It has been one month today since an early-morning fire tore through the bayside Vaca Key Marina near mile marker 47.5. In the four weeks since thousands of lobster traps, a house, boats and forklifts were destroyed on the one-acre property owned by the Berdeal family of Miami on June 5, fishermen at the marina have been busy rebuilding. Clearing of the many piles of charred wood and concrete began Monday at the marina, said Juan Carlos Berdeal. Marathon business Discount Rock and Sand did the …
See all stories on this topic

Coach Chris Nowviskie impatiently checked his watch at the Pompano Beach Aquatic Center while four junior lifeguards dragged faceless mannequins to safety. One of his lifeguards was 45 minutes late for training for Worlds, the big leagues of lifeguard competitions. Seconds later, Nowviskie looked up to see the young man he’d been waiting for lying face-up on the deck. His shaggy, sun-bleached hair draped the tiles, and his body was red with sunburn from surfing all day. Irritated, Nowvisk…
See all stories on this topic

The weekend was busy for a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy who put the kibosh on some alleged illegal fishing in Islamorada: Seth Hopp cited four people for resource violations at the Channel 5 Bridge around mile marker 71. Saturday, he was patrolling the south end of the bridge at 7:20 p.m. when he saw two women fishing and asked to inspect their catch, agency spokeswoman Becky Herrin said. They agreed and in a cooler and a bucket, Hopp found “numerous different types of fish, many o…
See all stories on this topic

DELPHOS — The Optimist Fourth of July Fishing Derby saw 150 young anglers lining the banks of the Miami-Erie Canal early Tuesday morning. Sixty-five fish and a few turtles were pulled from the waterway during the derby. Jaxon Buzard and Paige Mericle were the winners of the new bicycles donated by the Walterick-Hemme Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3035. Buzard caught a 20.5-inch catfish and Mericle a 24-inch catfish. Delphos Herald Affiliates Ada Herald | Dearborn County Register | Eagle …
See all stories on this topic

Federal fishing regulators are planning a host of changes to the quota limits of several important New England fish, including cod. New England fishermen search for cod in two key fishing areas, Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine. Regulators have enacted a series of cutbacks to the cod quota in those areas in recent years as cod stocks have dwindled. This year, regulators want to trim the Georges Bank cod quota by 13 percent and keep Gulf of Maine’s quota the same. They also want to keep the Ge…
See all stories on this topic

Each year, University of Miami holds a celebrity fishing tournament as a kind of post-celebration and promotion of the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame. 2017’s event was no different – participants were paired with former Hurricane sports stars for a full day of both inshore and offshore competitive fishing. South Motors, a long-time annual sponsor of the tournament, was on hand with two great catches of its own on display, the award-winning BMW 5 Series and the BMW X5 SAV. …
See all stories on this topic

Bachelor party from Toronto : We had a blast with Captain Mark and the crew. Mark was cool and courteous. He was determined to catch that day. We put some serious positive vibes into those waters and Boom!!! We caught a 7 foot 200lb sandbar shark. Great day! It made our trip to Miami!! Booked the trip with Mark after reading the reviews, and he did not disappoint. We wanted to catch a sailfish and 2 hours into our trip, we hooked a large one. Ryan his first mate walked us thru each step and edu…
See all stories on this topic

The Latest on a small plane crash in northern Wisconsin that killed six people (all times local): 1:05 p.m. Authorities say a small airplane crash that killed six people in northern Wisconsin fell apart in the air. National Transportation Safety Board Eric Weiss said Monday the debris from the plane crash suggests there was an “in-flight break up.” NTSB investigators say there was a discussion between the pilot of the plane and air traffic controllers about “local weather phenomenon” shortly be…
See all stories on this topic

A few summer thoughts about bugs, fish and quail By Beth Conner The Miami County Republic | 0 comments I had the most interesting thing happen the other evening while I was watering my garden (pre-storms on Friday evening). I was trying to adjust my sprinkler so that it would cover the flowered areas. The water was supposed to hit my new flowers and NOT the weeds. My watering device wasn’t working to my liking placed on the ground, so I stood outside holding the sprinkler in my hands. In…
See all stories on this topic

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will no longer have a large presence at the state fair, where it has previously promoted hunting, fishing and other recreational pursuits. A department spokesman told the Wisconsin State Journal (http://bit.ly/2rCAEed ) the department will no longer send between 100 to 200 staff members to the 11-day event. The decision is part of the department’s attempt to refocus its efforts after budget cuts and criticism from the Legislature. The department is …
See all stories on this topic

Photo courtesy of Larry Bond The four Louisburg men who caught the fish for Saturday’s Mason fish fry display just one morning’s catch, hauling in more than 150 pounds of catfish. The fishermen are (from left) William “Captain Buddy” Rogers, Mark Seely, Larry Bond and Colton Seely. William “Captain Buddy” Rogers battles a fish during the day to get bait for the night’s catfish lines. Rogers has helped catch fish for the annual Mason Peace Lodge 243 Fish Fry for the past eight yea…
See all stories on this topic

The Scilly peninsula in Kinsale takes its name from the Cornish fishermen who arrived in the area when the town was a major fishing port and decided to make the location their home. It is no wonder they remained in this wonderful spot – which is within minutes of the town yet away from the hustle and bustle. Known locally as the Golden Mile, it is the most sought after location in Kinsale. The current owners of Corafinne, one of whom is originally from Cork and based in the UK, sought a site …
See all stories on this topic

Maine’s congressional delegation says fishing permits forfeited by a fishing magnate dubbed “The Codfather” should be redistributed through the Northeastern states. Carlos Rafael was indicted on more than two dozen counts, including tax evasion and falsifying fishing quotas last year. He’s due for sentencing on June 27. Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King and Reps. Chellie Pingree and Bruce Poliquin sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross asking that 13 groundfish permits forfeited…
See all stories on this topic

Police say the thousands of dead bait fish found floating in Maine bays over the weekend is due to a fishing vessel catching more than it could handle. The Brunswick Police Marine Resource & Harbor Management Division says it followed up on weekend complaints of “hundreds of thousands” of dead fish in the bays. They determined a fishing expedition on June 6 caused the kill of the bait-fish pogies. Police say the fishing vessel was not equipped to handle a large catch of pogies and left them…
See all stories on this topic

The roads to the national forests could get bumpier. Literally. Trails could get messier. Maintenance on bridges, dams and recreation sites could become tougher. That’s the potential fate of national forest projects, thanks to President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal 2018, which begins Oct. 1. While the overall federal budget has plenty of cuts in agency after agency, the forest service plan has more drama, because the White House is seeking about $100 million in funding for capital improvement and maintenance, down from $363 million this year. That’s a 73 percent cut, and could have a huge impact on recreation, according to Rebecca Turner, senior director of programs and policy for American Forests, a nonprofit conservation organization. Turner said roads are used to access the trails leading to “majestic overlooks,” as well as lakes and rivers inside the forests. She said the budget cuts would also lead to camp sites and facilities not being maintained. Turner said if the forest service is unable to maintain safe roads, boat launches and campgrounds, they’re likely to simply close. “When you can’t access the forests, then it’s much harder to enjoy them,” she said. John Haynes, a spokesperson for the Forest Service, said it would be “premature” to comment on the proposed budget before it is finalized by Congress. The Forest Service manages the 154 national forests around the country that cover more than 180 million acres. Millions of people visit the forests every year. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said his agency will focus on maintaining “staff and expertise” in anticipation of President Trump’s infrastructure plan, few details of which were outlined in the 2018 budget. “When the infrastructure plan moves forward, then we’ll be well positioned to be able to implement projects,” Tidwell told Senators at a hearing on the forest service budget. But Tidwell told McClatchy that the administration has not made it clear when or if that money will come. “If additional funds are not made available through the infrastructure plan, or additional opportunities, then the budget request for roads and trails and infrastructure would make it very challenging, more challenging, for us to carry out our program of work,” Tidwell said. Coalter Baker, a spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget, said there were no details on the infrastructure plan beyond the six-page fact sheet included in the budget which does not mention the forest service. “It’s nice to hope, but until we see a draft let alone a bill … we’re hoping for something that we don’t know would exist,” Turner said. Both Republicans and Democrats have raised concerns. “How do we sustain the $10 billion generated by visitors to our national forests and the 143,000 jobs they create if we don’t have roads to access the forest, or safe and accessible facilities or hiking trails for visitors to use once they are there,” Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. said at a Senate hearing recently on the forest service budget. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, also raised concerns about the cut’s impact on roads, noting cuts could make it tougher for timber purchasers to access the forests. H. Sterling Burnett, a research fellow on environmental policy at the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank in Illinois, said the budget cuts are necessary to control spending. He said since cuts to politically popular programs such as defense or entitlements like Medicare are unlikely, agencies like the forest service will have to see their budgets squeezed. “[Budget cuts] have to come and they have to be steep,” he said. “You can’t fiddle around the edges.” Burnett said the government should consider selling some of its land to private companies both to raise money and to reduce the amount of forest it has to manage. “There is no reason the federal government needs to own 100 million acres of forest,” he said.
See all stories on this topic

Montana’s Bozeman Fish Technology Center is set to celebrate 125 years of operation. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports (http://bit.ly/2sLeIi4 ) the center will celebrate the milestone Saturday with a day of special events held in conjunction with the center’s annual Watershed Festival. Established in 1892, the center was opened as the first national fish hatchery in the northern Rocky Mountains and was responsible for keeping lakes and rivers stocked with enough fish to sustain the ecosystem….
See all stories on this topic

Protesters outside Greece’s parliament threw boxes of fish at police on Friday ahead of a vote that approved new austerity measures. Members of a communist-backed labor union hurled the crates of sardines at police as lawmakers debated the cuts, which were added to draft legislation on fishing regulations in an attempt to speed up their passage through parliament. Greece’s left-wing government is trying to reach a deal on reforms with international bailout lenders that would unfreeze the flow o…
See all stories on this topic

Spaced out up and down a stretch of the Little River, more than a dozen women stand in the moving water in overall waders casting fly rods, some for the first time. The women — all breast cancer survivors in different stages of treatment and recovery — are taking part in a free weekend fly-fishing retreat that offers them more than fishing. The event, held each spring by the nonprofit Casting for Recovery, covers the basics of fly-fishing while offering the women support, counseling, medica…
See all stories on this topic

The fishermen were dubious when ocean experts suggested they could save their dwindling marine stocks just by switching to new nets. It took years for the U.N. Development Program to convince the fishing communities along India’s tropical western coast that the diamond-mesh nets they were using were trapping baby fish, while a square-shaped mesh could allow small fish to escape to maintain a breeding population. But two years after the new nets were fully adopted, fishermen insist they’re making a difference. “This square net is a blessing for us,” said John Gabriel Naronha, who runs six trawlers in the area. “When the small fish grows up, the fishermen can really benefit … we can get good prices for big fish. And the small fish gets a chance to grow.” The project, launched in 2011, is one of many being showcased at a major conference on oceans beginning Monday, where the United Nations will plead with nations to help halt a global assault on marine life and ecosystems that is threatening jobs, economies and even human lives. “The oceans of the planet are in dire need of urgent action,” said Marina Walter, deputy director for UNDP in India. That action is even more urgent now that climate change is causing ocean temperatures to rise while waters also become more acidic, causing widespread destruction of coral reefs that sustain a quarter of all marine species. But conservation efforts work best when they’re linked with local livelihoods, Walter said. “You cannot work on biodiversity or life underwater in isolation, without looking at the livelihoods of people, the bread and butter.” No one in 80 or so fishing villages of Sindhudurg district expected to have problems fishing, after centuries of their families relying on the sea. Located in one of India’s 11 ecologically critical coastline habitats, the area is teeming with life from more than 350 marine species including Indian Ocean dolphins and Olive Ridley turtles. Colorful corals span the shallows, while tangles of mangrove forests protect the land from water erosion. But that bounty has suffered against the twin assaults of overfishing and pollution, which caused a steady decline local fish stocks and forced fishermen to push further out to sea. Since switching to new nets, fishermen say fish stocks are recovering, though there is no data collected yet to prove it. Surveys of fish population may be conducted at the end of this year, when the UNDP finishes its six-year project in the area. The struggles of India’s fishermen are hardly unique. About one out of every 10 people in the world relies directly on the ocean to survive. Most of those are among the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, meaning they have few substitutes when marine life declines. And it is declining rapidly, thanks to increased fishing for an expanding global population and unchecked runoff of industrial chemicals, sewage and other pollutants. Already, about 90 percent of wild fisheries around the world are over-exploited or collapsed. Meanwhile, the UNDP has also helped set up a crab farming project in the Sindudurg area to encourage local preservation of the mangroves and resistance to land developers and those gathering firewood from chopping the saltwater-tolerant trees down. Now, nurseries for crab seedlings line up along a 2-acre (8,000-square-meter) stretch of backwater pools filled with the mud that crabs like to dig into. It takes up to nine months for the crabs to grow to full size, at which point they are harvested and sold for about $15 per kilogram ($6.80 a pound). Recently, the group of nine women and one man earned nearly $1,000 in profits from a single harvest. Local officials are delighted with the low-fuss process and positive results. “With very little manipulation of the environment, you can grow crabs wherever you have mangroves,” said N. Vasudevan, who heads a special unit dedicated to mangrove conservation for the government of India’s western state of Maharashtra.
See all stories on this topic

For outdoor-minded adventure-loving kids, the Miami-Dade Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Department is bringing back four exciting Miami EcoAdventures nature camps this summer that get them up-close to the wild side of county parks. A 10 percent Early Bird Enrollment discount is being offered through Apr. 15. Parents are encouraged to register their child/children early, as registration slots fill up quickly for these popular camps. To register, visit or call one of these area Miami EcoAdvent…
See all stories on this topic

Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter FT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – Low humidity and gusty winds are contributing to a meandering brush fire burning in Everglades Holiday Park. As of Friday afternoon, the Florida Forestry Service said the fire has chewed through nearly 5,500 acres but is 45 percent contained. It was a monumental effort as firefighters battled to save the nearly two dozen structures at Mack’s Fish Camp off Krome Avenue, which has been there since the 1930s. The owners of …
See all stories on this topic

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is back to picturing the great outdoors on its internet home page after raising eyebrows with a prominent photo of a huge coal deposit in Wyoming. Some interpreted the image of the coal at Peabody’s North Antelope Rochelle Mine as a sign of the Trump administration’s support for coal. On Friday, the BLM changed its lead website photo to a fly fisherman on the North Platte River in Wyoming. The river flows 50 miles south of the coal in the previous photo. BLM o…
See all stories on this topic

Email sent We have sent you an email with a link to change your password. Get unlimited access to all of our breaking news, in-depth coverage and bonus content- exclusively for subscribers. Starting at just 99¢ for 8 weeks This subscriber-only site gives you exclusive access to breaking news, in-depth coverage, exclusive interactives and bonus content. You can read free articles of your choice a month that are only available on myDaytonDailyNews.com. We have sent you a verification email. Plea…
See all stories on this topic

There was a time when small, locally owned tackle shops dotted the downtown Seattle landscape, a sight that would make Starbucks jitter with envy. Before and through most of the 20th century, places such as Linc’s Tackle Shop, a mom-and-pop operation on the corner of Rainier Avenue and King Street, were gathering places, like an old barber shop where people would exchange fish tales. Now closure is looming for this nostalgic tackle shop — one of a handful remaining in greater Puget Sound regi…
See all stories on this topic

These speckled, rose-tinted fish haven’t been spotted in this bubbling river in remote northeastern Oregon for more than 30 years — until now. But this week, the waters of the Lostine River suddenly came alive as hundreds of the 4- and 5-inch-long juvenile coho salmon shot from a long white hose attached to a water tanker truck and into the frigid current. The fish jumped and splashed and some, momentarily shell-shocked, hid along the bank as onlookers crowded in for photos. “All of us a…
See all stories on this topic

The small Alaska fishing community of Homer is no stranger to political activism. In the 1970s, a landmark legal case involving one of its residents found the constitutional right to privacy in Alaska extends to the at-home use of marijuana. In 1989, Homer became a “nuclear-free” zone. And just last month, hundreds turned out for a women’s march in the city. Now, Homer is wading deeper into the national political debate, becoming the latest U.S. city to consider affirming its commitme…
See all stories on this topic

The Miami Boat Show’s 2017 NMMA Innovation Award winners spanned 23 categories of competition. Twenty-one new products from boat-maintenance tools to engine innovations and boats claimed top awards for innovation from the National Marine Manufacturers Association and Boating Writers International during the 2017 Miami International Boat Show that ended Feb. 20. This year’s judges — a committee of eight BWI members — reviewed 63 products across 23 categories in the days leading up to the s…
See all stories on this topic

Maine fishing regulators are temporarily closing several scallop fishing areas beginning this weekend to prevent the valuable shellfish from over-harvest. WCSH-TV reports (http://on.wcsh6.com/2lMNZjV ) the state Department of Marine Resources closures take effect on Sunday for the Damariscotta River in Lincoln County, North Haven and mid-Penobscot Bay. The closures will also take place in the Lower Blue Hill Bay and Jericho Bay area, and the Chandler Bay and Head Harbor area. The closures are t…
See all stories on this topic