It’s just a little piece of hard wire, most often gold in color, and hurts like the dickens when it lodges in your skin, but it’s the most important piece of fishing hardware there is. It’s the most up-close and fishy personal part of your fishing attire. You can spend thousands on the rest of your equipment, buying the finest rods, reels, lines, and artificial baits, but if the hook isn’t sharp, or if it’s made cheaply, you’ll waste that perfect presentation and hookup. I’ve seen people do everything right except use a good sharp hook. Right down to setting the hook they had nailed it, but the big one got away on a technicality.

In January of this year I did a boat delivery from Tarpon Springs to Port Canaveral. If you remember, and if you were here I know you do, it was cold. It was real cold. It was the coldest it had been in decades and it hung on like a scared cat in a tree. Some days, the highs were only in the forties in some areas and the nights…well, let’s just say I didn’t go out at night with my thin blood from years of living in Florida. I don’t like the chill I get from getting something out of the fridge.

Along the way I sadly observed dead fish literally by the hundreds, maybe thousands, in some places. Even shallow Lake Okeechobee was dotted with dead fish as if an underwater explosion of massive proportion had taken place. Throughout the waterway the scene remained the same for the whole trip.

Most fisherman are aware of the biological importance of seagrasses, which are found not only in Florida waters, but in shallow bays and lagoons along coastal waters all over the world.

Even though we have extremely distressing news about Snapper fishing on the east coast of Florida and Georgia, in that over 4800 square miles closed to bottom fishing, NOAA and the FWC brought good news about Swordfish in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission has agreed and have decided to match NOAA in their regulations. Both state and federal waters and will up the limit on Swordfish from three to four on private vessels, six on charter boats, and fifteen on headboats. Additionally the thirty-three pound minimum weight requirement will be lifted.These new rules will probably be implemented in August.

NOAA, in some ways blowing their own horn, or possibly passing government propaganda, stated the strict federal regulations has not only raised the Swordfish population, but eliminated both overfishing and has successfully reduced sea turtle bycatch. With that in mind, we may be able to quit imports of Swordfish from Canada, Panama, Ecuador, and even Singapore.

Florida’s Black Bass Plan is Heaven to Fishermen’s Ears! Could Florida become the Black Bass fishing capital of the world? It may be already, but the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission believes their plan will accomplish just that, and they are asking Bass fishermen their opinions, as well. Previous inputs are already being integrated into a long term plan expected to take Bass management through the year 2030.

There are few places in the world better suited to become the Bass capital. The geography and climate are extremely well suited for the Black Bass population to thrive, and they truly do. There are over 7,700 named lakes in Florida, and that doesn’t include the private lakes and large ponds that exist. Almost anyone is within an hour’s ride to a fishing wonderland.

Most of you received a survey from me on the evening of June 24th requesting that you let me know if you had changed your plans to vacation and/or fish here in southwest Florida since the BP disaster in the gulf. I have been shocked and saddened at the huge number of responses indicating plans were indeed changed to vacation/fish somewhere else than the west coast of Florida.

I understand that folks want to protect their deposits, and want to come to a clean southwest Florida, but to make all these changes based upon reports from the national media seems misguided, at best. To quote a local fishing guide friend of mine, “No oil—No spoil---Our Beaches are Clean—Our Waters Pristine”!

Recently while perusing the Tampa Boat Show, I saw a new product “Flex-Toilet” that would be an excellent tool for boaters and campers alike to consider. This product is easy to use, environmentally “green”, compliant with current laws, inexpensive and adaptable for use with many kinds of waste receptacles.

This product is simply a bag that is used as a liner for your boat or camper “head”. When used, the bag will absorb the liquid waste and its odors into a solid gel. The solid content can then be easily disposed of as an odorless, leak free, compact discrete package along with regular household waste. Flex-Toilet is available in a convenient 5 pack and Handy emergency packages with 2 Flex-Toilets, great for being stored in a small space in a; car, truck, private airplane, or in a backpack...

Pollution from human sewage is a very serious issue for the gulf, some of which comes from careless boaters. By providing education and access to the proper tools, this kind of pollution can be greatly reduced. 

Two new ideas are going into action right now, including something called an "air bubble curtain" and a barge blockade at Destin Pass. The state of Florida is placing barges there to act as huge booms in the water. The idea is to keep the oil away from the shoreline and help funnel the oil toward skimmer boats so they can collect it. Other ideas involve the use of an air bubble curtain as an underwater barrier. Okaloosa County wants to create a wall of bubbles at Destin Pass to help shield the coast from oil.

I am not sure if these aforementioned techniques are from the BP suggestion website, created shortly after the spill to collect any and all ideas that may help them, but hundreds and hundreds of ideas have poured in from people across the globe, some suggesting the use of explosives and others want to try magnets. Suggestions are pouring in from auto mechanics to physicists to marine engineers and mining workers. I have a suggestion: don't drill so deep that you can't reach the well in a crisis!

See suggestions below:

• Magnetic plug: Powerful fixed magnets to hold magnetic particles in the pipe
• Screw top: Fit a threaded sleeve around the pipe, then screw on a closed valve.
• Big shot: An explosively inserted copper plug, shot from a crude cannon
• Freeze out: Wrap the pipe with a heat exchanger, then pump in cryogenic fluid to form an ice plug
• Snap shut: Use explosives to pinch pipe closed
• Burn, baby, burn: Inject oxygen before oil exits and create a giant acetylene-like torch
• Inflatable collar: Insert another pipe into the fractured pipe with an inflatable collar, then inflate to create a seal
• Bubble curtain: Use perforated hoses to create a bubble curtain around the oil slick and contain it for pumping to the surface
   

Florida residents' worst fears have come true—large pools of black sludge are invading the coastal beach's once-white sands. Officials closed the beach to visitors for the first time Thursday because because of oil contamination. Oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster continues to wash ashore along the Alabama and Florida coasts.

Health advisories warning people not to swim or fish have been posted for a total of nearly 40 miles of Florida Panhandle beaches, stretching from the Florida/Alabama border through Pensacola Beach and across a stretch of beaches further east in Walton and Okaloosa counties, including the popular tourist spot of Destin.

I haven’t seen anything on network television about this, I haven’t seen any telethons, I still have not seen any PSAs about helping the Gulf states in their time of need. I would like to see ALL of the Gulf states band together and assure that modern equipment is obtained for the area, and require that all the platforms in the Gulf maintain booms around them until their well heads are brought up to modern, international standards. I’ll bet that pricey remote controlled shut-off valve is looking like a bargain to BP now… I am disgusted!

Read about how we never learn

It amazes me that in today’s day and age, with all the technology that we possess, we can’t cap the well to stem the onslaught of crude from poisoning the gulf waters. It all sounds pretty easy to us armchair well drillers—just screw the cap on and call it a day. But, in reality, it is not that easy; in fact, the company responsible for this disaster should be well aware of just how hard the task is because they had to deal with the same scenario in 1979. Only back then the company was called Sedco, before it became Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling contractor.

The Ixtoc drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on June 13^th, 1979 spewing 30,000 barrels of oil into the water every day because of a malfunctioning blow-out preventer. Sedco used planes to drop chemical dispersants and utilized “containment teams” to deploy long booms and “oil skimming vessels” to help control the spill, all with little success. Concerns about underwater plumes of oil and the spill reaching Florida’s beaches were growing every day. Does any of this sound familiar?