MUSIC CITY music city chapter Nashville Boat & Sportshow


MEMBERS of the CCA Music City Chapter followed up their successful inaugural banquet with a booth at the 29th annual Nashville Boat & Sportshow in January. The show provided tens of thou- sands of visitors a place to get out of the brutal winter cold and enjoy visions of warmer days to come boat- ing and fishing.


NORTH CAROLINA ccanc.org


Video shows destruction caused by gill nets THE IMAGES are disconcerting: A


sea turtle, obviously dead, with nylon mesh wrapped around its body; a sea bird, obviously dead, is unrecognizable caught in nylon mesh; redfish, sheeps - head, and hundreds of other finfish, obviously dead, hang lifeless in nylon mesh called a gill net but more aptly named “an invisible wall of death.” These are just some of the pictures


that are part of a new video that is posted by CCA North Carolina on saveNCsounds.org, a new website created to show the public how destruct ive gill nets and large-scale shrimp trawling are when practiced inshore. The gill net video is the next step in


a CCA NC educational effort that began with a billboard campaign last Novem - ber depicting some of the same photos. The billboards urge readers to visit saveNCsounds.org to learn more about the destruction of the state’s in shore resources. The video puts the message into clear, succinct language that will shock even veteran saltwater fishermen. “CCA felt it was time that NC citi-


zens from Murphy to Manteo under- stood how their marine resources are


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being abused and this new video clearly communicates that,” said David Sneed, executive director of CCA NC. “North Carolina is the only state


that allows any significant gill net fishery in its estuarine waters,” Sneed said. The southern flounder stocks are “depleted” while red drum and speck- led trout stocks are also having prob- lems. “These destructive methods of commercial fishing are a relic of the past and must be changed to preserve our coastal resource for future generations. “We need people to tell their legis-


lators this issue is important to the future of our state’s coastal marine resources. The same applies to our ongoing billboard campaign that in addition to gill nets points a light on the tremendous waste created by inshore trawling.” Trawling in North Carolina sounds


by large ocean-going ships, most of which are from other states, kills between 400-500 hundred million pounds of fish every year to harvest about 100 hundred million pounds of shrimp. Of the finfish bycatch, juve- nile spot, croaker and weakfish (gray trout) predominate, making up about


www.joincca.org


50 percent of the bycatch. Not surpris- ingly, the stock status of these three species is poor. The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries classifies spot and croaker as being “of concern,” and weakfish are labeled “depleted.” The saveNCsounds.org website


explains that no other Atlantic coastal state allows inshore shrimp trawling. While limited to the ocean, the actual harvest in South Carolina has risen because the shrimp are larger when they leave the estuaries in the fall. In the Gulf states of Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, inshore trawling is restricted to much smaller, family owned boats. CCA NC has retained Scott Laster


of the Southern Strategy Group in Raleigh to represent the organization’s interest in the long session of the 2015 legislature that convened in late January. Laster, a successful political strategist, is helping CCA NC deter- mine tactics for gill net ban legislation. SaveNCsounds.org asks its readers


to help fund CCA NC’s legislative and public awareness effort by contribut- ing online and becoming a CCA mem- ber at JoinCCA.org.


TIDE


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