THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 19, 1995 TAG: 9512190264
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: SPECIAL REPORT
DIVIDING THE WATERS
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
Lennie Coyner had spent about an hour fishing for striped bass when more than 150 of the coveted fish washed into the pilings beneath him.
Tangled in a wide-webbed haul seine, many of the 12- to 20-pound stripers were dead by the time the net wrapped around Nags Head Pier at 8:30 a.m. Sunday.
About 20 recreational anglers put down their rods and reels and spent the next four hours pulling the net out of the ocean, up onto the pier, and extracting the large fish from the green nylon mesh.
Coyner, a 40-year-old Charlottesville, Va., lawyer who had driven five hours to spend the weekend recreational fishing on the Outer Banks, was incensed by the sight.
The net belonged to commercial fisherman Phil Haywood of Colington. He was fishing Monday and could not be reached, but his wife, Connie, said the incident was an unfortunate accident caused when the wind shifted Saturday night, ripping the anchor line from its sandy hold on shore.
A law enforcement officer with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries said it did not appear that any illegal activities occurred Sunday - and it was unlikely that any citations would be issued as a result of the displaced net.
``I'm getting a lot of pressure to do something about this. But nothing illegal happened,'' state fisheries Marine Patrolman Skip Wescott said Monday. ``The net broke loose. The tide took it away. And it wound up at the pier.
``Commercial fishing nets have to be set at least 750 feet away from the pier. But the pier's been closed for weeks now,'' said Wescott. ``So that wasn't a problem.''
While the state season for striped bass - also called rockfish - is open, recreational anglers can keep up to two fish per day each from the ocean, so long as the fish are at least 28 inches long. Sport fishermen are allowed to keep an equal number of stripers, each at least 21 inches long, from the sounds - but only on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Commercial fishermen, however, are allowed to keep 125 rockfish per day per haul seine crew if they are dragging nets from the beach; 25 rockfish per crew per day if they are setting gill nets and 100 fish per boat if they are operating ocean trawlers in state waters.
State waters extend from the coast to 3 miles offshore. Federal waters are closed to rockfishing.
``I've been fishing off the Outer Banks for 20 years now and I just hate to see things like this,'' Coyner said Monday from his Virginia office. ``It made me feel horrible.
``I'd like to see all the licenses taken away from all the haul seiners on the Outer Banks. If I can only take two fish a day from the ocean, they shouldn't be allowed to set their nets inside state waters at all,'' said Coyner. ``I wish they'd leave the entire beach area for the sports fishermen. They don't need to be taking our fish from the beach when they've got the whole rest of the ocean.''
Commercial fishermen, however, are not allowed to keep rockfish caught in federal waters.
Besides losing his net, which was new and cut to pieces after the recreational anglers untangled the rockfish, Haywood lost fish worth more than $900 when his full net washed into the pier.
``The fisherman who owned the net didn't even get any of the fish. He just got a messed up net,'' said Wescott. ``The guys on the pier gave all the rock away.'' ILLUSTRATION: DREW WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot
Left, fishermen dropped their rods on the Nags Head Pier early
Sunday when a seine drifted into the pier. It took four hours to
bring up about 150 fish. A state fisheries official said that no
laws were broken and that citations because of the displaced net are
unlikely.
by CNB