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Posted by }<)))*> StriperChaser on September 15, 2005, 10:14 pm BY SUSAN WEST, SENTINEL STAFF 1937 law mandates fishermen be allowed to fish, but officials say they have to hold the fish basket Commercial bait fishermen on Hatteras Island are casting for answers from Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials about the closure of the soundside beach at Hatteras Inlet. "We still haven't received a reasonable explanation for why the park hasn't lifted the soundside closure," said Steve Hissey of The Roost, a bait and tackle shop at Teach's Lair Marina in Hatteras. Fishermen expected officials to open the area on Aug. 31 when the nesting season for birds ended. Hissey said that Phil Francis made that promise when he was assignment as acting superintendent for Cape Hatteras National Seashore this summer. Relating the story of what has transpired in September, Hissey said that an island tackle owner called deputy park superintendent Mark Hargrove to ask how the closure would affect the bait fishermen. The 1937 legislation authorizing the creation of the park specified that legal residents of the seashore villages would have the right to earn a livelihood by fishing, and fishermen obtain commercial fishing permits from the park service. Hargrove explained that commercial cast-netters could enter the area on foot, carrying their nets and fish baskets. "On September 3, a cast-netter caught a basket of finger mullet on the soundside, hauled the basket weighing close to 80 pounds over 100 yards to his truck, and then moved over to the oceanside to work," said Hissey. Hissey said that after the fisherman moved to the oceanside, a park ranger approached him and questioned why he had entered the closed area. The cast-netters were later advised by the ranger that they could enter the closed area on foot but couldn't set their baskets down on the beach. Contacted by telephone on Friday, chief ranger Norah Martinez confirmed that the cast-netters can work in the closed area, but are not allowed to place fishing equipment on the shore. Martinez suggested that the fishermen might work in teams with one person holding the fish basket in the water, or might work from boats. Cast-netters said that dumping fish into a basket held in the water defies the simple laws of physics and that using a boat would scatter the schools of fish. Link: Read the full article
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Cast-netters latest group to be impacted by beach closure
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