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While spending 6 days at the Miami Boat Show captaining a number of boats, I witnessed this charter boat pulling into the harbor parading his catch of dead sails on a daily basis. He must have killed 20-30 sails in the 6 days. I wonder what the general feeling is towards this. Many in the crowds were yelling at him, but he was not phased. I'm sure this row of prize sails gets him lots of business from tourists who are not aware of the conservation issues in the sport fishing community. How does the rest of the country feel about this?
I hope he and his crew are very hungry!!!!!!!!!!! (are sails even good eating?) Some people have no respect for the sport of fishing and could care less about future generations.
I am no manatee or tree hugger but this guy should be quartered, there is no reason to take any sails (alright maybe 1 to mount but even that is a waste). in a time when I cannot take 6 fluke this clown is killing 5 sailfish.
Any way to get negative press down in Miami for this clown or is this a common practice down there?
This guy is a real JERK! He fishes like he owns the water. Almost ran me over one day when I was getting bait at the sea buoy! I've never seen anybody else keep sails around here. No doubt he pushes the tourists into mounting them... Too bad people don't know any better...
IMHO if recreational fisherman are not violating the law then they have an absolute right to keep what they catch. Commercial fisherman are the ones threatening the present and future of everyone to enjoy fishing. Basically the way it works is the commercials overfish and kill indescriminately and then the public gets saddled with stricter and stricter regulations.
If the customers of that charter are not going to eat or mount those fish then I think that they are giving the radical environmentalists and the commercial crowd good ammunition for their continued assaults on the public, not to mention the fact that they would be acting unsportsmanlike. But considering the unfairness of current regulations and the overall minor impact that the recreational fishing public has on the decline of some fisheries I don't think any private, charter, or head boat fisherman should feel guilty about keeping legal fish during their in-season. Now the trick is that with the way the current regs are going and parts of California being closed off to any public fishing, being able to catch a legal fish may be something that we will be only able to tell our children about.
Those are some of the saddest sights I've seen in quite a while. I can't accept the excuse of using the fish for a mount. Nowadays you don't even need the real fish anymore. What's worse is that this guy's website proudly displays numerous pix of sails at the dock.
I live in south florida and have a great deal of respect for a handful of chaterboat skippers. "Mark the Shark" as this guy calls himself, is one I personally never cared for. Quite typical f this breed, I had too many run ins with him out on the water, always having that transom you see in the pix backing into my lines on a hot dolphin bite.
Back to the subject at hand, someone PLEASE call the Billfish Foundation on this guy!!!
did some research on this bung hole guys, his name is "Mark the Shark"(loser if I ever heard one), his website at www.marktheshark.com i'm sure really needs some suggestions. And lets not forget the phone, which may be 305-759-jaws, or perhaps 305 542-fish. Some of you Miami locals may use some of your generosity to donate some m-80's to him as you pass by just as a thank you and admiration of his manliness.
at the outset that i support Catch and release and largely practice such on most every fish I catch with the od exception of a fish I might keep to eat and thats pretty rare these days maybe once or twice a year.
However.
Lets look at this "dispassionately".
1. A sailfish - in terms of it's value to an ecosystem has no more intrinsic "value" in strictly biological terms than a herring.
If the guy had 6 herring in the icebox - no one here would bat an eyelid.
Because they are sails tho, everyone feels it's OK to lambaste the guy.
This is somewhat akin to the conservation stance - that we will only save the cute n cuddly furry little critters from extinction - all the toads and reptiles etc don't count!
Basically from a conservation viewpoint the stance doesn't hold water.
2. If the guys within the law i.e. his bag limit - then wheres the beef?
Either get the law changed or quit wingeing.
3. We all know longlinings not ecologically sustainable yet do we stand at the dock lambasting the professional skippers and crew as they unload their catch?
No - we feed the film industry who make millions of $ from movies about longlining (Perfect Storm ring a bell?) bye attending their screenings, hiring the video etc.
4. Look at the thread here a few days back by J Volpe about his deer hunting escapade run in with the law.
He hangs a dead animal bye the neck on his own property but within public view bye his neighbours - yet we all want to see the policeman who challenges him, sacked for not knowing the law.
We seem to forget that it was an upset neighbour who rang the police to complain.
So - we champion J Volpe for sticking up for hunters rights, yet a fisherman, also within the law (and therefore sticking up for fishemans rights) is lambasted for hanging a few fish off the back of his boat?
Bit of double standards there methinks.
I'm all for releasing fish,
I'm all for hunters rights
I'm all for eating the odd fish too.
I'm all for changing laws that don't reflect changing community expectations & standards
I'm not for personally villifying someone for keeping a fish (or 3) if it's within the law - that is afterall a fishermans right.
If we find it so disgusting then change the law.
Best start with outlawing longlining before this guy depcted is villified tho.
We ALL have a personal right on this planet to eat the resources required to sustain our life.
The guy depicted has that right and is legally excercising it....so wheres the beef?
Sure, we can personally CHOOSE to release fish if we so desire or if we believe it's the best thing for the fish or the environment, but that doesn't give us the right to dictate someone elses practices unless the community as a whole make it an enforceable law.
The other thing is - that anglers IMHO also have a personal right - and that is to "evolve as an angler" at their own pace - as long as they stay within the law. Whos to say this guy won't one day "see" (realise/understand) the impact of his activities on the resource and grow as an angler to become a strictly catch n release angler?
Who are we to deny him the right to evolve to that position at his own pace?.
As Christ said to the woman caught in adultery...
"Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone!".
Anyone here who is an angler who has NEVER EVER kept/killed ONE single fish (including bait!), can feel free to take a cheap shot at the angler depicted.
The rest of you are well out of order IMHO.
Again as Christ said..."there are none left here to condemn you, so I do not condemn you either, go and do not sin again!". (Or words to that effect).
I believe this jerk is in cahoots with a taxidermist. In the heat of the battle he pressures the tourists into gaffing and killing the fish so they will have this trophy for ever. Feeling guilty about killing the fish unsuspecting tourist has little room to rethink his decision and usually follows through with the mount.
A very large sign stating "a Sail need not be killed to be accurately mounted" at the entrance of the marina would probably remedy this slaughter. But they must be in cahoots also.
Now this is just an educated guess but I bet I’m close!
Trouty you don’t eat sailfish! Your words are waisted.
EDIT- you seem so liberal in your political views that your justification of this is quite the contradiction! I now know that you do not limit your trolling to the ocean!
Regards, Mike
[This message was edited by OutOfTheLoop on 02-18-03 at 07:46 AM.]
Trouty, Some of your posts are extremely educated and entertaining, however you are way off base here. Those fish were'nt put in the ice box. They were put in the dumpster after a few pictures. That my fishing friend is a sickening sight.
I know a striped bass guide in Tennessee who has a reputation of being a real jerk. He'll cutoff other boats fishing in "his" spot and if they make him made enough, he'll ram them with his boat.
He also is mostly a catch and release fisherman. He will keep one fish for mounting (over 30 lbs.), but won't pressure you to keep it.
A friend of mine and I fish a local lake for stripers (2 to 4 times a month) and last year averaged 15 to 30 fish a trip. North Carolina allows you to keep three fish per day (it used to five or eight). This is a landlocked resource. If a guide fished four or five days a week and kept his legal limit everytime, there wouldn't be a resource to support his livelyhood. Most guides I know respect that and release all but a few fish.
Having said all of that, I agree with trouty. The laws need to change. We have separate regulations for commercial fishermen, perhaps we need separate regulations for guides. Most of us get to fish only on weekends, but guides fish almost every day having the potential to make a bigger impact on the resource.
I also disagree with trouty. I'm a live bait fisherman and am just as disturbed about the netting of menhaden or physteria fish kill offs as I am about sailfish. If the food source disappears, what do you think will happen to the predators? Our ecology depends on preserving all stages of the food chain. (hurray for four-stroke engines!)
I'll also try to write a letter to the editor of Sport Fishing magazine. He who has the pic's would do well to do the same.
1. File size. I don't know about the rest of you, but this thread all over the monitor. The pictures are just too large. They should be resized before linking to 600x400 pixels or something similar. Anything larger is unnecessary.
2. While I'm not a fan of keeping excessive numbers of fish, I resist taking the "holier than thou" position of some in the fishing industry. Taking a few fish is something I've never had a problem with unless the species is endangered. I first saw catch & release while flyfishing for trout in the northeast -- on some streams if you even thought about keeping a rainbow for the frying pan you where considered a lesser being.
At the same time in Florida we let people keep 5 grouper per angler, per day. Not sure if that's still true -- I'm sure someone will correct me. 5 GROUPER A DAY -- GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Every thing I've read since leaving FL in '99 tells me grouper are in tough shape. Don't even get me started on the snook regs. With the current ones we can never have a new record fish unless some lucky fisherman is traveling with certified scales and 14 witnesses in his 18' Hewes!
Prop Blast, 2 per day in the Atlantic. And who are you to tell us to tone it down? This should be an outrage to any SPORTSMAN irregardless of the laws. THESE FISH WILL END UP IN THE DUMPSTER!!!!
I looked at Mark the Shark's web page. If you feel strongly that he is killing too many game fish, you might want to send your comments and a copy of the picture (and perhaps even a copy of this thread of notes) to his "corporate Sponsors".
One of the sponsors is Lee's Tackle..the folks who do the high priced outriggers etc. I am sure that they would not want bad publicity. You get the idea.
sad sight @ the Miami Show 
