Fishing Boats and Catalina's Dive Park

[archman]

Ha ha, I remember when I worked in Florida, near everytime I went to the Looe Key no-take area, there were almost always a "cordon" of sportfishing boats lying all along the outer periphery.

Yep, marine reserves are a great place to catch fish!

 

[onbelaydave]

Sometimes tied to the buoys. Kayaker's trolling inside the lines, etc. And thats not counting all the shore fisherpeople casting from the jetty !!! I thought this was a park ! I was afraid to swim S for fear of getting snagged. Maybe enforcement is more lax during off season/midweek, or maybe I just caught a bad 3 day span, but to me , things seem out of control. Oh yeah, and I saw plenty of Kelp Bass with hooks in their lips.

 

[wetrat]

Has anyone considered randomly placed mines around the edges of the park? Not only would it help protect the fish, but the occasional overzealous captain would provide us with new wrecks to dive...

Great idea!

 

[Hollywoodivers]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1839966,00.html

see the link it may enlighten you to why the fishing boats will never stop. It's called money. We could go ahead and eat all the moose, deer, panda, and tigers too. Did you know there is a resturant in Thailand called the Great White Shark resturant? Guess what they serve. The link above sort of explains. the rarer the fish, the higher the value. Now one will eat a stingray around here .....yet...but in some parts of the world they are already eating it in droves. why ? Because you can't get grouper or flounder or whatever it was they used to eat. I had a guy come into the dive shop a few months ago and he noticed the abscence of spearguns in our shop. "why don't you sell harpoons"? he asked. I asked him what type of game he was planning to kill. He replied " I don't know, anything I want I suppose". I just had to apologize for our lack of harpoons. Maybe he went out and joined a whaling operation. He didn't look hungry to me, he just wanted to kill something.

 

[drbill]

There are two "values" that seem to be at work here. As you mentioned, Hal, money is a big motivator for most folks (at times I wish it was more of a motivator for me although not to the point of compromising my primary values!). The second is basically what you referred to with the guy in your shop... a me first attitude. So many people seem to think that they are entitled to whatever they want. This is reflected in the I can shoot anything mentality as well as in the marked decline in courtesy towards others.

Must admit that I used to eat the occasional bat ray when I hunted, fished and speared in the late 60's and early 70's. Back in those days I was early a meager salary teaching marine biology at a private school. Hmm, based on that I wonder why I'm not back into fishing and hunting now!