In an ailing economy, it's a relatively easy and cheap way to eat. The license costs 20-bucks, rod and reel about $50, and the bait will run you...

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He shook his head and muttered, "I'm jinxed." At the shore of a lake, he'd been standing 2 feet to my right. Same lures. Same casts. Same spots. In 10 casts, it was difficult for me to not catch something (or laugh). I think I landed five or six trout and hooked several more. But my buddy, Michael Furniss, did not get a single bite. Later, to his amazement, he caught one. "It's the jinx," he said, "The Furniss Jinx. My brother's got it, too." Do you call it "just one of those days," or could there be another reason?...

Man was hit by his own spear that ricocheted off rocks during dive

It was a few minutes after noon Wednesday, and Ron Evancho was getting concerned. A Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission truck, loaded with 3,400 trout, was on its way to the Loyalhanna Watershed Association office, set to arrive at 12:15. Its fish were destined to be stocked in Fourmile Run, a stream that winds its way from near Ligonier to Donegal Lake. The plan was to dump four buckets of trout — each holding 20-30 fish — into the creek at dozens and dozens of points along the way. That's a lot of netting fish, scrambling down muddy banks and...

Attempts to free a stuck anchor caused the boat carrying four football players to turn over and capsize, according to a report released by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission on Friday. According to the report, the problems for the boaters started when they attempted to pull their anchor up so they could head back to port.

We have a candidate for the Darwin Award. He hasn't won it yet, but he has to be in the running as a potential candidate. Up in Oshkosh, Wis., it is sill cold and the lakes are still frozen, for the most part. But this is now official spring and the frozen north is beginning to thaw. At least partially. It is also a part of the country where ice fishing is popular. For those not familiar with the sport, it involves going onto the ice of a frozen lake, chopping a hole through to the water and then sitting...

Fly fishing in fetid, polluted, urban water is catching on with cash-strapped fishermen and sporting urban outdoorsmen. But don't go hoping to catch dinner. "Their diet isn't something you want to put in your body."

MEREDITH, New Hampshire (Reuters) – From his wooden fishing shack on Lake Winnipesaukee's thinning skin of ice, Mike MacDonald doesn't need to think twice about why more Americans are going "fishin'" in the deepening U.S. recession. "This costs $6 (4 pounds) to get a bucket of bait and it will last the whole day," he said, skinning a fish next to a hole drilled into the frozen New Hampshire lake. "Compare that to skiing -- one day of skiing would cost $80 just for the lift ticket." As Americans forgo expensive vacations, costly dinners and shopping mall splurges, many are...

For months, anyone who's proffered the position that the Obama Administration was anti-gun has been dismissed as being a variety of things, from sore loser to rampant paranoid. Nonetheless, since assuming office, members of the Obama administration have steadily- and stealthily- moved against firearms and ammunition. Their only public blunder was Attorney General Holder's saying the "assault weapons ban" needed to be reinstated. Quickly, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi - no friend of gun owners - went on record as opposing Holder's suggestion. She went as far as to parrot the words of pro-gun groups, saying the government should enforce...

GRANTS PASS — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management plans to decommission up to 20 miles of roads and about the same amount of trails this year along the Hellgate recreation section of the Rogue River. The work would be done as part of the Rogue River Corridor Restoration Project that begins at White Horse Park where the Applegate River pours into the Rogue. The project reaches downstream some 20 river miles to the mouth of Grave Creek in the Rogue National Wild and Scenic River Corridor. "The main intent is decommissioning roads and trails within the river corridor, all...

The National Park Service has set a goal of eliminating lead from fishing and hunting gear by 2010. Acting Park Service director Dan Wenk announced the goal Wednesday in Washington. Fragments of lead bullets are suspected to contaminate scavenger birds, like ravens and eagles, and lead used as fishing weights could poison waterfowl and other species. A firearms group was quick to condemn the action. “The National Park Service’s decision is arbitrary, over-reactive and not based on science,” Steve Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said in a statement. His group is a trade association for the firearms...

Eric Maninno, professional angler, looks his catch in the eye after battling to reel him in through a patch of reeds in one of the canals during Operation Catch Fish on Camp Slayer, March 7. Photo by Spc. Eric Glassey, 13th Public Affairs Detachment. CAMP SLAYER — Servicemembers and civilian employees gathered here at Slayer Lake, in the shadow of Victory over Iran Palace, to try and reel in the big one during the second annual Operation Catch Fish competition,March 7. Professional anglers Sondra Rankin, Eric Maninno and Joe Mercurio were on hand to host the event. Rankin is a...

Nick Schuyler was taken via helicopter to Tampa General Hospital. Officials are still searching for former Buccaneers Corey Smith and Marquis Cooper, along with ex-USF football player William Bleakley.

The man who leaps from helicopters into the sea to wrestle MARLIN: Meet New Zealand's answer to Steve Irwin By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 01st March 2009 Matt Watson likes to catch marlin. And he likes to catch them like nobody else. He has jumped out of a helicopter on top of one, wrestling it for a while then sending it on it's way and caught one from a jetski before letting it go by hand. And now Matt has gone one further: he has caught a marlin from a surfboard and had it filmed for his TV program The Ultimate...

The ACLU finally gets one right by taking the side of a beleaguered bait shop owner in Clearwater, Florida that is under attack by city officials over a mural of game fish painted on the outside walls of his bait shop. City officials are claiming that the fish painting is an "advertisement sign" that falls under a beautification ordinance prohibiting large signs for businesses. The City has fined the shop's owner Herb Quintero $700 and is warning that a further $500 a day fine can be imposed unless he paints over the fish. But Quintero feels there is a fallacy...

A British angler – with a dozen helpers – has landed what could be the biggest freshwater fish ever caught with a rod and line, it emerged today. The giant freshwater stingray, weighing as much as 350kg (772lbs, or about 55 stone), was the size of a garden shed and so cumbersome that Ian Welch had to enlist the aid of 12 other people to get it out of the water. Welch, a professional fisherman, biologist and columnist for the magazine Angler's Mail, was visiting Thailand to help with a stingray tagging programme when he landed the monster in the...

OSHKOSH -- While spearing on the Upriver Lakes closed on Wednesday, anglers continued to hunt the prehistoric lake fish Thursday on Lake Winnebago. Four more troph-sized fish at more than 100 pounds were registered Thursday, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The largest fish registered was a 74.9-inch, 132.1 pound female registered to Brett Ellis of Omro at Jerry's Bar registration station. The fish brought the number of trophy-sized catches this season to 29. A total of 53 sturgeon were registered Thursday, including 10 juvenile females, 31 adult females and 12 males.The Lake Winnebago System total stands at...

Australian Kim Bain-Moore on Friday will fish in the Bassmaster Classic, becoming the first woman to compete in the tournament's 39-year history. SHREVEPORT, La. -- In the gaggle of 51 logo-decorated professional anglers setting out Friday on the Red River for the first day of the Bassmaster Classic, one will stand out. And it won't be because of the garishly striped ''Reaction Innovations'' tournament shirt or matching bass boat. There are plenty like that in the fleet. The 51st competitor is one of a kind -- the first woman to compete in the 39-year-old tournament that is widely considered the...

They may look slow and clumsy, but underwater cameras have revealed that grizzly bears can perform some fancy footwork when a meal is on the cards.A BBC team followed the bears as the annual salmon migration got underway. They filmed them using their huge feet to deftly kick dead fish from deep pools into shallower water. This behaviour, caught on camera for the first time, meant that the grizzlies could grab the fish without the bother of getting their ears wet.Wildlife cameraman Jeff Turner said: "Most bears will do anything to avoid getting their ears wet - they hate it.....

A 29 year old man has been left with the 'beak' of a needlefish stuck in his face after it leapt from the sea and impaled him below the nose.Experts from the Department of Otolarynology at Israel's Meir Medical Centre in Kfar Saba said that the man was admitted to the hospital after the fish hit him in the face, and left its toothy jaws wedged in the hole.The fish apparently leapt from the sea and impaled the man at the side of the nose. It's jaws hit with such force that they pierced his naval cavity, went through his...

The sturgeon season on Wisconsin's Lake Winnebago got off to a fast and tragic start on Saturday according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, as a pair died when their truck crashed through the ice near an ice crack that originated in Quinney,Wisconsin. A third man fell through the ice, which was obscured by soupy conditions in the 50 degree heat. Many vehicles drive out onto the ice each winter, which is 18 to 28 inches thick. Ice roads are maintained by local fishing clubs, but treacherous cracks often appear.The sturgeon fishing is done with multi-pronged spears through holes in the...

Goliath tiger fish, such as the one seen above, are among the uniquely adapted "monster fish" of the Congo River, which winds through several African countries. A recent, unprecedented river run on the Congo yielded a raft of new discoveries, including different species--some potentially new--in nearly every nook and cranny, scientists announced this week.The river was also found to be possibly the world's deepest, and its extraordinary changes in depths and currents help explain why it's such a hotbed of fish diversity.

BAGHDAD — In the 1990s, Saddam Hussein drained Marsh Arab wetlands in southern Iraq to punish locals who had provided refuge to rebels. The results devastated entire villages whose economies relied mainly on the fishing industry. Years later, water is flowing back to the wetlands, but the fish population is still depleted. Multi-National Corps—Iraq’s agricultural team is collaborating with the Iraqi government in an effort to revitalize the fishing industry in areas where the fish population was decimated. For the next month, the MNC—I C9 agricultural team and Iraqi biologists will go fishing in Victory Base Complex’s lakes, including the...

Barack Obama’s pick for “regulatory czar,� Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein, may be the incoming president’s most popular appointment so far. Judging from his resume -- best-selling author, “pre-eminent legal scholar of our time,� and an endorsement from The Wall Street Journal -- we can almost understand why. Almost. Because as we’re telling the media today, there’s one troubling portion of the new Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator’s C.V. that has seems to have flown under everyone’s radar: Cass Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist. Don’t believe us? Sunstein has made no secret of his...

Only the most discerning eye would have noticed anything unsavory about the lobster tails on ice recently at the fresh fish counter in a Middletown supermarket. They belonged to American lobsters, and each was illegally undersized. In New Jersey, that means the sixth abdominal segment -- a band just above the fin-like tail -- must measure at least 1 and one-sixteenth of an inch. "To be honest, unless you are used to seeing thousands of lobsters, it's difficult, by eye, to tell if the tail is legal or illegal," said Joe Meyer, deputy chief of the Bureau of Law Enforcement...