Tower Todd

I live near Puget Sound in WA State and there has recently been an effort to remove derelict gillnets that were lost. Approx 1200 derelict gill nets have been recovered and approx 1200 more have been indentified and are too deep for divers to recover and the group doing the removals have run out of funding. Some of the nets removed are estimated as being over 50 years old. These are monofilament nets that keep on killing even though there is no evidence of them on the surface. At one net location, there were over 2' deep of fish and crab skeletal remains under the net. These nets have killed millions of marine birds, fish, crabs and other sea life. While Washington has not yet tried to ban gill nets, currently there is a proposal to make marking the net with the owner's information and a requirement to report the position and time of the net if it becomes lost so that it can be removed promptly. It is amazing how much resistance this simple requirement is facing from the commercial fishing lobby, although I have contact several of my friends who run gill nets and they all agree with the change. Gill nets are a highly destructive type of fishing here and many are opposed to this type of gear. There some alternatives being run in test fisheries that look very promising and will hopefully allow more native fish to survive and the commercial fleet to remain prosperous. If you would like any of the scientific data showing the kills of one single net, let me know and I'll be happy to share it with you. I'm sure that there must be derelict nets in Chesapeake Bay doing the same things. Todd

Here is a video running from the inner harbor, under the bridge and into the ocean. It gives a real feel for how narrow the channel is the margin of error:

I am sad to see this. Aubrey was in PV at Xmas in 2006 and we hooked up through THT and shared a charter together along with his wife and brother in law. Super nice man. RIP. TT

I found this How-To on the net and feel like I would like to try fixing a few little dings that have appeared over the season. I've always had a guy come out and fix the little dings in the past and he did a great job and you couldn't tell where the repairs were when he left. My boat is an Albemarle and the color is an off white color. If you know Albemarles you know what I'm talking about. I want to learn to do these little fixes, but don't want to end up making it worse. What is the right way to match the color? Here is the How-To I found: http://www.csfrancis.net/BMW/GelcoatRepair.pdf Thanks, TT

Here is something that I ran across last month and have been considering. Has anyone tried this?: http://www.suddenstrikejigs.com/AnchorSaver.html