Fishermen dismayed at state’s attempt to overturn latest net ban ruling

By KEVIN LOLLAR, klollar@news-press.com

For local commercial fishermen, a state judge’s ruling that would allow the use of more efficient fishing nets is like the promise of world peace: They’d like to see it happen, but they have serious doubts that it ever will.

Circuit Judge N. Sanders Sauls ruled Tuesday that a regulation concerning Florida’s 1994 constitutional net-ban amendment was unconstitutional. The amendment bans the use of gill and entangling nets but allows the use of seine and cast nets measuring 500 square feet or less. Sauls’ ruling would let fishermen use the Pringle-Crum net, a cross between a seine and gill net; the Pringle-Crum net is more efficient than nets fishermen are now allowed to use, and, fishermen say, better for the environment because it doesn’t catch juvenile fish.

But Sauls’ ruling can’t go into effect because the state has filed an appeal. Some local fishermen are convinced that a higher court will side with the state and that they will never get to use the new gear. “It sounded so good; when I heard about it, I thought maybe we’ll get a little old shot of something,” Pine Island fisherman Nathan Williams, 46, said. “That net would help a little bit. But every time I hear a little bit of good news, next day it’s another story. “We’re not trying to get thousands of yards of net. We know we lost all that. But give us something we can make a living with.”

After Floridians voted in favor of Amendment 3, the state Marine Fisheries Commission defined a gill net as any net with a mesh size of greater than 2 inches. Pringle-Crum nets, invented by Ray Pringle of Cortez and Ronald Crum of Panacea, are made from any size mesh the fisherman wants to use — fishermen use different sizes of mesh, depending on the size fish they’re after.

The Coastal Conservation Association, which led the campaign to ban gill nets when it was known as the Florida Conservation Association, will intervene in the appeal on behalf of the state, CCA executive director Ted Forsgren said Wednesday.

The Pringle-Crum gear is, Forsgren said, nothing more than a gill net. “It’s very clear on the face of the constitutional amendment that no gill nets will be allowed,” Forsgren said. “This net is designed to catch fish by the gills. I don’t understand how any judge could interpret that it’s not a gill net. All the commercial industry is trying to do is call a gill net something else.”

Fisherman Al Burtoft, 54, of Pine Island was enraged that the state would appeal Sauls’ ruling and at the conservation association’s steadfast attempts to put commercial fishermen out of business. “The state doesn’t take care of its own,” Burtoft said. “It’s pitiful. And every one of Ted’s friends is from Ohio or Michigan. We built this place. Our forefathers cut these roads. Why does the state keep kicking us? Why are we such bad guys?” According to the net ban amendment, limitations on net fishing were enacted “to protect saltwater fin fish, shellfish, and other marine animals from unnecessary killing, overfishing and waste.”

Commercial fishermen insist that 2-inch-mesh nets actually increase unnecessary killing and waste because small fish are caught in the small mesh by the gills, thus technically making the legal nets gill nets. Before the net ban, fishermen were not allowed to fish with mesh smaller than 3 inches so that juvenile fish would pass through.

“You can make a strike with these 2-inch nets, and it will take hours to clean out because you have all these baby fish in there,” said Rick DeLacey, 43, of Pine Island. “No baby fish get killed in the (Pringle-Crum) nets. They all swim through it. We don’t want to catch all these babies. We want future generations of fish out there.”

Forsgren scoffed at that argument. “That’s disingenuous of them,” he said. “Look at shrimpers. They always have more by-catch than shrimp. And I don’t think the commercial industry in general cares about killing those smaller fish. They’re just making that argument because they want bigger meshes and bigger fish. This business about killing baby fish is just a ploy.”

Owen Stewart, 56, of Pineland said the state’s appeal of Sauls’ ruling clearly violates his inalienable right as an American to make a living and condemned the 2-inch-mesh rule with religious fervor. “Amendment 3 is a total lie from the pits of hell,” he said. “God put us here to be good stewards in the world, and this 2-inch mesh makes me a bad steward. So in God’s eyes, I’m a sinner, and I don’t like that.”

Fishermen are not trying to change the Constitution, said Rhonda Dooley, president of the Pine Island Chapter of the Florida Fishermen’s Federation. They only want Sauls’ ruling to be upheld. “We’re talking about a rule change on a gear that conserves the resource and allows fishermen to make a living and not fear arrest, confiscation of their gear and jail time,” Dooley said. “What we need is clarity. That’s what we’re asking for. It’s what we keep fighting for. We’re not going away, and we’re not giving up.”