
DATE: Sunday, May 11, 1997                  TAG: 9705110178

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C15  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Bob Hutchinson 

                                            LENGTH:  144 lines

CAPE CHARLES PROJECT IS A FINE IDEA, BUT LET'S LEAVE LICENSE FUNDS OUT OF IT

A request for $170,000 from Virginia's saltwater fishing-license fund for improvements to the harbor at Cape Charles should be rejected resoundingly when the Marine Resources Commission meets this month.

The money would be part of a project to increase the harbor's 14 boat slips to about 40. Final plans have not been completed.

The overall project is a good one. Cape Charles has a marvelous, deep harbor. It deserves development. The plan has the potential to bring a lot of money to a depressed area.

But using money from the saltwater license fund, which generates between $1.3 million and $1.4 million a year, is clearly inappropriate.

For one thing, existing slips are used almost exclusively by sailboats and commercial vessels. One must assume the same would be true of additional slips.

For another, the slips would not be free. Users would have to pay to moor their boats. The dockage would be in competition with a privately owned marina just around the corner on Kings Creek.

Third, most fishing licenses purchased by boaters are for trailerable rigs.

Finally, such a limited number of slips would, at best, accommodate merely a handful of boaters.

The idea for a saltwater fishing license was for projects to help restore Virginia's dwindling supplies of fish.

Fishery questions beg for answers: Why has eel grass disappeared from so many of the state's waters? What relationship is there between the menhaden and striped bass? What happened to all the yellow-belly spot? Red drum? Black drum? The license money should go toward answers, not a project that would benefit merely a few.

The bottom line is that projects like this are an inappropriate use of a tax paid by rod-and-reel fishermen.

Let them do the project; it's more than worthy. But let them find the money somewhere else.

100 CITATIONS: For many anglers, winning a citation award from the Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament can signal a successful fishing year; for others, a successful career.

How about 100 citations?

That's how many Jimmy Kolb of Virginia Beach has earned since the contest opened in 1958. Most have been awarded in the past decade.

Kolb, 49, an electrical inspector for the city of Virginia Beach, earned his 100th last year when he boated a 7-pound, 8-ounce flounder.

Although there's no easy way to find out, Kolb may be the first angler to reach the century mark in citations from the state-sponsored contest, which offers the awards for fish meeting certain weight or length minimums.

He is at least the first to reach 100 over a broad spectrum, ranging from spot to blue marlin and including most inshore and offshore species. If anyone else has 100, chances are most are for white marlin, where five to 10 citation winners a day are not unattainable.

TARPON TAMERS: A number of Virginia anglers recently earned citation awards for tarpon releases registered with the Metropolitan South Florida Fishing Tournament.

They include: Rossie Baker of Suffolk (5), Dave Elliott of Eastville (3), Tom Hunter of Virginia Beach, Bill Sturgis of Portsmouth, Tim Houck of Virginia Beach and Mark Matthews of Chesapeake.

While the others fished out of Bud 'N Mary's Marina at Islamorada in the Keys, Houck and Matthews were out of Garrison Bight Marina at Key West.

Houck released a giant estimated at 190 pounds, while Matthews had a release estimated at 160 pounds and Baker a 130-pounder.

FREE BOOKLET: If you're even remotely interested in fishing, you will not want to be without a beautiful, informative new booklet prepared by the Marine Resources Commission.

It's the ``Virginia Marine Angler's Guide,'' funded through the saltwater fishing license. It's free to anyone buying or holding a 1997 saltwater license.

The 58-page guide, in full color with outstanding illustrations and graphics, contains an easy-to-read chart revealing when, where and how to catch the state's most popular species. It also includes information on the ecology of the state's marine waters, species important to saltwater anglers, and services available to fishermen, including the Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament and the Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program.

Highlights include the fish identification chart and color illustrations of 60 popular fish, plus a chapter on the state's artificial reef program, including Loran coordinates for each site.

For more details, contact Claude Bain, Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament, 968 S. Oriole Drive, Virginia Beach, Va. 23451, telephone 491-5160.

FLYING KIDS: A fly fishing clinic for anglers 6-18 will be held next Sunday at Pungo Ponds, a fish hatchery on Muddy Creek Road in southern Virginia Beach. It'll be staged by Anglers Lab Outfitters, an Orvis outlet in Virginia Beach, and Flyfishing Virginia.

Reservations are required, and the $10 fee will go to the hatchery. Additionally, anglers will be required to pay $3.59 for each pound of rainbow trout landed.

You can get details from Anglers Lab Outfitters at 491-2988.

MONEY FISH: Two Virginia Beach anglers are richer because of their fishing experiences.

Bobby Clarke recently received $1,000 from Skeeter Boats as part of the Skeeter Yamaha Grand Angler Bonus program for winning the Pro-Am Team Tournament on Lake Gaston. He and Curt Lytle of Suffolk beat out 224 other contestants.

Austin Savage Jr. has received $500 from the spring drawing of the juvenile summer flounder tagging program of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Savage caught his fish near Kiptopeke State Park.

The program is designed to show what proportion of juvenile flounder tagged in Virginia are later landed in state waters. Anglers capturing tagged fish must return their tags to the Gloucester Point laboratory, where drawings for the $500 prize are held.

SHORT CASTS: Denny Dobbins of Chesapeake has taken the tautog lead in the annual Virginia Salt Water Fishing Tournament with an 18-pound, 5-ounce catch from the boat Predator 13 off Virginia Beach. . . . Gill Knott of Chesapeake has landed one of Virginia's all-time heavyweight gar, a 21-pounder pulled from a small lake in Chesapeake. . . . Rick Turner of Virginia Beach used a bow and arrow to bag a 22 1/4-pound gobbler in Charlotte County. It had a 9 1/2-inch beard. . . . Dwight Blythe of Chesapeake killed a 19-6 gobbler with a 9 1/2-inch beard in Isle of Wight County. A few days later, his brother, Mike Blythe, bagged an 18-5 bird with an 11 1/2-inch beard, also in Isle of Wight. Captain's Quarters Recreation Center in the Ocean View section of Norfolk. The subject will be fly fishing for tarpon. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic with photo

ANGLER OF THE WEEK

KENNETH JEFFRIES

PORTSMOUTH

``It's the biggest sea bass I've ever caught, and I've caught

right many. When I saw how big it was, I started to release it. Then

I got to thinking about how good it would taste. So I kept it.''

WHAT: Jeffries has taken the sea bass lead in the annual Virginia

Salt Water Fishing Tournament with a 6-pound, 2-ounce catch.

WHERE: He was fishing an unidentified offshore wreck aboard the

headboat Nancy Anne, sailing from Lynnhaven Seafood and Marina in

Virginia Beach and skippered by Kevin Selden.

HOW: Jeffries was bottom fishing with a high-low, two-hook rig