Mini season takes its toll

[ONESPEED]

Had this conversation loads of times , but hear goes ........ It need to be banned , I know its a big winner $$ wise but the damage in human life ( I know you cant help stupid) it causes year in and year out is unacceptiable , not to mention the damage it does to the reefs . For god sakes you can hunt the damn things almost year round , why have 2 openings days ? at the very least limit the licensing to FL residence only ,to atleast cut down on some the the yahoo's towning boats down from every freakin state in the union who mostly have neve been in the water down here .

We'll have to agree to disagree here. Why punish the majority of responsible divers who have managed to survive mini season year after year because of a few unprepared casualties who become the annual focus of the event? My friends and I have been doing mini season from day one without any casualties, don't punish us because somebody else screwed up.

If you want to fix mini season get more FWC enforcement out there and do a better job of training boaters. I'm a strong proponent of requiring boaters to be licensed to operate their craft.

Bottom line, nobody is forcing you to dive mini season, leave my right to dive it alone.

 

[trtldvr]

It won't go away. My suggestion is to raise the price of the lobster endorsment from $2 to $20. This increase will not deter the masses. The additional $18 should then be divided between enforcement, environmental restoratoin, and education.

Safe dives
trtldvr
www.divealive.org

 

[Big G]

I like to look at things like this statistically. How many divers participated in mini-season? I don't know myself, but it was reported there were thousands just in the Keys. For two or three deaths to occur out of that many people is not too far off from the average of the public, is it? If you had a town that had the population equal to the number of lobster divers in the past two days, would it be terribly unusal if two residents passed away, seemingly from heart attacks? I'm not making light of any of this, of course it's a blow to the families, but it looks like, statistically speaking, mini-season is no more dangerous than life itself.

 

[Speargirl]

Mini Season is now over and I'm back to work normally I say I stay out of the water BUT I did go out both days with some friends from Georgia/ North Florida who came down to see me. Had a blast got BURNT really bad and it hurts to sit down now. Found lots of shorts and got quit a few keepers Up both mornings at 5:30am and hit the water at day break first day didn't get stopped by FWC but yesterday 2hrs into our search we here all divers out of the water I'm thinking GREAT just when I was having fun

Did our run through they say have fun and leave (no tickets) we were legal as always. Around 3:30pm we are heading out to some numbers we had honey holes and were running pretty good next thing we knew they come up beside us running our speed, scared the crap out of us

and give us the hand signal to stop so we did they boarded checked everything said the same thing have fun and be safe. At this point I'm thinking ok this is getting redundant. We asked do you have any of those stickers so we don't keep getting pulled? No we don't do that anymore so you keep stopping the same people all day long is what I'm thinking not to get them mad and end up with a ticket for being rude. All in all we had a great day on the water lots of idiots out there who have never driven a boat before so we made sure we stayed clear of them...

 

[Faust]

ok , Ill play and I will listen to what you have to say . Now I know from lurking about that your are a fairly avid hunter , I am as well .But it is exactly " dont take my rights away " that got good ole FL in part of the mess its in right now with amendment one but thats another argument . Honest why have 2 opening days ? Why put that kind of pressure , where you have I dont know lets say a few thousand people targeting one species across one of the largest coast lines in the US ? Where the rules are really debatable on how many times you could go in and out ,and what is done I would consider poaching .What I was trying to get across , was that If we were to keep mini as it is , it should be considered a FL only hunt , because as you said and I do agree there are responsible divers out there who live here who know the waters who know the rules , this would eliminate some of the chaos. As for further educating boat owners , I am all for it , technology has become way tooo easy to acess giving too many people acess to go too far off shore. When I am 35 +++ miles off shore and skippy comes motoring up in a 19 ft POS with a single Johnson 125 shouting "HEY IS THIS THE BLUE HOLE " there is a huge gap in common sense.

 

[OceanObsessed]

...Honest why have 2 opening days ? Why put that kind of pressure , where you have I dont know lets say a few thousand people targeting one species across one of the largest coast lines in the US ?

If they did away with mini-season it would be just as busy on the first 2 days of opening season. That wouldn't solve anything.

All mini season really does is give sport hunters a head start on the commercial trappers.

 

[Divergirl4U]

Heart attacks can happen anywhere ….. but I agree that mini season should be banned!
I did hear of a missing diver off of Vero, last night the call came over the Marine Radio while we where out.

 

[DennisS]

.....first day didn't get stopped by FWC but yesterday 2hrs into our search we here all divers out of the water I'm thinking GREAT just when I was having fun

Did our run through they say have fun and leave (no tickets) we were legal as always. Around 3:30pm we are heading out to some numbers we had honey holes and were running pretty good next thing we knew they come up beside us running our speed, scared the crap out of us

and give us the hand signal to stop so we did they boarded checked everything said the same thing have fun and be safe. At this point I'm thinking ok this is getting redundant. We asked do you have any of those stickers so we don't keep getting pulled? No we don't do that anymore so you keep stopping the same people all day long is what I'm thinking not to get them mad and end up with a ticket for being rude. All in all we had a great day on the water lots of idiots out there who have never driven a boat before so we made sure we stayed clear of them...

I get stopped regularly on the boat, FWC, Homeland Security and checked on about every 4th or 5th shore dives, FWC, during lobster season. I keep reading about people wanting more enforcement. Do they want to be stopped on every trip?

 

[K Mejean]

Here is my 2 pennies worth. We get rid of mini season all together. Yes in normal situations that would just move the dates of the insanity back a bit but while you are making that change you open the season to year round for no commercial florida residents. The same rules apply for size and limits but that will relieve the pressure from the locals. Raise the cost of the lobster license for out of staters as well. You don't want to eliminate the tourism but you want to make it a little tougher on them so every johnny-jackass in the country thinks twice about coming down.
Think of how much less traffic you will have on that one two day event if all the locals have already been out diving for lobster.
We should absolutely be educating boat operators more as well. The additional licensing fees could go toward that and a mandatory safety course for those coming in from out of state wouldn't be bad either. Something that could be done online before coming down. The additional revenue from an online course like that could go a long way toward environmental protection and law enforcement. After the course they get a sticker to go on their boat that changes every year and then law enforcement knows who to go get. Just a thought.

 

[Speargirl]

I think FWC should watch out for dangerous boaters and stop them and have other FWC checking in at ports of call for all the other BULL that you must need to be out on the water....
If they didn't spend so much time stopping people and checking their boats they could be watching out for the people in the water and making sure they are safe.
I agree I think soemone who rents a boat from out of state should have a boaters saftey course before allowing them to rent the boat and I also think the license shoudl cost them more money than the people who live here all year around. I don't think stopping mini season is a cure because it would be just as bad as open day but 100 times worse because we have some who don't coem on one but come on the other whic would make the waters sooooooo unsafe. at least now they are breaking up the mayham a little.