03/28/04
War heats up against mullet fishing

Die-hard net fishermen set against law


PANACEA, Fla. -- Jonas Porter was 6 years old when his father, a life-long Florida gill-net fisherman, "got blowed up" in a boat fire.

The oldest of six sons, Porter, now 67, has been net fishing ever since to put food on his family's table and a roof over their heads. During World War II, his family lived on mullet and "swamp cabbage."

"Well," Porter says of fishing, "it's just like breathing. It's all I've ever done."

Porter is one of a dying breed of commercial fishermen who ply coastal waters in small boats with small nets, eking out a living despite Section 16, Article X of the Florida Constitution -- Florida's so-called "net ban," passed in 1994 by 71.7 percent of the vote.

Today, about 2,500 commercial netters remain, down from perhaps 10 times that many a decade ago.

Titled the "Limiting Marine Net Fishing Initiative," the 1994 act states Florida's marine resources belong to everyone and should be protected.

To do so, the initiative "prohibits use of gill and other entangling nets in Florida waters." It specifically exempts hand-thrown cast nets, and limits seines and other "rectangular nets" to 500 square feet of mesh -- provided they are not made of monofilament line.

"It destroyed us," said Porter of the net ban.

However, he has since learned how to use a smaller net with some success. He said his income dropped from $55,000 a year to $5,500 a year.

He said in 1995, state officials suggested he draw unemployment. He said he swept all his employment papers into a trash barrel.

"What's a real job?" he asked. "I've spent 60 years training to be a fisherman and I just learned how. Now, I'm supposed to train for another one."

The ban eliminated use of large gill nets, which could be as long as 900 square yards. Before the ban, such nets could haul as much as 1,000 pounds of mullet in a single sweep during spawning season, when schools mass together.

Now, netters are lucky to gather 300 pounds in a day.

Enforcement

The initiative posed a dilemma not only for fishermen, but for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission about how to enforce the act.

Since 1995, the commission's seven-member board, which consists of bankers, developers, insurance executives and avid sport fishermen, has adopted a series of rules aimed at preventing inshore fishermen from using 500-foot rectangular nets.

FWC officers measure the nets differently than fishermen. The FWC requires netters use 22-foot boats or bigger, and prohibits a mesh size bigger than 1-inch square -- which indiscrimately snags and kills numerous juvenile species in addition to adult mullet.

Some fishermen interpet the law differently -- and have challenged the FWC in administrative hearings and courtrooms.

The ban initially reduced the statewide haul of mullet from 20 million pounds to seven million pounds. But, the catch has increased in recent years to 10 million pounds, as the species rebounded and fishermen learned how to catch them within the limits of the net ban, according to FWC officials.

But, enforcement has stepped up in recent years. Now, a half-dozen life-long mullet fishermen from Key West to Panacea say they are being harassed by FWC officers.

They say they have won many cases in court -- only to have marine patrol officers cite them, often within days of getting their nets returned.


New bill proposed

And the battle is heating up.

At the urging of the Coastal Conservation Association, a sport anglers advocacy group, the Florida Legislature is gearing up to pass a law that would increase the penalty for "flagrant violations" of the net ban.

House Bill 1313 would make such violations a third-degree felony instead of a first-degree misdemeanor.

The bill defines flagrant violation as use of any monofilament net, or any net with a mesh area larger than 2,000 square feet.

The bill would allow officers to put flagrant violators in jail pending trial. It would allow officers to seize boats, nets and trucks. If a violator is convicted, he could face a $10,000 fine and a five-year prison term.

The bill has breezed through three House committee hearings with unanimous approvals and is ready for a floor vote.

Porter, a board member of the Wakulla (County) Fishermen's Association, doesn't object to the bill -- as long as the FWC interprets the 1995 net ban in the same way fishermen do.

A key sticking point is the FWC's 1-inch mesh-size rule. The rule prohibits nets with a "mesh size" bigger than 2 inches "stretched."

Fishermen argue the constitutional amendment passed by voters did not specify mesh size. They say a larger mesh size, such as 3 inches to 4 inches, catches larger, adult, post-spawn fish -- the fish they are targeting.

The problem with the 1-inch mesh size is it snags juvenile fish of all species, such as redfish, snook and spotted trout. This slows fisherman down because they must pick those fish out, one by one, says Porter.

"It's mass murdering baby fish," says Richard Van Munster, a former Panacea commercial fisherman.

"If my daddy found one of them babies in your boat, he'd be whooping you're butt," says Raymond Porter, Jonas' cousin, also a fisherman. "He'd say, 'You protect your seed (for next year's crop).'

"We have killed millions of little baby reds, trout, because of this rule," he adds.

Net dilemmas

Another FWC regulation allows fishermen to carry four 500-square-foot nets on their boats. While the goal may be to allow fishermen to carry spare nets, it also provides temptation for struggling fishermen to cheat, says Ronald Crum, a commercial netter.

It gives fishermen equipment that could allow officers to convict them of a felony, once the bill passes, he warns.

Another rule prohibits fishermen from carrying nets on a boat smaller than 22 feet.

Porter says a 22-foot boat is too large to use the smaller net, which can fit inside a five-gallon bucket. A fisherman working alone can more efficiently handle a 15-foot boat, he said.

"It's just another rule to put us out of business," says Porter.

Fishermen are telling the truth about the smaller mesh size, says Roy Williams, assistant director of marine fisheries for the FWC. Juvenile fish get killed in the smaller mesh.

The dilemma, however, is the constitutional amendment bans "gill nets," and virtually all nets that catch fish by the gills. Once fish realize they are surrounded, they will strike the net, hoping to get through. If they're bigger than the mesh, they get stuck.

However, Williams says, the FWC board adopted the rule because large mullet, the target of net fishermen, are too large to get caught by the gills in the smaller mesh. So, fishermen would use their nets as "seines," which act like sieves.

Underwater watchers

The question is: Where does the state draw the line?

"The backbone of the inshore fleet has always been mullet," Williams says. "So we tried to give them a fairly large mesh size -- for a seine. But, if we allow them to go up to 3 inches, that's clearly a gill net.

"Everybody's in a dilemma here," he added.

Fishermen say they are scrutinized daily by marine patrol officers who measure their nets, boats and mesh size and check for safety violations.

The enforcement amounts to harassment, claims Porter, who has been stopped "a hundred times" and ticketed four times. He beat all the tickets related to net and mesh size, he said.

Once, he says, he was fishing with his son when they came upon a scuba diver. It was a marine patrol officer who had him under surveillance.

"I said, 'Look there, son, must be a dead body,'" Porter quips.

A moment later, officers crawled out of the reeds to investigate fishing violations. Meanwhile, a helicopter hovered overhead.

"They had their hands on their guns and masks on their faces," Porter says.

Melvin Thomas, 76, another Panacea netter, is descended from fishermen who homesteaded in 1839 at Maximo Point, where Sunshine Skyway Bridge now lands at St. Petersburg.

Other than a four-year stint with the Navy, Thomas has worked as a fisherman.

He says he was ticketed last year for having a net that exceeded the 1-inch mesh rule. But, Thomas took the case to a Wakulla County jury and won.

Two days later, however, he was "buzzed" by an FWC helicopter. The helicopter repeatedly darted as low as 20 feet over Thomas in a threatening manner, according to a neighbor, who witnessed the incident.

"They retaliated by flying at me," Thomas says. "That got my ears ringing. Thirty minutes later, they came back. When he got over me this time, he turned on a bullhorn. My ears went down right then. I was 'paining.'"

Thomas ran home, downed four packs of BC Powder pain killer and was helped to a doctor's office. His ear drums were damaged.

He sued the state and won a $60,000 out-of-court settlement.

"It's hard to believe -- because these guys are crazy," Thomas says.

A recent FWC report shows the agency beefed up enforcement in recent years by assigning task forces to hit trouble areas.

In 2001-02, the FWC cited 157 fishermen for illegal nets -- only 68 were successfully prosecuted.

Of the rest, 18 were either acquitted or had their charges dropped. Two dozen cases are pending and the status of the remainder is "unknown."

The FWC report cites a "backlog in criminal court, continued appeals and filing of motions ... as well as the reluctance by the state or the court within the particular region, to proceed with the criminal case."

Don Holway, deputy director of law enforcement for the FWC, says rules are enforced uniformly statewide.

Jonathan Glogau, special counsel for the Florida Attorney General, says the fact that some county courts and state prosecutors interpret the constitutional amendment differently than the FWC doesn't disturb him. Many courts have junior attorneys or judges reviewing such cases, he said.

A new way to fish

Commercial fisherman Ronald Crum, 56, owns the Crum Center, a combination sandwich/tackle shop in Panacea. Crum is also a member of the Economic Development Council of Waterfront Florida.

"I'm for improving the economy," says Crum.

But, now, Crum is suing the state in federal court seeking a ruling to protect his way of life as a coastal netter. The lawsuit claims the FWC should drop its 1-inch stretched mesh rule to allow disadvantaged Americans to earn a living.

He declined a mediation proposal last week. The attorney general's office had offered to allow a larger mesh size -- but require fishermen to use a heavier twine that would have made the nets too heavy, Crum says.

The case is set for a pre-trial hearing next month.

Ironically, Crum feels the net ban, as interpreted by fishermen, could prove to be the "best thing that ever happened" for Florida's inshore fishery.

The ban got rid of most of the larger fish houses that exported mullet and their roe as far as the Orient.

That left individual net fishermen, who can earn up to $300 per day -- enough to survive.

Crum said some fishermen have learned they could "strike" their smaller nets quicker than a larger ones. They can shake out fish and reset nets more times per day.

"Florida fishermen have to learn a new way to fish," Crum says. "If we could prevail, we could have a new future; a mom-and-pop shoreline fishery."

Crum argues a lenient interpretation of the law would allow a remnant of Florida's quaint fishing villages to survive -- as tourist attractions.

"I want to tell people in Georgia that if you want fresh, non-chemicalized seafood, coastal Florida is the place to come," he says.

The FWC will consider refining its interpretation of its net regulations in June.

You can e-mail Greg Martin at gmartin@sun-herald.com.


By GREG MARTIN
Staff Writer
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