How to Lose a Million Bucks in One Easy Lesson...

[Stuart]

1. Go out, catch a tournament record 883 lb. blue marlin - the champagne flows! Close to 1 mil in prize money is yours, along with fame and fortune!
2. Find out that one of your crew did not have a valid fishing license.
3. Kiss all of it goodbye.

Story here.

 

[Seadweller]

Stuart... a friend of mine showed that to me earlier... funny story... well not so funny for some... a $10.00 license...

 

[PintoPoint]

Stuart,
Did you hear about the guy in california that was in his boat near a pier when someone on the pier caught a big fish. He offered help to get it to shore and found out it was and endangered black sea bass. He tried to set it free when he realized what it was but it was too late. The fish washed up on the beach later. He was charged with a felony.

Rick
Cholla Bay

 

[Stuart]

You must mean this story. Black seabass in Cali are protected, they really aren't endangered any more. Guys have been catching more and more of them as they rebound. Dragging one up on a public beach like that is just plain stupid -- they had to have known what it was. If they didn't, they shouldn't be fishing anyway.

Simply one more reason I choose to fish in Mexico. Black seabass are a perfectly legal catch. I'd rather release them if I could, but the big guys we catch at the deep reefs implode from the pressure changes on the way up. You can release them... to float around dead, then feed the crabs. We have successfully released some smaller models (under 60 lbs. or so) and they seemed to swim back down just fine. Never saw them turn into floaters.

Then there's the story of this idiot that went diving off the kelp at La Jolla a few years ago and speargunned one that had been living there for years and was known to many local divers. They hammered him, as well they should of.