Been droned lately? You may not be aware of it but believe me you probably have. Welcome to the new era of enforcement offshore and even inshore. These drones have many hours of flight time and hundreds of miles of range. It doesn’t matter where you are, they are absolutely silent and very hard to see. The drone will typically position itself between you and the sun so it’s hard to look directly at the sun and see it. The drones have been seen frequently in Wilmington, Morehead City, and Charleston.
I know the temptation is there to keep Gag grouper or American red snapper because they are so thick. Anyone can catch them now but trust me folks, big brother is watching and you need to stay on your toes. Don’t do anything stupid. The last trip we took was the third time we’ve seen the drones on top of us and for every one time you see them there’s probably another time you don’t. Speaking of how thick the Gags and American red snappers are, I made a video on my last trip right up against the beach in very shallow water. We caught crazy numbers of Gags and seven beautiful red snappers. I know there is growing concern, and or anger, about not being able to keep anything as recreational anglers while the commercial season remains open. I also somewhat understand quotas, but what I really question is the data this being fed into these equations and how they come up with their assessments. I’ve been banging on these grouper and snapper for over 40 years now and I can honestly say the numbers have never been better, yet we are restricted to zero Gags and Americans to keep for dinner.
I’m going to reach out to some of my diver friends up and down the coast to help with the effort to show these non-elected bureaucratic agencies how many Gags and American reds there are on our bottom inshore and offshore. They certainly have no interest in underwater filming simply because it would reveal the truth About how many fish there are. I think all this is an intentional game of keeping recreational anglers angry at commercial fisherman defending their livelihood and keeping us divided. What we should do is unite against the true enemy.
Our enemy is a bureaucratic series of agencies That will not rest until they put a lot of people out of business through bankruptcy so they can buy their land to develop it for commercial use like condos. This is just my personal opinion as a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but I’ve always been told if you want to figure out the problem with anything just follow the money. This is one of the only logical outcomes I see. It certainly isn’t a matter of those two species being endangered because they are not, they are thriving and doing better than I’ve seen in a very long time. I think American red snappers are thriving so much they are affecting other species like the Beeliners, Seabass, pinkies and others. I truly believe these agencies create problems because without problems their jobs are not justified. OK I’ll stop now but I wanted to let you know that big brother is watching, believe me, but I also said all of that to say December is the best offshore fishing month of the year, and it’s a lot of fun to go. Catch these hard pull fish and release them properly.
Dress your kids up in well-fitting waterproof, outer shell clothing, take them offshore and let them experience the trip of a lifetime.
All the best fishing,
CAPTAIN TIM BAREFOOT
910-264-9118
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