Outdoors

Daily fishing report

By CHAD CARNEY
Published July 23, 2005

Wednesday and Thursday is the spiny lobster sport season, but Hurricane Dennis has made it hard for divers to scout the hunting grounds throughout Florida. Lobstering doesn't require much more than 5 feet of visibility, but there has been less than that for the last week in gulf and central east coast waters.

Gulf divers have far fewer lobsters to hunt, but the ones they do find dwarf the barely legal bugs caught in southeast Florida and the Keys, often reaching 10 pounds.

Mike Town turned in one of the first fairly good reports Friday, finding 20- to 25-feet visibility about 20 miles west of Sarasota on hard bottom sites.

The spiny lobster catch must be larger than 3-inch carapace, measured in the water. The bag limits are six per person per day for Monroe County and Biscayne National Park, and 12 per person per day for the rest of Florida. Night diving is prohibited in Monroe County (only during the sport season). A recreational saltwater license and a crawfish permit are required. Regular spiny lobster season is Aug. 6 through March 31, and has a bag limit of six per person per day.

There are many state and national areas closed to lobstering, check the information available at http://myfwc.com/marine/lobster.htm

Chad Carney teaches diving and spearfishing in the Tampa Bay area. Call 727 423-7775 or e-mail chadcarney@verizon.net

[Last modified July 23, 2005, 00:54:16]