# Gill nets at Seawolf Park



## Wildbilltx (Sep 19, 2005)

For those few who have not snagged the gill net full of flounder on the bay side of Seawolf, there is a gill net full of flounder on Pelican Island (bay side). Operation Game Thief was notified two days ago without any follow through so far. I was little miffed when the game warden asked if I had taken any fish off of the net. Who would put a net up at the most fished place in the region during the run??? Either the stupidest person on the planet or else someone who did it at the request of an official voice. Make me wonder if they are going to suggest bag numbers are down at the next meeting and enact further restrictions on us fishermen Hmmmmmmmmmm????


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## Zeitgeist (Nov 10, 2011)

Buddy of mine was fishing there late yesterday afternoon and a guy next to him found it. They called the game warden and they showed up immediately yesterday. It was tied off of a t square in the water.


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## Im Headed South (Jun 28, 2006)

Just because you didn't see a GW come out didn't mean nothing was happening, they were probably set up waiting for who ever put it out to return.


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## flounder daddy (Mar 22, 2012)

Dang, Vannoy made it up there now?? (corpus folks know what im talkin about)


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## Smackdaddy53 (Nov 4, 2011)

Anotha KEEPA!


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## fishinfool (Jun 30, 2004)

Gill nets off that beach are not a new thing. And around galveston at all. Guys probably set it and got spooked when they came to collect it the next morning. 
years ago there was a couple crack heads that would run nets all over the island. Get caught, get out, and start over again.

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## Drundel (Feb 6, 2006)

I bet they could cover their fall budget by hiding in the weeds and catching people keeping undersized fish.


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## Solodaddio (Mar 22, 2014)

Drundel said:


> I bet they could cover their fall budget by hiding in the weeds and catching people keeping undersized fish.


Very seldomly when the wardens show up to the ss jetty they don't bother to exit their vehicles. The hand line fisherman and the ones who throw nets just to get stuck on the rocks are the worst bout keeping buckets of undersized fish.


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

I am old enough to remember literally hundreds of gill nets stretched out all around Pelican Island this time of the year. All of them loaded with flounder.


You may have to put a buoy or life jacket of some kind on it so they can find it.


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## Drundel (Feb 6, 2006)

Its Catchy said:


> I am old enough to remember literally hundreds of gill nets stretched out all around Pelican Island this time of the year. All of them loaded with flounder.
> 
> You may have to put a buoy or life jacket of some kind on it so they can find it.


Someone was telling me about that the other day. He remembers watching a boat load up with flounder and was amazed it didn't capsize.


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## Rolls (Jul 8, 2010)

After Ike there were two gill nets off the shore out at the refuge. Called the GW's and they had us pull one and cut the other one all up. Had my hand held and gave them cord's of where we threw the one up on land and where the other was in the water. They said they knew who it was but hadn't been able to catch them and thanked us for the set up that night.


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## Trouthappy (Jun 12, 2008)

These people either net fish illegally, or steal and sell Yeti's. It's either one or the other; their life's calling.


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## pocjetty (Sep 12, 2014)

Back in the bad old days, guys would put out gill nets and only tend them on the weekends. Lots of fish in those nets would be dead and crab-eaten. Hard to believe that anyone could be that wasteful.

I hate gill nets. I don't even like it when TPW sets them up. I know they are doing research, but I really hate gill nets.


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## mertz09 (Nov 15, 2009)

pocjetty said:


> Back in the bad old days, guys would put out gill nets and only tend them on the weekends. Lots of fish in those nets would be dead and crab-eaten. Hard to believe that anyone could be that wasteful.
> 
> I hate gill nets. I don't even like it when TPW sets them up. I know they are doing research, but I really hate gill nets.


I agree. They should all be outlawed. Research can be conducted in other ways.


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## speckcaster (May 5, 2012)

*F..#@ing nets ....*

That's what my Gerber is for ..... It just loves illegal nets!

Speckcaster


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## WGA1 (Mar 1, 2012)

Found one on the east end of the island last year. Called the GW and they came out in about two hours and took it out of the water. It had 22 flounder in it. GW said they knew who set it out they just had a hard time catching them.


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

WGA1 said:


> Found one on the east end of the island last year. Called the GW and they came out in about two hours and took it out of the water. It had 22 flounder in it. GW said they knew who set it out they just had a hard time catching them.


Why didn't the GW's just stake it out and wait for the perps to catch them red handed?


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## dbarham (Aug 13, 2005)

Drundel said:


> I bet they could cover their fall budget by hiding in the weeds and catching people keeping undersized fish.


I have seen em do just that down there more than once


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Wen I first went to work in Galveston county in 1987, we would pull 4 to 5 miles of illegal gill nets during the fall. Some of them would have literally hundreds of flounder in them. The vast majority of people that set these nets are sorry, no good outlaws. Not just game thieves! It was very common for them to be in possession of stolen motors, drugs, and other illegal items! The real shame was that we would catch the same ones over and over, but the courts would let them go.


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## Trouthappy (Jun 12, 2008)

Flounder really take a beating because of their fall migration. Friends in Cameron, La. said their dad, when he was a kid, would hang a funnel net off their dock, and it would fill up with flounder on the outgoing tide. To this day he won't eat flounder. He says to him, they smell bad.

There must be a way to catch these guys at night. Game wardens have night vision goggles, I made patrols with them in Trinity Bay, POC and the lower Rio Grande back in the 1980s. They let me wear the goggles part of the time.

>Checked a legal sheepshead/drum gill net in Trinity on a reef just off the shoreline, that had several dead 8-pound trout in it. One or two miles north of Smith Point.

>Slept at Matagorda Air Base. Next morning with a small plane they found a tarp with 300 feet of brand new gillnet inside it. Stashed on the shore just inside Pringle Lake.

>On the Rio Grande we were heavily armed and we cut numerous gillnets strung across the river. We only took the half on the Texas side. In the vegetation over there they were yelling insults at us, something about "_Pendajo_." We were hoping a firefight wouldn't develop; we were on a Shallowsport boat with no cover except the center console. We did wear bullet-proof vests. Wardens said they found bodies all the time in that river. Today I think they use bigger, more armored boats with bigger weaponry.


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## Bama1080 (Apr 25, 2013)

Here in Alabama they're still legal we have the smallest coast line and are the only idiots that still allow it. The guys that net flounder do it in our marshy areas and they can wipe out a school of reds, specks, and flounders quick it's sickening!
A friend of mine found a net stretched out up a bayou just the other day.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## carolinafisher (Nov 23, 2005)

Bama1080 said:


> Here in Alabama they're still legal we have the smallest coast line and are the only idiots that still allow it. The guys that net flounder do it in our marshy areas and they can wipe out a school of reds, specks, and flounders quick it's sickening!
> A friend of mine found a net stretched out up a bayou just the other day.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Sadly, gill nets are still in use in here in North Carolina and no end in sight either. Also have folks from other states coming here to work these along with strike netters now targeting Speckled Trout since they are just beginning to really show up inshore in our area due to cooler water temps.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

It took a strong lobby from the GCCA here in Texas to defeat the commercial fishermen. I would urge you in other states to join the CCA on a local level and get involved in the process if you want to help stop legal gill nets.


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## Ready.Fire.Aim (Sep 22, 2009)

ToddyTrout said:


> It took a strong lobby from the GCCA here in Texas to defeat the commercial fishermen. I would urge you in other states to join the CCA on a local level and get involved in the process if you want to help stop legal gill nets.


Get the media on your side.

I became a GCCA member the first year it started- due to picking up a gill net in a cut on the south shoreline of West Matagorda Bay loaded with huge trout, all dead and rotting with crabs picking at them.

I was a teenager who loved fishing and was sickened by the sight.

Bob Brister wrote about the new GCCA that weekend in the Chronicle and I sent in my membership dues earned through hauling square hay bales.

RFA


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

This won't be a popular statement but If the biology supports it I don't have an issue with it. They have been gill netting on the eastern shore since the pilgrims landed. 

Key words are if the biology supports it.

I think it is long past due time when we allow a commercial take on redfish here in Texas. There are only a handful of commercial fishermen left and they are limited to gigging flounder or trot lining black drum five days a week. A 30 fish limit on commercial fishermen would be good for the coastal economy.

Fisheries management should not be only one sided.


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## [email protected] (May 24, 2004)

Catchy - I think with this norther blowing through you've caught frost-bite of the brain!


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Catchy, that would be the most foolish thing that could possibly happen to our Texas fishery. There is NO such thing as an honest commercial fisherman. If you open a commercial season, it will be exploited to the fullest. Back in the 70's when it was still legal to commercial fish, it wasn't the legal means that destroyed our fishery. It was the illegal gill nets set out at night that wrecked our fishery! If you give them an inch they will take and destroy a whole fishery.


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## spurgersalty (Jun 29, 2010)

And that's how the fight started!


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## Im Headed South (Jun 28, 2006)

Y'all have to understand where Catchy is coming from as a commercial fisherman


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## carolinafisher (Nov 23, 2005)

Ready.Fire.Aim said:


> Get the media on your side.
> 
> I became a GCCA member the first year it started- due to picking up a gill net in a cut on the south shoreline of West Matagorda Bay loaded with huge trout, all dead and rotting with crabs picking at them.
> 
> ...


Maybe our CCA guys should get in touch with the GCCA guys and maybe get some pointers. The commercial lobby is very strong here and the commercial guys come out on top at every turn it seems. As far as the media is concerned one of our inland stations did a one hour documentary called Net Effect about the state of our fisheries recently- http://www.wral.com/wral-documentary-net-effect-/14929877/ due to lots of debate about changes that were up for a vote on Flounder regulations. The vote occurred and the rec sector of course took the biggest hit with a closed season for flounder for recs from Oct. 16-Jan 1 starting in 2016.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

That's what I understand. A friend of mine was down here from Wilmington, NC a couple of weeks ago. We fished one morning and caught 35 or 40 trout with the majority being 14" to 14 3/4" long. We kept 15 or so that were 15 1/2 to 17" long and he was ecstatic. He said that it wasn't often that they caught trout that big or that many in NC due to commercial nets!!!


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## [email protected] (May 24, 2004)

carolinafisher - You have a good North Caorlina CCA network already established with 12 local chapters. Hopefully your CCA state leadership will find traction soon in the state capital to redirect the management programs away from commercial utilization and more toward the recreational side. It takes legislation to change things and this is usually a long, hard journey. Take heart though, it was accomplished in Texas, Florida, Oregon and Washington to name some of the states where conservation and recreational use trumped commercial interests.


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## Im Headed South (Jun 28, 2006)

carolinafisher said:


> Maybe our CCA guys should get in touch with the GCCA guys and maybe get some pointers. The commercial lobby is very strong here and the commercial guys come out on top at every turn it seems. As far as the media is concerned one of our inland stations did a one hour documentary called Net Effect about the state of our fisheries recently- http://www.wral.com/wral-documentary-net-effect-/14929877/ due to lots of debate about changes that were up for a vote on Flounder regulations. The vote occurred and the rec sector of course took the biggest hit with a closed season for flounder for recs from Oct. 16-Jan 1 starting in 2016.


CCA is a grass roots volunteer driven organization, if your not involved at your local chapter level then you need to be if want to help build a organization that can go toe to toe with the commercial guys. It took years and a lots of dedicated people to build the organization to where it is now in Texas, they have the blueprint but without tons of local involvement things will not change.


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## [email protected] (May 24, 2004)

Amen to what IHS says! 

CCA (then GCCA-Gulf Coast Conservation Association) started in Texas back in 1977 when forty recreational anglers, fed up with what had become of our coastal fisheries, met in Rudy Grigar's tackle shop in Houston, TX. Through building a strong network with influential people and legislators, what became known as the Redfish Bill - HB100 was signed into law on May 19, 1981 by Governor Dolph Briscoe. What has transpired in almost forty years following that initial meeting is simply amazing and it is still gaining strength and momentum. Grassroots is the key. Involved members doing all they can on every front is what continues to drive CCA today in all coastal states.


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## Category6 (Nov 21, 2007)

I'm guessing it's a TPWD gill net, they "sample" a lot of our fish with their nets every year.


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## Im Headed South (Jun 28, 2006)

If it was out there 2 days there is absolutely zero chance it was a TPWD net, the research TPWD does and the reason it's the envy of every other state is done on a very strict schedule and list of protocols and none of that involves a 48hr+ gill net sample. I'm still of the belief Wardens were set up on it to catch the folks that put it out, they do the same thing more you can imagine all over the State.


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## Oyster Dog (May 21, 2005)

[email protected] said:


> HB100 was signed into law on May 19, 1981 by Governor Dolph Briscoe.


Actually, it was Bill Clements, not Briscoe. Briscoe served from Jan 1973-Jan 1979, while Clements was in office from Jan 1979-Jan 1983.


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## Wado (May 15, 2011)

Quote:
There is NO such thing as an honest commercial fisherman. If you open a commercial season, it will be exploited to the fullest. Back in the 70's when it was still legal to commercial fish, it wasn't the legal means that destroyed our fishery. It was the illegal gill nets set out at night that wrecked our fishery!

First sentence is an opinion not a fact, sorry you feel that way.
The rest of the quote and I will put emphasis on the last sentence has some truth to it but you left the part out as to WHO put the illegal gill nets out and are still doing it. Gill nets weren't the preferred device for catching fish the Proud, Honest, Hard Working Commercial Fishermen I associated with used. You don't think the fishery is being exploited now? License sales in the millions, limits dropping. What next?


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## Category6 (Nov 21, 2007)

ToddyTrout said:


> Catchy, that would be the most foolish thing that could possibly happen to our Texas fishery. There is NO such thing as an honest commercial fisherman. If you open a commercial season, it will be exploited to the fullest. Back in the 70's when it was still legal to commercial fish, it wasn't the legal means that destroyed our fishery. It was the illegal gill nets set out at night that wrecked our fishery! If you give them an inch they will take and destroy a whole fishery.


I'm pretty sure it's still legal to commercial fish. I've seen plenty of recreational anglers involved in gross over harvest and unethical behavior, and plenty of commercial fishermen that strictly follow the rules. That was not a fair statement. Just because you signed a petition to "just keep 5" doesn't mean all recs are good and all commercials are bad.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Cat5 your wrong about a lot of things, one of them being me signing a petition to just keep 5, I'm not part of that crowd. I know well that commercial fishing is still legal and I know well that a lot of commercial fishermen fish illegally just as a lot of rec fishermen do!


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## Category6 (Nov 21, 2007)

That was a dirty shot, I don't know you and shouldn't have made any assumptions. I sincerely apologize.


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## rusty2009 (Mar 5, 2010)

Category5 said:


> That was a dirty shot, I don't know you and shouldn't have made any assumptions. I sincerely apologize.


Toddytrout is one of the good guys. I will say, when we says something about Texas parks and wildlife he knows what he is taking about. He also makes a very nice NO frills custom rod. Not all the fancy decorations, but made with top of the line components. It is my favorite rod and I have a few to choose from.


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## grman (Jul 2, 2010)

I am going to chime my two cents in here:

One thing that commercial fishing has going for it is that the permits are extremely limited. You almost have to inherit one. 
They will sell as many recreation licenses as they can. 


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Thanks for the kind words Rusty. I can build a nice rod with lots of frills too, LOL.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

The thing about rec fishermen is that very few catch lots of fish. Commercial boys are exceptionally good fishermen that have the means to kill lots of fish in a very short time. They normally operate at night when few are watching. It's not as easy now as it used to be because of technology and lots of people being on the water. But they still do it. If you give them an opening by making it legal to keep game fish they WILL find a way to catch them illegally in huge numbers. Once they make it to the market there's know way of knowing how or where the fish were caught! I'm speaking with personal experience on this subject and not from the illegal side.


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## lapesca67 (Apr 9, 2008)

grman said:


> I am going to chime my two cents in here:
> 
> One thing that commercial fishing has going for it is that the permits are extremely limited. You almost have to inherit one.
> They will sell as many recreation licenses as they can.
> ...


As it should be. Commercial fishing is driven by revenue and profit margins. If they can increase both, they will given new technologies and methods. It is the reason fisheries all over the world are under duress. Are there more rec licenses today than in the past?...absolutely. But, the overall mentality of catch and release continues to grow as we move from generation to generation, and stricter limits help control over fishing from that segment.

The reason you could hardly scratch a legal redfish out of west bay in the 80's, or the rest of the Texas coast for that matter, was because of commercial purse seiners catching and killing hundreds of breeders in one pull. It was the GCCA and recreational community that made a difference, as was previously pointed out. The same scenario applies to the duck poplulations we have today....if not for DU and hunters, no mas patos.


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## Category6 (Nov 21, 2007)

ToddyTrout said:


> The thing about rec fishermen is that very few catch lots of fish. Commercial boys are exceptionally good fishermen that have the means to kill lots of fish in a very short time. They normally operate at night when few are watching. It's not as easy now as it used to be because of technology and lots of people being on the water. But they still do it. If you give them an opening by making it legal to keep game fish they WILL find a way to catch them illegally in huge numbers. Once they make it to the market there's know way of knowing how or where the fish were caught! I'm speaking with personal experience on this subject and not from the illegal side.


The redfish just recently fully recovered from blackened redfish, it's actually the chef's and people that eat fish that are causing all the trouble!


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## [email protected] (May 24, 2004)

Oyster Dog - I was quoting "Change of Tides" written and edited by Fred Carr and Sam Caldwell. There is a photo of Brisco seated at his desk and caption reads to the effect - Governor Dolph Briscoe signing HB-100 "the Redfish Bill" with GCCA members looking on, May 19 1981.


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## Wado (May 15, 2011)

[email protected] said:


> Oyster Dog - I was quoting "Change of Tides" written and edited by Fred Carr and Sam Caldwell. There is a photo of Brisco seated at his desk and caption reads to the effect - Governor Dolph Briscoe signing HB-100 "the Redfish Bill" with GCCA members looking on, May 19 1981.


I want to know when you are going to make sausage, I need to learn how. I have someone you need to meet anyway, you will get a kick out of him. Here is some advice on gill nets, If you find one and it has Texas Parks and Wildflower signs all over it leave it alone but if it is in a remote area that looks real fishy pile it up on the bank and burn it, just don't be seen doing it. Or you can simply call 1-800-792-4263:goldfish:


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## TranTheMan (Aug 17, 2009)

I met the GW out at SWP this afternoon. The petite GW was hauling a big white cooler to put and carry the gill net in. It was a long walk from the road to the net and back. I offered to give her a hand with the cooler and she said that she could handle it. Nice looking, petite, and strong GW!


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

ToddyTrout said:


> Catchy, that would be the most foolish thing that could possibly happen to our Texas fishery. There is NO such thing as an honest commercial fisherman. If you open a commercial season, it will be exploited to the fullest. Back in the 70's when it was still legal to commercial fish, it wasn't the legal means that destroyed our fishery. It was the illegal gill nets set out at night that wrecked our fishery! If you give them an inch they will take and destroy a whole fishery.


ToddyTrout, You have been brainwashed and I am guessing you don't even know a commercial fisherman.

There are plenty of honest commercial fishermen. Secondly since you clearly don't know there are only a few commercial fishermen (less than 200) give or take actively fishing inshore waters of Texas. They are limited to fishing trot lines for Drum or Sheaphead 5 days a week or gigging flounder 10.5 months a year as the weather permits with a 30 fish limit.

In addition as a commercial finish license holder I would never risk any illegal activity. The license's are extremely expensive and the penalties are to strict.

If caught in a flagrant violation I could lose my license, my boat and my truck.

It's just not worth it.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Catchy, I'm sure you're an exceptional person. 
Actually, as far as never meeting a commercial fisherman, you would be quite wrong. I spent nearly 27 years chasing commercial fishermen up and down the Texas coast and I was quite good at catching them. And I will say there are a bunch of them that are super good people BUT......they all say the same thing. They were just tryin to make a living. The problem with that is you are making a living on resources that belong to ALL of the people of Texas. And if you do it illegally, you're stealing from the people of Texas!


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## Billygoat (Feb 1, 2013)

TranTheMan said:


> I met the GW out at SWP this afternoon. The petite GW was hauling a big white cooler to put and carry the gill net in. It was a long walk from the road to the net and back. I offered to give her a hand with the cooler and she said that she could handle it. Nice looking, petite, and strong GW!


How was the fishing today?


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

ToddyTrout,

Times have changed since you "chased commercial fishermen" up and down the coast. The few remaining fishermen I know are creme of the crop and have invested their entire livelihoods in licenses and equipment.

I don't commercial fish for a living anymore but I went 20+ years without a ticket from TPWD.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Oh really, I didn't no that Dubby, cheeseburger, the Sealy brothers and the Mancuso's had all retired, LOL. I commend you for bein an honest, hard working commercial fisherman. But you and I know there are still lots of outlaw commercial guys out there, hence gill nets still being picked up and oystermen still being arrested for oystering in polluted or closed waters. I've only been retired for 2 years, surely it hasn't changed that much!


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

ToddyTrout said:


> Oh really, I didn't no that Dubby, cheeseburger, the Sealy brothers and the Mancuso's had all retired, LOL. I commend you for bein an honest, hard working commercial fisherman. But you and I know there are still lots of outlaw commercial guys out there, hence gill nets still being picked up and oystermen still being arrested for oystering in polluted or closed waters. I've only been retired for 2 years, surely it hasn't changed that much!


Toddy,

I was hard working but not always honest. A couple of expensive run in's cured me. As I got older, equipment costs went up, licenses became more valuable and the responsibilities of a wife and kids made me grow up.

In addition as the commercial fishermen were forced out the GW's spent more and more time in the donut shops and less time on the water. My last five years commercially fishing I did not even see a GW. Of course I was up before the sun and done before most of them got up.


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## ToddyTrout (Mar 15, 2005)

Oh, in your previous post you said you never got a ticket even, LOL. 
Your probly right about Texas Game Wardens. They probly all sleep til at least nine in the morning, and I'm sure no one bothered to check you because they all know that your honest as the day is short, hahaha. As far as being in the donut shop, I'll bet you couldn't pass the physical fitness assessment that Texas Game Wardens have to do every year to keep there jobs! 
Or it could be that Wardens are soooo short handed and many are sent to the boarder on a weekly rotation doing border patrol. You probly didn't know we do that though did ya.
Dang it feels good to not have to be politically correct anymore :rotfl:


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## LA Wader (Oct 22, 2013)

> Flounder really take a beating because of their fall migration. Friends in Cameron, La. said their dad, when he was a kid, would hang a funnel net off their dock, and it would fill up with flounder on the outgoing tide.


The butterfly nets are still dropped down on outgoing tides in Cameron, LA. Those guys absolutely whack the flounders with those nets. A fellow that I know told me on a good night, they may catch a couple thousand pounds of flounder to sell at the fish house.


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

ToddyTrout said:


> Oh, in your previous post you said you never got a ticket even, LOL.
> Your probly right about Texas Game Wardens. They probly all sleep til at least nine in the morning, and I'm sure no one bothered to check you because they all know that your honest as the day is short, hahaha. As far as being in the donut shop, I'll bet you couldn't pass the physical fitness assessment that Texas Game Wardens have to do every year to keep there jobs!
> Or it could be that Wardens are soooo short handed and many are sent to the boarder on a weekly rotation doing border patrol. You probly didn't know we do that though did ya.
> Dang it feels good to not have to be politically correct anymore :rotfl:


Toddy,
Your reading comprehension is poor. I didn't say I never got a ticket. I said I went 20+ years without getting one.

And I will take your bet, we will make it a box of your favorite donuts that I can pass the physical fitness assessment the TPWD Wardens have to every year. Just let me know when and where.


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## pocjetty (Sep 12, 2014)

From all accounts I've ever gotten, commercial fishing is a tough way to make an easy living. Those guys are subject to the exact same sort of weather and cyclical issues as farmers, but they don't get any price supports or subsidies of any kind. You can understand the temptation to sort of "make up for the bad days" when the opportunity arises. I'm not justifying it, just saying I can understand how they might get there.

We all know that there are guys out there who just wear out the bays with illegal methods and catches. I honestly don't have any idea how many are commercial fishermen, and how many are just outlaws. Having a commercial license would probably make it easier to be an outlaw, just because you can justify a lot more things, right up to the point where you are over a limit. But that doesn't mean that most of them ARE doing those things.

I suspect that it's like just about everything else. There are always some bad ones. And they always get a lot more attention than the good ones.


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

pocjetty said:


> From all accounts I've ever gotten, commercial fishing is a tough way to make an easy living. Those guys are subject to the exact same sort of weather and cyclical issues as farmers, but they don't get any price supports or subsidies of any kind. You can understand the temptation to sort of "make up for the bad days" when the opportunity arises. I'm not justifying it, just saying I can understand how they might get there.
> 
> We all know that there are guys out there who just wear out the bays with illegal methods and catches. I honestly don't have any idea how many are commercial fishermen, and how many are just outlaws. Having a commercial license would probably make it easier to be an outlaw, just because you can justify a lot more things, right up to the point where you are over a limit. But that doesn't mean that most of them ARE doing those things.
> 
> I suspect that it's like just about everything else. There are always some bad ones. And they always get a lot more attention than the good ones.


pocjetty,

What a lot of people don't understand is the legitimate commercial fishermen has a huge stake in the game and to risk losing it all is not worth it. He provides a fresh product to those who might not otherwise have access to it and is a benefit to the local coastal economy.

A lowlife scumbag in search of a quick buck has absolutely nothing to lose. I can promise you the knucklehead who set the gill net on Pelican Island does not have a commercial fishing license because 500.00 worth of flounder is not worth losing a 20,000 dollar license, a 20,000 boat/motor and a 30,000 truck. Not to mention your livelihood.

As a finish license holder I would much rather run 10 trot lines and try to earn 300.00 legitimately than risking it all on a couple of hundred feet of gill net.

Far too many people are ignorant and assume the lowlife setting the gill net is a commercial fisherman. Far from it. He does not have the wherewithal, the work ethic or equity to be a commercial fisherman. The guy who set that net was probably in a beat up john boat with a 9.9 Evinrude and did not even get up early enough to pick it up before it was discovered.

Oyster harvest is much the same except it is extremely hard not to "cheat" TDH shellfish harvesting lines. Are the oysters 100 yards on the other side of a hardline really polluted and dangerous? The same water flows over them that flows over the ones in legal water.

But yes we have to draw the line somewhere.


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## Its Catchy (Apr 10, 2014)

To sum it up in pictures:

The guy on the ugly end of the oyster tongs is a legitimate commercial fisherman.

The other guy sets gill nets at Pelican Island during the flounder run in search of a few easy bucks.

Don't confuse the two


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## Wado (May 15, 2011)

*Profile of a Commercial Fisherman ( Woman )*

This is a picture of my mom. She held a Masters Degree from Southwest Texas State and also graduated from Texas A&I in Kingsville. She traded her teaching position for this and never looked back. After about ten years of working on either the boats or at our retail business she had to have surgeries on both hands but never quit.


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