The oyster bars opened early; so did scallop season.? All in an effort to harvest the aquatic resources before the oil reaches the bays. Now, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, angry mullet fishermen say their needs are being ignored.<\/p>\n

A small group of panhandle mullet fishermen have been protesting the net ban since before it took effect in 1995. They argue the constitution allows them a larger mesh size, if not a larger net, which they say will make it easier to catch more fish while trapping fewer small non-game species.<\/p>\n

?It rolls them up like a crepe, you could catch a bumblebee,” mullet fishmen Richard Van Munster said. “And the monofilament, which is one strand of stiff webbing, you could take a fish and shake him out like that.?<\/p>\n

The fishermen have argued before the Fish and Wildlife Commission to no avail. Spokesman Lee Schlessinger says the FWC has absolutely no leeway.<\/p>\n

?The fact is a larger mesh size net would be considered to be an entangling net and that is not consistent with the net limitation amendment that was passed by voters in the mid-1990s,” Schlessinger said.<\/p>\n

But fishermen say that others facing losses from the oil have been given exceptions and he should too.<\/p>\n

?They?ve opened the oyster season earlier, you know, a month earlier,” fisherman Roy Hutton said. “They opened the summer bars up because they?re scared the oil is going to come in here. They opened up scallop season a week or two early. We just want them to give us a break.?<\/p>\n

For now, though, there will be no changes, unless voters decided to change what they did by a three to two margin, banning many nets in 1994.<\/p>\n

Dozens of court challenges have upheld the net ban, and those complaining don?t have the resources to mount a petition drive to take the issue to voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The oyster bars opened early; so did scallop season.? All in an effort to harvest the aquatic resources before the oil reaches the bays. Now, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, angry mullet fishermen say their needs are being ignored. A small group of panhandle mullet fishermen have been protesting the net ban since before it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,41,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9898"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9898"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9900,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9898\/revisions\/9900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flanews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}