Mote Marine Laboratory

On the Line with Aaron Adams, Ph.D.

By: Aaron Adams, Ph.D.

Long ago we passed the point where we could go fishing and head home without another thought. With more people fishing, and increasing stress on coastal environments, it’s more important than ever for anglers to pay attention to coastal conservation.

The first step toward ensuring long-lasting and healthy gamefish populations is responsible angling. Here are a few things we can do to lighten our footprint on the coastal habitats we fish.

Protect seagrasses

Seagrasses are an integral part of the environment that sustains the gamefish so many of us ardently pursue. It’s impossible to overstate how many fish communities depend on the food and shelter that only healthy seagrass environments can provide. Seagrass beds are threatened by sedimentation from coastal development that can smother them. And too many nutrients from sewage, fertilizer runoff and other sources, can affect algae blooms that decrease water clarity, causing seagrass to die due to lack of light. Too many nutrients can cause so many epiphytes to grow on grass blades that the blades  smother and die. Water management practices that divert too much fresh water from an estuary, or release too much fresh water into it, also threaten the health of  seagrasses. These problems are associated with non-fishing human activities, but they impact grass beds  that gamefish depend on, and should concern anglers. Get involved in local conservation efforts that address such issues.

We can also directly address another increasing threat to seagrass beds: prop-scarring caused by running a boat in water that is too shallow, so that the propeller digs a trough through the seagrass. Since the root-like structures of seagrasses don’t grow down into depression — they only grow horizontally — a deep propeller scar may remain barren bottom for more than a decade. In a worst-case scenario, wave action works at the edge of the prop scar and erodes the adjacent grass bed, creating a large area of open bottom. Anglers can significantly decrease the amount of prop-scarring by reading navigation charts to know bottom depths and by helping to educate other boaters who may not know an area well or who don’t understand the importance of healthy seagrass beds.

Save mangrove habitats

Florida has lost about 50 percent of its mangroves, and those remaining continue to be under stress. Diversion of fresh water from mangrove areas, filling in mangrove wetlands for development, cutting mangroves for wood products and pollution are all immediate threats to these habitats and to the communities that depend on them. Without these fragile areas, many animals will not be able to survive, and we will lose a fantastic habitat for fishing. To fragment these important fish habitats into ever smaller, low-quality parcels is to invite disaster for coastal gamefish. It’s an outcome we should try our best to prevent. Maintaining healthy mangroves for healthy fisheries starts at home, and we need to practice responsible fishing.

First, don’t break off your leader and leave it dangling in the mangroves. Far too many birds have become entangled in monofilament left dangling from mangrove branches, and I’ve cut far too many bird carcasses from this discarded line. Before you head out for a day of fishing, make sure that your lines are in good shape to decrease the risk of breakage. If you do get snagged, make sure to retrieve the line and place it in a secure area on your boat so it doesn’t blow back into the water. Once you’re on shore, either dispose of the line in a closed container or in a special monofilament recycling station available at many bait shops and boat ramps.

Second, since we have already lost so much of the mangrove habitat that gamefish depend on, as responsible stewards of gamefish habitats, it’s important for us to report mangrove destruction. Enforcement agencies aren’t able to be in all places at all times, so when we’re on the water, we should report the destruction of gamefish habitats.

Anglers often complain about fishing rules and limits, but it’s important to realize  that there is a reason for those laws. Without harvest limits and closed seasons, many fisheries would have crashed long ago. And in most cases, the laws are not nearly as restrictive as they could be. One of us might justify taking an illegal fish by thinking “taking one fish won’t make a difference.” That might be true if you were the only one keeping an illegal fish. But think of the millions of other anglers who could say the same thing. Keeping “just one” illegal fish quickly becomes a major threat to the fish population.

Be responsible

We must realize that we have profound influences on the fish and other animals we encounter on the water. This is especially true for ‘flats’ species like tarpon, bonefish, permit, redfish and snook that we often pursue in the shallows. If these fish are disturbed too often, they will change their behavior or move out of an area entirely. Careless boating has immediate and potentially long-lasting negative impacts on fishing.

But there is good news, too: Places where people practice responsible angling and boating have seen fisheries improvements. That means more chances to cast more lines at more fish. And you can’t go wrong there. 

— Dr. Aaron Adams is manager of Mote’s Fisheries Habitat Program and an avid fly fisherman. He is author of Fisherman’s Coast: An Angler’s Guide to Marine Warm-Water Gamefish and their Habitats and has written about the biology of bonefish in Fly-Fishing for Bonefish by Chico Fernández.

Learn more about: Costal Ecology

Help us navigate troubled waters. Mote programs, such as the one intended to educate the public about sustable fishing practices, could save our coasts.

No pressure. Just feel free to give what you can.