Pensacola Fishing Forum / General Chit Chat / General Discussion

new redfish charter/class i am working on

Irri-Tater — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:11:36 GMT

i've been thinking of starting a new type of charter business, helping to educate my fellow anglers on the incredible amount of redfish in the east bay/Escambia/black water area.

i plan on putting anglers on the fish, then showing them tricks and tips on how to get more bites...

i plan on making this a fair bit cheaper than some of the competition on this forum, so please PM if you would like details.

by the way, i plan on calling it REDFISH JUNIOR COLLEGE:usaflag

Attention PFF Moderators need pff t shirt

Dynamic — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:21:08 GMT

I was looking to buy a shirt off of the pff gear section but there was no large for stone blue t shirts. Is there someone I can talk to that may have some in that size??

Thanks

Miles

p.s. You can pm me or email me to let me know.

Total Nube to the Pensacola Fishing scene!

Newfie — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:54:45 GMT

Howdy everyone!

Just moved to the area! Originally from Newfoundland, Canada so born with a fishing rod in my hand. (Made for a rough delivery but we are fine now!)

Trout are a big favorite but I will fish for anything that you can fillet and pan fry!

Fly fishing is fine but open to bait fishing of any kind, basically any fishing of any kind for that matter!

I do not know the area well but have plenty of maps to get around by car. I assume I can probably buy a river map at any sporting goods store.

Can anyone give me the "Forrest Gump's" mother run down on a few hot spots?

Where they are, what you need to fish with, what are you fishing for etc that is around the Pensacola area?

The next question is are there any other little day trip spots even a little further out where you could drive for an hour or two and find a great river, pond or lake etc to go haul a few out of the water?

Look forward to hearing from folks!

Cheers!

newfiepete

Bush prepares for the Obama Inaugural

one big one — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:27:32 GMT

reef building saturday 11/22/08

reelhappy — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:17:40 GMT

will be at the club house around 9 am to open up and build reefs all day if anyone wants to come down.

stop in and sign a letter for bill nelsen and say hi!

see ya scot

our new military

cobe killer — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:50:41 GMT

our troops will fight to the end with whatever they have to fight with.

Letter to U.S. Sen Bill Nelson

need2fish — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:15:34 GMT

The RFRA is expanding lobbying efforts for approval of the 5 Escambia County Near Shore / In Shore Reef Zone permits and move of the ACOE Waterways jusrisdiction back to the Mobile District ACOE office.

We are soliciting your support in lobbying Florida's U.S. Sentator Bill Nelson. Your friends at the RFRA will do all the legwork - all you need to do to support this lobbying effort is:

1. Print out and sign the attached letter

2. Drop it by or mail it to the RFRA building (right near Joe Pattis)

Here's the RFRA address:

RFRA
1007 West Pine St.
Pensacola, FL 32501

Bill Nelson may be in Pensacola around December 6th so we'll try to get an audience with him and hand deliver the letters while requesting his assistance. Below is the text of the letter.

penn reels

flordaboy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:46:43 GMT

How long has penn been foreign made? What models started to not be original penn quality?

Freezing weather and outboards

BMH77 — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:34:52 GMT

Is there any chance of damage to an outboard from the freezing weather?

Plan to take 1/2 our TAC!

Candy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:55:55 GMT

Attention All Recreational Fishermen and Businesses that rely on Recreational Fishing to survive.

Below is a proposal that will be presented to the FFWCC in Key West December 3rd & 4th 2008 by a group of Charter Boat Owners.

The supporters of the "SOS Plan" (Save Our Selves) want to take 50% of the Recreational Total Allowable Catch and create a "For-Hire" sector similar to the Commercial Sector.

I was told by a very reliable source that Roy Crabtree likes this idea and said as much at a meeting in Mobile a few weeks ago during an "Off-the-Record" meeting with several of the attendees.

What would this mean to Private Recreational Fishermen? It would mean that we would go from having 49% of the TAC (Total Allowable Catch) to having 24.5% of the TAC.

Basically, if adopted, 2 very small special interest groups (Commercial & For-Hire) would be GIVEN 75.5 percent of all the fish that are allowed to be caught in the Gulf of Mexico!

This would be devastating to not only the recreational fisherman but also to Boat Dealers, Boat Mechanics, Marina’s, Fishing & Tackle stores, Scuba shops that sell spearfishing gear, boat insurance sales, all the mechanics that service the millions of private boats and the list could go on and on! Florida’s economy enjoys approximately $10,000 per minute from Recreational Saltwater Fishing. We must be proactive and save our rights to fish and our economy!

BTW, not all Charter Boat Owners support this plan! However, support is growing because many Charter Owners are hurting and desperate due to the restrictions placed on the Fishery by NMFS limiting the Federal Red Snapper Season.

I have always supported the Charter Industry because they are professional transportation for Recreational Fishermen, however; I don't support this scheme to hijack 50% of the Recreational Total Allowable Catch.

The best plans are always WIN-WIN plans.

This plan is a big looser for Recreational Fishermen and the Businesses that rely on them!

If you would like to participate in writing a Win-Win plan, Please contact me with your ideas. candy@valp.net

Spread the word, the future of Recreational Fishing could be at stake!

Candy Hansard

*************************************************

SOS Plan (Save-Our-Selves)

Exploring a New Direction to Improve For-Hire Red Snapper Fishing

What’s happening? – The 2008 red snapper season was the shortest on record. This was due to the NMFS’s commitment to making sure that all sectors stay within their allotted allocation. Additionally, new government accountability measures will require that any future overages are compensated for, which could result in even shorter seasons in the future. The continued loss of fishing time and subsequent loss of business revenues highlights the desperate situation facing our industry.

It has become clear that we must reevaluate the position of the for-hire recreational fisheries sector. If negative trends continue, we stand to lose all the investment and years of labor we have collectively put into making our profession an industry. Something has to change.

Until this year, many of us thought that we could get by with shortened seasons and fewer fish. Some of our industry leaders have even suggested the solution is the status quo and have promoted the continuity of the relationship we have with the private recreational fishers.

This is no solution at all and the reason is simple: We are professional fishers who operate for-profit businesses. Both the National Research Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service agree on this point. Sure, we may all fall under the recreational sector allocation umbrella for fisheries management purposes, but we approach fishing from an entirely different perspective. Our opinion is simply that we can no longer afford to be attached to a recreational sector of unknown quantities, effort, landings and unregulated growth.

The time to become involved is now - Several for-hire businessmen are exploring how to better serve our customers, count and conserve fish, and build equity in our businesses assets. We realize the consequences of inaction: longer fishery rebuilding, fewer fishing days, and lost economic potential for our businesses. Any profitable business must have stability so owners can plan for the future. It is imperative that we all take a leadership role in developing common-sense management options to obtain stability, sustainability and give us hope for a better future. The NMFS and the Gulf Council have both indicated that they are ready to roll up their sleeves and work for better management. We believe they will be receptive to an industry led effort to make positive change.

Getting started - To begin, we want to develop a set of goals to guide our discussions and the development of this proposal such as:

· Provide a reliable platform for the public to access and enjoy sport fishing.

· Improve service to customers with year-around access and the ability to custom-tailor trips.

· Build stability and equity in for-hire businesses.

· Achieve high accountability by counting all fish caught.

· Rebuild and maintain a viable for-hire fishery.

· Gain fair and equitable management.

· Increase industry control over management.

Achieving our Goals - Changes in recreational management will require compromise by several parties, including our industry, and it will neither be easy nor pain- free, but it is an opportunity to put our industry back on track to recover what we have lost, rebuild our investment, and eventually recover equity in our fishery. There are a lot of steps to a new management program, including a proposal, Gulf Council plans, and implementation by NMFS. This is a daunting task, but the alternative – the status quo - equates to nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Here is a summary of our proposal:

1. Secure our allocation. We would begin by obtaining a “control date” from the NMFS which would freeze the current percentages of recreational sector allocation between the private recreational anglers and the For-Hire Sector based upon landings history. We don’t want anything more than our fair share: only that what we have historically caught. Then we would obtain an agreement from NMFS that the percentages will remain fixed for a minimum of two years to provide enough time to get the proper monitoring tools in place by NMFS and the industry.

2. Put monitoring tools in place. The next step is to decide what monitoring tools we want. For starters, we think just two: VMS and electronic logbooks. These tools will provide us the opportunity of real-time catch reporting and will determine, at a high level of accuracy, who is fishing and what they are catching.

3. Professionalize the industry: Monitoring tools such as VMS and electronic log books will give scientists and managers better data for management decisions and will give the industry accountability, so that when fish stocks rebound, the information can be trusted and catch levels can be increased. Increasing the fishermen’s role in data collection and management of the fishery will instill a positive stake in data collection and foster a proactive attitude and participation to further enhance fisheries management.

4. Create a Red Snapper Endorsement: As our new sector begins to collect accurate, real-time data through the implementation of VMS and electronic logbooks, a clear picture of who is dependent on red snapper for their livelihoods will immerge. This information can then be used to determine eligibility for any future management plan for the red snapper fishery. Fishermen who have implemented VMS and electronic logbooks and have snapper landings can then be given an endorsement for red snapper and will be eligible to participate in the fishery. Fairness is of utmost importance, whether you have been in business for 6 months or 50 years, have a six-pack boat or a party boat all participants start on the same date with the same access dictated by the NMFS current opening and closings that we are fishing under now.

5. Support law enforcement. Throughout this process, we will support law enforcement, which will authenticate our honesty in record keeping. Through VMS, enforcement officers can easily contact vessels and verify catch, and catch composition, with random, unannounced inspections. We support strict penalties including disqualification for anyone caught cheating or “cooking the books.” We also encourage the apprehension and prosecution of individuals illegally conducting a For-Hire business.

Hopefully, you’ll agree with us that failure to do nothing is certain failure. We welcome your participation in changing the current direction of our industry into a productive business where our sons and daughters have a future in the fishery.

Wind Wind and more Wind

Cuz — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 09:51:05 GMT

When is this F#$%@# wind going to quit. Have some new lures for the Whooo's and it's killing me!

GUN SHOW THIS WEEKEND

TURTLE — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:55:49 GMT

I am going to the gun show tommorow and it will be my first one , can anyone give me advice on what to exspect as far as deals? I have heard everything from the panic will cause prices/availability to be a problem, to sellers will be trying to get rid of things that might be baned creating low prices.I have all the hunting rifles I need but always in the market for a cool assault rifle , do you think the show will have any at good prices?

inshore reel?

fishn4fun — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:52:17 GMT

i am looking to get a new inshore reel and need some ideas i want to get a good all around reel i am on a tight budget but i realize i will have to spend $$$ to get good quality i have been fishing with penn captivas and silverados which have worked fine but i fish alot and they just dont hold up very long any input would be appreciated

What are you Thankful for?

Garbo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:11:39 GMT

Times are tough, and it is easy to not stop and count your blessings. No doubt 2008 will be in my memory as a very tough year.

As bad as it is, we got it good. Watch the news, read the paper and see. There are many places in the world where people hope their kids come home from school, or the house doesn't get blown up, or the ship isn't taken by pirates. It's unreal what some humans live through each and everyday. I am Thankful for alot of things, but I am Thankful for is that we currently still live in a great free country.

Thanksgiving is one week from today, and we all have so much to be truly Thankful for,

What are you Thankful for?

marine speakers

Hookd Up — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:25:01 GMT

does anyone have two marine speakers in decent shape they are willing to sell? if so u can email me details at mullet36534@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Nick

9 ea Tankers High Jacked

one big one — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:16:15 GMT

The biggest tanker holding 100 million $ worth oil/ fuel, this tanker is 3 x bigger than our big carrier. The pirates are getting the ransoms (1-25 mil depending on the size of the tankers), although the mother ship was sunk yesterday. Ships are re-routing way out ouf the way just to keep from getting JACKED. :usaflag:usaflag:usaflag

ART SHOW

snakeawave — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:10:12 GMT

The art show I have my fish in is this weekend come and enjoy !!!! Here is the Poster

Good price on this boat?

asago — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:00:10 GMT

What do you think of this Kenner at it's current price (reserve not met yet though)?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=110312605104

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

redneckinc — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:58:56 GMT

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL

Professional Sport Fishing Team

brayden — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:26:15 GMT

Friends,
Every angler wants to have a career as a professional sport fishing team member and for these members of the professional team it is fishing the best places to bring in the big fish. It is also a profession that other anglers look to them for information about the latest fishing equipment, the latest sport fishing news and other information about the water.
Being a part of a professional sport fishing team means that every tournament brings a challenge, to bring in the winning catch and to try out the new equipment, it also means that other anglers are following the news about the tournament. This is half the fun of being on a professional sport fishing team, are the tournaments to battle with the large fish out on the open ocean. Then to go back to the charter yacht to relax and talk fishing strategy for the next day of the tournament when they say lines in the water, where everyone waits to hook the big fish.

[url="http://www.badcoteam.com/pages/Professional-Sport-Fishing-Team.html"]Professional Sport Fishing Team[/url]

Hit and Run accident on Nov. 17th.

Cub Tub — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:09:38 GMT

If anyone has any info about an accident that happened late Sunday night at the foot of the Brooks Bridge on Okaloosa Island involving a green 4dr Kia or Hundi pleese contact me. My son who is a 20yr. old full time student at North West Florida State (O.W.C.), Part time waiter at Louisianna Lanjappe, and avid fisherman (used to work a couple of hesd boats in Destin) was hit by a drunk driver a little after midnight while comming home from work. This Guy who was probably comming from Helen Back Bar/restaraunt ran the red light and my son T-Boned him in the passenger side rear. Son is OK the Brush guard on his 97 jeep cherokee took alot of the inpact but his jeep is totaled. When my son got out of his Jeep the other car fled the scene and the police never found them. Brock (my son) did get alook at him, he is a white male mid 20's with a gotee. My son only has liability insurance so his car is not covered under State Farm. The uninsured motorist only coveres his medical bill. If anyone has any info PM me.

Thanks,

Joe

21' Cape Horn,

and Pelican 130

Mangrove Snapper on the Jetty

Sailor50 — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:11:12 GMT

Went out to the west jetty today to try to get some mangrove snapper. Got one, but got snagged a lot. Used 2"Gulp shrimp and squid. People next to me had live shrimp and brought in a bunch. Just wondering if anyone would like to share what kind of rig they use. I put an old cast net weight on the bottom of a 40# fluoro leader, put a dropper knot about 2 ' from the weight with a #1 aberdeen hook and put it out near the rocks.

Thanks

Who is your favorite Charter boat Captain/Guide?

Garbo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:47:56 GMT

Vinnie Biondoletti.

He is so cool to fish with. I fished with him the first time about 15 years ago, many times since and look forward to the next trip. He is just plain cool to fish with. I have been on chartered trips that were mostly just a boat ride or some would call them a tourist trip or trap, and I'm not much into that. He runs a flats boat in Islamaroda Fl. I caught my first Bonefish from the bow of his boat. But, the first time I fished with Vinnie it was like fishing with a friend and has been every trip since.

Who is your favorite Charter Captain/Guide?

What'd jeet today?

hjorgan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:34:30 GMT

Breakfast: McDonalds Breakfast Burrito

Lunch: 291 Diner in Moble -- Kick azz potroast!!!!

Dinner: x-perimental white chili made by the wife -- YUMMMMMMM!! :hungry

So,

What'd jeet today?

Garbo, how many more questions can you ask?

LITECATCH — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:28:47 GMT

give it a rest! i understand that you are a nice guy. all these questions are killing me! sorry if i piss you off (again) but i really don't understand why you post all of these post. i get tired of answering questions of my peers about your post's. go outside and enjoy the great weather!
thanks, your friend, Scott

navy point boat ramp

roll tide roll — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:22:44 GMT

how far is it by boat from navy point boat ramp to the pass

Navy point boat ramp

shipoke — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:58:13 GMT

Saturday 11/15 daylight launch. Friend arrives and leaves truck at ramp. Return in two hours with a $50.00 ticket on windsheild for parking without a trailer. Besides my trailer, there was only one other trailer there.

Question: Would a warning have been more appropriate.

Ribbon Fish

flrockytop — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:18:12 GMT

What are ribbon fish good for?

Roger

Quality of Polar boats???

Rich Lacour — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:55:13 GMT

I was looking at possibly buying a 2006 27ft. center console and have heard that there may be some qualily issues with these boats. I have not ridden on these boats and was wondering if anyone had any experience with this brand.

Comments sought on grouper regs in PNJ

TWINKIE6816 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:15:40 GMT

Sorry if this is repost. I searched and didn't see anything about it! Here is an article that is in the PNJ online edition!
[url]http://www.pnj.com/article/20081119/SPORTS05/811190346/1002/SPORTS[/url]

It looks like it is time once again to voice our opinions!

Old Harbor Outfitters Knives

konz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:33:49 GMT

Anybody have any experience with these knives?

Ribbonfish

earlybird — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 05:31:32 GMT

Where is a ggod spot to catch ribbonfish besides Palafox Park, and what is the best bait I could use? Thanks!! Tom

Wayside Boat Ramp Question - Depth

true-king — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:30:34 GMT

I was wanting to launch the boat there tommorow to fish the bridge, but I noticed it will be low tide. I don't launch there much and wasn't sure about the water depth. Can I make it in and out with 21" of draft on the Mako? Is it any shallower than shoreline?

AWWWRIGHTTTTT!!! Vaaaaacaaationnnnnn!!!

hjorgan — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:14:57 GMT

Got a whole week!

Fishing out of Orange Beach. Have a couple of boat choices, one can gitterdone (36ft twin 225's) for long range.

One can gitterdone cheaper, single 225 26 ft for closer in.

Given the seas have to behave:

What's my best bets?

Would love to TAG A TUNA! Any overnight rig reports? Swordfish?

Grouper deep dropping?

If Neptune kicks up, close in for bruiser redfish?

Or just Doc's for gumbo :reallycrying

Request Seminars at West Marine, 3500 Barrancas

oldflathead — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:30:51 GMT

We had 30 people attend the session this week on, "Sailing around the world". Now, I don't expect many PFFer's are thinking about that, but is there anything else you would like to hear an expert talk about?

Please respond, if you wish, and when we get a few folks signed up, we will recruit an expert, schedule a time and date.

Feel free to call me with suggestions, 850-572-1225 or PM or post.

Tom

Venice Florida

alum maverick — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:04:35 GMT

im trailering my boat down there day after christmas does anybody know the area and tell me what to fish ect anything will be helpful.

Electric Reels

rauber — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:47:14 GMT

hey guys is anybody using electric reels for deep dropping? if yes what kind do you use. does anybody like those electrmate?

thanks fergie

Grady marine,

ricwing — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:27:57 GMT

has annouced in the mobile press register it will be closing it doors jan.31,2009.

The Further Adventures of The Fish Nerd.......

Coryphaena — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:30:33 GMT

First of all I have to credit specslayer for sending me some wonderful photos of the R/V Bellows, including this one:

Second of all, I have to say- this is gonna be a long one! (When do I ever tell a short story???? LOL)

Those who know me well know that once a semester, I am on this vessel teaching zoology classes about the diversity of fish life in our local ecosystem. I have spent the last four years doing this, as well as living aboard her for various research cruises and field ecology classes. The Bellows is sort of an icon amongst biologists trained in this region, and it seems that each conference I go to has in attendance someone with fond (and not-so-fond) memories of their time on the Bellows, as well as a few nicknames for her- "R/V Blows" and "Vomit Comet", referring to her round-hulled design which makes her pitch and roll like a cork in sloppy seas.

My own memories of the Bellows are all good.... she has served as my office, a place to rest my head after a long day underwater, a treasure trove of specimens, an incredible learning experience, and a place where I have cultivated some lasting and meaningful friendships with the crew and with other fish-folk on board. As my time at UWF grows ever shorter, I look back and am proud that after four years aboard, the crew is a second family for me, and the R/V Bellows is a place I can call home. :angel

With that said, the Bellows and crew made the journey to Pensacola from St. Petersburg for our fall zoology trip the weekend of Nov 8/9. The weather forecast for that weekend was for some wind and a little bit of slop on Saturday, but other than that the entire weekend was beautiful! Our mission: collect live specimens for our zoology students to observe, with hopes that we would all gain a deeper appreciation of the diversity of our local ecosystem. On board for the weekend was the professor in charge of the zoology labs, myself and the 2 other lab instructors and teaching assistants, and a half of the honors zoology lab each day. To collect, we deployed otter trawls at several stations around the lower bay and in the Gulf. Nets are set for a maximum time of 20 minutes which ensures that specimens are in excellent condition when they come to the surface. We do the "gruntwork" mostly by hand- we tie and deploy the net, guide the big oak doors, and then when the net comes in, a winch pulls it to the surface but we hand-pull it in, doors and all. (I can skip the gym for the weekend!!)

Before we leave port, we make sure that the net is in good working operation:

Now let's fire up those huge engines and get underway! I always wanted to be at the helm of the Bellows....

(of course I am not really driving, but boy I wish I was!!!)

With an all-out, tailwind-push TOP speed of 9 kt, we find ways to entertain ourselves while we are underway between samplng stations. It's become common knowledge that my job aboard the Bellows is more than just a teacher- it's "stand-up comic", too.

Rule #1- "Blue" is a food group, and the ice cream freezer and drink fridge in the wet lab are loaded with that food group.

Rule #2- When your professor's new album comes out, make sure you have it. (actually this was a specimen container, but the play on words was too much to resist....)

Rule #3- When the net is about to be deployed, know the apropriate dance to do to attract the right specimens into the net....

Our first sample station was near Deer/Fair Point, Gulf Breeze. Alex and I get the net out, and replace the stern chains just in case anyone gets a bright idea.....

Now to pass the next 20 minutes while the net is out...... it doesn't seem like long and the cable is on its way up. The A-frame brings us the big oak trawl doors.....

Alex and I catch the doors and pull them as far back onto the deck as we can.....

And my job is to open the cod end of the net and be on "Venemous Fish Duty".... I remove and release anything harmful from the haul before any of the students get their hands into the pile.

Removing stingrays from the pile (I still give Alex a little flack because he actually wears gloves when handling fish)....:poke

The trawl from the Deer/Fair Point area was our best in terms of numbers of specimens. Most of the catch was Atlantic bumper and pinfish, but we got a good handful of sea robins, lizardfish, and croakers as well. There were 3 species of ray- Atlantic stingray, bluntnose stingray, and smooth butterfly ray. The starfish in the picture are all Luidia clathrata which is quite common here, and necessary for my good friend Pilar to collect for her thesis work.

There was a special treasure in this haul for me, though:

I don't know exactly what the black drum weighed, but this was a first for the Bellows crew, and a real treat for me!

We also picked up another unusual creature- a Luidia that was the exception to the rule for starfish. Stars and other echinoderms have pentaradial symmetry- that is, their arms (and other parts) are typically in multiples of five. Nature always manages to toss in a little something to make us scratch our heads....

I have closeup photos of some of the fish specimens saved elsewhere, which I can add later for ID...

The Atlantic bumpers (Chloroscombrus chrysurus) were by far the most abundant fish in that haul. I taught students key features of their family- Carangidae, the jacks- falcate pectoral fins, a forked tail, and two free anal fin spines. Bumpers also have a remnant of a jack trait- many jack species have scutes on either side of the caudal peduncle (leads to the tail).

The sea robins we picked up in this haul were all Prionotus scitulus, the leopard sea robin- this is a species that is rarely caught hook-and-line. Students saw the modified pectoral fin rays that the sea robins use to "walk" along the bottom, and the typical heavily-armored head. They also learned that though sea robins are in the same taxonomic order as scorpionfishes, sea robins are NOT venemous.

Besides the black drum, we picked other members of Family Sciaenidae, including croakers, spot, and southern kingfish (Menticirrhus americanus). This is the fish that is often called by the slang term "ground mullet", and I taught students how to tell the difference between our two common kingfish species- the Southern and the Gulf kingfish (Menticirrhus littoralis, also known by the slang term "whiting"). Lift the operculum (gill cover)- if the underside is dusky brown, it is a southern kingfish- if it's silvery, it's a Gulf kingfish. I also taught them some of the characteristics of the drum family- the lateralline continues all the way to the edge of the tail fin, and the dorsal fin is deeply notched. We dissected a seatrout so that students could see the sonic muscles lying next to the swim bladder in drums.

We pulled up a number of small squid too, which we kept alive and placed in trays so that students could observe the remarkable ability that the animals have for changing colors- under a dissection microscope the chromatophores (color-change cells) are very dramatic.

Another creature we observed under the microscope was the common bryozoan that can be found growing on everything from abandoned crab traps to jetties to dock pilings.... superficially it resembles "seaweed". On closer inspection, though....

Each brown "segment" is a chamber containing one of the colonial animals. There's one in the center of the picture with its feeding structure, called a lophophore, extended out. Bryozoans are more common that people often think- and next time you hold a chunk of "seaweed" in your hand, you might want to think twice about what it really is.......

After we'd looked at our specimens from the bay, it was time to make our way into the Gulf. Knowing it would be at least an hour to our first station just 3 miles off the beach, I took this time to get into that black drum. Little did I know there would be an audience....lol....My good friend Pilar wants a bite of this fish........

Paying my last respects to the drum before I got out the knives.....

Now then, on a personal note- I guess it was a good thing I decided to keep busy with the drum while we made our way into the Gulf chop that afternoon. I will come out and admit- I was mildly worried about the state of my Sea Legs that day. My Sea Legs have never let me down, but I had a couple of strikes against me- one, due to a little thing called Life in General I have not even SEEN the Gulf since my birthday (in JUNE....:banghead), and those who know me well know I have been adapting to medication for migraines for the last couple of months and had been a little vertigo-ish and off-kilter. A positive mindset works wonders, and though the Gulf was roughed up a little (2-4's) and the wind had picked up since the morning (we had some good rock-n-roll going on that round-bottom hull!), my Sea Legs gave me yet another good solid day. On the ride out, I cut into that drum with gusto.

I believe in "elbow grease".

Cutting open a fish begs the question from any Fish Nerd worth their salt- "What was it eating?" Have knife, will dissect.

I'll skip the photo of the entire contents of the stomach, because it resembles chum in NOT such a good way..... but suffice to say that the majority of the diet of the black drum had been portunid crabs, mostly blues, and none larger than about 2" wide. Huge fish- tiny diet!

I also had to take a moment to share the "perks" of being a lab instructor:

One of several 13" Gulf flounder (Paralichthys albigutta)... good size for them considering about 15" is max for a Gulf. It's also just the right size for stuffing, which is how this fish was prepped.

This beauty is the Southern flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma), which was appropriately "dissected" in the same fashion as the Gulf flounder was....

We of course had to get a closeup shot of the teeth- and this photo shows well the contrast between the eyed and "blind" sides of flatfishes.

We did pull up a few blue runners in the trawl as well as the flounders- and this photo shows those same traits that place them in the jack family- falcate pectoral fin, 2 free anal fin spines, and caudal scutes.....

I wish I had means to keep them alive for an extended period of time, especially since I have been promised a super grouper/jack trip in the near future....... :angel

Our final task in the Gulf was to run a dredge to pick up invertebrates from the sand/shell hash areas just out of the shipping channel. The dredge is a heavy piece of equipment that is meant to scoop a few inches below the sand surface, and we run this too for 20 minutes at a time.

Alex and Dr. Pomory steady the dredge before deploying it:

Our 2nd captain, Larry, operating the winch from the 01 deck.....

Larry's an awesome person, and a fellow angler as well so during trawls and tows we swapped fish stories......

After this dredge, we turned the bow north and headed in through a little windy slop, but overall a beautiful evening...

The sun begins to go down, and in the fading light we begin to gather the specimens we'd collected.....

Here are some fish I kept for Dauphin Island...... a cowfish, 2 species of seabass (sand perch Diplectrum formosum and dwarf sand perch Diplectrum bivittatum), and some sharptail gobies Gobionellus hastatus.

We also examined some of the specimens from the dredge..... an Ovalipes crab, which ecologically "replaces" the blue crab offshore:

This was probably my favorite invertebrate of the day for Saturday- a gorgeous whelk shell, which now has a home at Dauphin Island:

The brilliance of the sunset brought out the diehards to the aft deck to watch for the green flash. One thing about the fall, the dipping of the sun towards the horizon is spectacularly painted with Nature's brushstrokes.

Caught the Doc waiting for the elusive flash........ I love this photo, not just for the composition, but because of the light- look closely and you can see the horizon "bend" at the dip of the sun.........

And we did get our green flash! Nature gave us a light show that evening that I can chalk into my bank of great outdoors memories.... but too bad my camera was not fast enough to catch it. The light left after the sun faded was incredible, though....

In the last of the orange light, there was a disturbance in the Pass, and shimmering in the warmth of orange was a mackerel skying out of the channel after the last bit of bait.... couldn't tell if it was a large Spanish or a small king from the distance, but it was a fitting "farewell" to the Gulf for the day.

Sunday turned out to be an even prettier day than Saturday! We decided to sample in the Gulf first this time to avoid afternoon wind and chop. Headed out into the Pass....

Much better! We were, of course, accompanied by a band of bottlenose dolphins on our way out. The undergrads flocked to the bow to see them...... and I resisted...... as long as I could...... I think that even a hardened cold-blooded-fish-lover has to watch bow-riding dolphins at some point. OK, I bent, I took pictures of dolphins...:doh

The dolphins had the right idea. The bow of the Bellows is definitely a great place to be on a beautiful day like that. Pilar and I took full advantage of the sunshine and gorgeous day, and the height of the bow above the waterline is delightfully intoxicating!

The Gulf was much nicer that Sunday, and we were able to go to stations a little farther offshore. Our first was in about 85 feet, about 6 miles off the beach. Getting ready to deploy the first trawl:

I am glad Alex has my back as I am letting the trawl doors lower.....

I found I had a dance partner after the net went down! My dear friend Katherine helps me to call the fishes.... haha!

After 20 min, pulling in the net and carefully shaking critters down to the cod end....

Our Gulf trawls are typically smaller, but we got a good diversity of specimens in this haul. My task- teaching about the fish we got!

Here is one of the leopard sea robins...

Choosing the next fish out of the live bucket..... (I think I stay in this position for most of these trips!!!)

On this haul- another first! There were a half dozen of these fellows, all in beautiful condition, and now all at Dauphin Island..... juvie vermilion snapper!

I got a kick out of showing a snapper species OTHER than red or lane to the students. We trawled up more flounder (I think I was teaching life history there)-

The starfish species we get out in the Gulf is mainly Astropecten..... they are beautiful animals! On this specimen, the madreporite is very easily seen. That is the opening to the water vascular system of the starfish, the "hydraulics" that make the animal able to move. The madreporite is the little orange "spot" towards the lower edge of the animal.

Some of the sea robins can get a little size to them. This one is probably the most common species locally, and the one most likely to eat a bait- it's the bighead sea robin, Prionotus tribulus:

A closeup of the beautifully armored head of the bighead sea robin...

Our next trawl was a heavy pull. Dead weight. What on earth? Well, at least we knew we were definitely on the bottom, and we were certainly over a good sandy patch:

This was a good mixture of our 2 offshore sand dollar species- Encope michelini and Encope aberrens. We got mostly E. aberrens throughout the trip..... the main difference is in the number of notches around the margins of the two- E. aberrens has fewer. I wanted to see the sand dollars close up, so I took photos under the microscope- this is 60x magnification of the spines:

We got the net out again to try and add more fish to the lessons..... and we were successful! More big sea robins for me to teach about.... this group of fish has always fascinated me. Too bad there isn't more work done on their basic biology. They have no direct commercial value, so funding for sea robin research is as good as nil. I just wonder when the satisfaction of basic human curiosity lost its value. Anyway, here I think I was teaching differences in sea robin species. We have about a dozen or so different species in this area.....

Here we got 2 species similar in appearance- I photographed them in the same container to show the differences....

Bighead sea robin, Prionotus tribulus

Blackfin sea robin, Prionotus rubio

The object of curiosity for that trawl was the Clearnose Skate, Raja eglanteria. We never get these in trawls, and that day we got one male and one female on 2 separate hauls. These are the animals that produce the "mermaid purses" found on the beaches.... egg cases of skates. Here are Katherine and I examining the animal....

In this picture the easy-to-see differences between skates and rays are clear- skates have no stinging barb, and they also have dorsal fins placed posterior on the tail. Here's a closeup of the skate's head-

This shows the amazingly shaped iris of the skate's eye (closed into a series of slits in the bright sunlight), and the spiracles behind the eye, indicative of a bottom-dwelling lifestyle. Spiracles allow water to enter the respiratory system of many sharks as well as the skates and rays- though pelagic sharks lack them. I taught my students how to sex a chondrichthyan fish )sharks, rays, skates)- look for the claspers on the pelvic fins. I think here I was making a comment about this male skate's "endowments".....

Here was the other "curiosity" from that haul. There was a small tire in the net, and this fellow came pouring out of the tire...

Again thinking of my upcoming super grouper trip.... if only I'd had a way to keep this octopus alive long-term.....

We ended up with more flounder species out here. Many people do not realize that we have about a dozen and a half species of bothid ("left eye") flounders in our area, but most are never seen by anglers because they are too small, or their mouths are too tiny, to take a hook. This does not mean they aren't common, though! We trawled up 5 of the locals- the Bay Whiff (Citharichthys spilopterus), the spotted whiff (Citharichthys macrops).... both of which top out around 6" and have tiny mouths for their size but are beautiful and plentiful fish..... the Southern and Gulf flounders which most people are familiar with, and an Ocellated flounder (Ancyclopsetta quadrocellata). The ocellated flounder juuuust reaches a max size that places it within legal size limits for flounder, and it's ID'ed by 4 large ocellated spots on its eyed side as opposed to 3 on the Gulf flounder.

In any case, by the afternoon, I had a stringer's worth of 13-14 inch "groceries'..... more perks to this job!

Here's where I switch from biology lessons to culinary arts- I taught one of my labmates, my good friend Eric who is from Wisconsin, how I prep flounder for stuffing.

As the sun got low, we made our way back into the bay for one last trawl, and that yielded one final prize for me....

This was a fine example of a nice Southern flounder- none of our other local species get this big. We also picked up another starfish species for Pilar- this is Luidia alternata and I think it's one of our prettier local star species.

Two more locals showed up in the net- a juvenile spadefish, Chaetodipterus faber:

And a juvenile lane snapper, Lutjanus synagris:

OK, so here are the obligatory sunset photos, but I will always be of the sound opinion that no sunset will ever be as beautiful as those witnessed from the bow of a boat.

Sadly, this may have been my last trip on the Bellows, depending upon what happens to me over the spring semester- perhaps I will be fortunate enough to have one more. If that's the case, then Nature gave me one last hoo-rah with the most gorgeous celestial artwork- a burnished autumn sky complete with the first star of the evening....

What a beautiful weekend! Once again the crew of the R/V Bellows did an awesome job keeping us safe and sound, getting us to great collection spots, and providing us with star treatment in meals and entertainment. I'm proud to count these guys as family and glad to share adventures with them and with labmates and students who have become friends. Hope y'all enjoyed a little taste of life aboard the research vessel, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the spring semester will indeed give me one more go 'round!

Wed night meet up

duckhuntinsailor — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:48:37 GMT

Not sure where scott is, but anyone want to meet up somewhere tonight. I just got back in town.