by Robin
A couple weeks ago, Jack and I were peacefully fishing for tarpon off the Cape Canaveral shores. We bought some blue crabs before dawn. Enjoyed light sprinkles as the sun rose and gave way to beautiful sky.
We did not see big schools of tarpon stacked up, so we decided to bring the fish to us. We anchored up 200-300 yds off the beach, freelining some crabs under a bobber for bait. I had a shark playing on the end of my line but he couldn't seem to get that big crab down his gullet.
About that time, we see a team of life guard trainees jogging out of the dunes and running north of the beach. Whew, for a minute, I thought they were going to swim out to us. I'm distracted by the bobber and eventually look for the trainees again, only to find them swimming out as far as our boat is anchored out.
I hear the captain say, "Swim around the boat and go back in."
That's when I snapped this picture.
You can clearly see we're in blue water, out past the last set of breakers, water is calm..... it's a beautiful morning except we now have over a dozen people swimming over to us.
I did not take more picture for fear of upsetting folks, but I wish I had now. The captain of the team stops swimming boatside, removes his goggles and asks me how I'm doing. Hmmm?? How am I doing? I'm fine. I'm in a boat. The question really should have been, "What in the world are you doing swimming out here with sharks? "
He then proceeds to shock me by telling me we were in violation of anchoring closer than 400 yds to the beach. I laughed and told him he was joking. He quite seriously insisted that was the law and if Coast Guard caught us, they could fine us.
Stop the record here....... this is where my mind flashbacked to 2 NOAA-NMFS officers coming to my door to investigate us for being too close to a N. Right Whale. The last thing we want to do is break any more laws out on the water.
Back to story: Well, the team of swimmers proceeded to swim over, under and through my line. One even hit the bobber and another probably came close to snagging the hooked crab. I yelled, "Watch out for the line!" Honestly, it was bad enough to have Capt Mark come out and reprimand me, but then to also mess with my freeline, it was downright insulting. That Captain intentionally came over to show his muscle and interfere with our fishing.
Being the angry Italian woman I can be, (it's rare, but happens when idiots pursue me) I decided to verify the law or regulation. I took it up with a fishing forum with a section for asking the law questions.
I had multiple humorous replies, but one struck me interesting. Florida hunters have harassment laws on the books since 1990. Here is the gist of it:
28 FLA Stat. ch. 372.705
(a) Interfere with or attempt to prevent the lawful taking of fish, game or nongame animals by another.
(b) Attemp to disturb fish, game or nongame animals or attempt to affect their behavior with the intent to prevent their lawful taking by another.
Another person emailed FWC and their response (can't cut/paste onto blogspot any more) was "unless there are designated swimming or restricted vessel areas, there are no state laws that restrict distance. Some counties have ordinances that apply but that is on a county by county basis."
Another asked 2 lifeguards in Duval Co (Jacksonville) who both agreed it was 100 yds offshore.
I guess my next step would be to ask the specifics for Brevard Co FWC. But the originally discussed 400 yds does seem awfully far away from a beach. That's 1200 ft or a couple tenths of a mile. That's considerably far off the beach and I see that violation ALL THE TIME. Those are good fishing grounds for many species. Coast guard patrols around here frequently and I've never heard of people ticketed for anchoring off the jetty rocks which are less than a 100 feet from Jetty park beach, much less further down the coast.
So, the pursuit of the truth continues.
Who is right and who is wrong?
Comment with your thoughts on the issue.
Happy Fishing,
Robin
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