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Blak bart said:
Only the queen conch.....all others im allowed 15 total a day. They are thinking of giving some protection to these horse conchs....they are the state shell !!
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Are you going to eat it ? ? ?
I hope you dont just take it for the shell.

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Blak bart said:
Only the queen conch.....all others im allowed 15 total a day. They are thinking of giving some protection to these horse conchs....they are the state shell !!
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Thats riddiculaus... they allow 15 a day ? ? ?
Who the f--- wrote that law / limit ? ? ?
 

I've been skin diving all types of shells both dead and live since I was a kid....the animals are never wasted, and yes I get big bucks for the shell....you can lobby your congressman if you'd like to change the law and limits of shelling.....I've made 12000 dollars in a month on the shells, and it's part of my side income....sorry bud !!
 

ARC said:
For its shell ? ? ?
Aww man... come on brother... things that tuff / bad down there ?
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Bart i know you fish for a living... so its hard for me... i grew up in the water fishing and shelling my whole youth was spent doing this.

Now.... i have not had a fishing liscense for over a decade and have no intention of getting another.
I spent so many days in awe of the flounders that came back loading in the holes loaded with kill for nothings.
They all are the same with the gear boats and garb... like it was cool to look like you are a professional fishing guy on TV.
With me seeing such a decline in fish and of fish in areas i knew it was outta control and i did not even eat fish so why contribute to the "sport" of it.
I eat 1 grouper sandwhich a year with a bowl of she crab soup anymore.
Our oceans are and have been out of whack in our area... and i know the keys are a differnert story... but here the impact can be seen by those like myself who grew up on the water.

I am by no means saying to not fish or harvest the oceans resources... but the manors and means and amounts should be closely regarded as a high priority of human thought(s).
Unnecessary harvesting... like that of LIVE conch shells simply for shells sake is IMO a thing that should be looked at closer in ones mind... across the board of all involved.

IOW's... 15 a day is not headed in the right direction.
Be different if there was an overpopulation problem... and perhaps there is.... i have no idea... just sounds high to me.
 

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ARC said:
Thats riddiculaus... they allow 15 a day ? ? ?
Who the f--- wrote that law / limit ? ? ?
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It was written. Likely with a background about what's going on with the results of prior regulation.
Stay out of Lee county though!

Conch eats conch. Conch eats tulip snail. Tulip snail eats conch. There's more balance to consider when spawning ground condition and egg viability are studied and added. As in recruitment rates of age classes vs habitat conditions.

My first questions in my state when eyeing a species is what it's health is.
A goal of keeping it below habitat capacity is often best. And hard to prove what habitat minus a given specie would look like. Let alone just lower impact.

Our reducing prime habitat is what we do. Footprints of concrete , asphalt , grassed yards of little value to wildlife. Overgrown forest or eroding exhausted soil.
Algae boosting sewage and fertilizer and phosphates , and chemical dumps into water.
Foreign species introductions.

Wildlife and fisheries personal are up against it in determining regulations.
"We" certainly want science applied. Not that science concludes anything but it can focus on species balance and habitat balance.
Yet human social science enters the equation and politics get involved.

Horse conches are nearing extinction!!! No , they are not. So why is it claimed?
When were they endangered officially prior?
Now instead of logic and study of facts being applied we are running on emotion.
And believe you me ; emotion is not how to regulate fish and wildlife!

The plump woman complaining I was killing the grass in a park I didn't hear as I was wearing headphones ,my daughter (wisely?) waited till she left to tell me.
I'd have told her that her fat ass was standing on concrete that wasn't there when I was in my youth and that the built since then ice cream building she was in line for killed far more grass than I could if I tried. Then asked her how she liked her dead soiled parking spot or the artificial beach she was wallowing on in the sun earlier.
And did she damage any life waddling in the loose sand going back and forth with the herd of feet back and forth to the fake beach? If not; why was there no grass above the wave line?

Daughter suggested I not go try to find the woman.
Guess her ethics are better than mine sometimes...
 

Just our way of life down here.....and all of it by the laws. If you could go out and dive up shells 15 at a time for 40-160$ each. You would....its one of the greatest past times of islanders. There are so few of us doing this that no one else even knows the habits, mating season, moon phases and favorable tides, and even what they feed on. I'm a true expert on there life cycles and habits.....I let go 5 for every one I take, I've never wasted the animals, and I take only the best most mature specimans. Large chipped specimans are left to breed. They are not near extinction, and are only one in a large number of shells I harvest. Milk conch are smaller more tender versions of the queen conch and are a delicacy. I eat every cowerie I can catch because they taste so great. And I pick up all sorts of "sheds" from all species. So many people just don't know.....oh well...others ignorance of the situation or even the laws does not concern me !! Im doing what I do and am obeying the laws !! There are so few of us doing this that very few people know the laws or condition of the fishery because they just don't do shells like this !!
 

An old man rented a room above the bar. 4 dollars a night I think it was.
Waitresses used to sneak him a hotdog now and then.
He told me of his youth in a spot I'd fished where he and his father gathered clamshells for the button industry. It was some needed money.
Not harvesting live ones by the bushel looking for freshwater pearls , but salvaging shells anyways.

We saw the sewage as kids. Clams were fun but eating them wasn't high on our list of interests.
But as they declined due to far more reasons than harvests it got down to...Thou shalt not be in possession of a clam shell.
Those pearly specimens with rainbow colors no longer allowed to be brought home as dishes/containers for stuff , or simply outdoor stuff brought in for decorating..

Which led to poaching.
Undisturbed clam beds getting hauled out by often out of state poachers grinding hinges down (as natives once did for wampum) of certain species to be implanted in oysters for cultured pearls.
Decades of hands off regulations while pollution and silts from dam failures or just overflows during spring runoff , and sins of the past stirred up in dredging operations (we must have recreational and commercial boating priorities after all , science be damned (not dammed , well maybe dammed.) Sewage overflows , ooops sorry we don't have the ability to retain it all during high rain events, and storm drains dumping oil and transmission fluid and road salts and whatever into our waterways...

Then the foreign invaders brought in in ship ballast water.
Oh no it's too costly to treat the water before discharge . And besides it's not required.
Far upstream of any shipping water I stood where natives had for thousands of years looking at a decade of change to a favorite river.
No quagga mussels , yet..
But tons of zebra mussels. I cursed them. And the damned gobies. And the rusty crayfish.
The three alone had changed much. And thier impact on other species and the environment and native species was and is significant.
But don't be in possession of a clamshell!
Like that changes anything.
Yes I too am an invader.
My impact on our waters and thier species isn't but a drop of poison compared to what they face.
But , it all adds up.
So how do I save the clams? By not holding a shell?

www.9and10news.com

Michigan Freshwater Mussels Protecting Our Waterways

Paula Carrick grew up on Waishkey Bay. She remembers bathing, swimming and having fun, but also gathering native freshwater clams or mussels for her grandfather. “I was probably 5, 6 years old it’s my earliest memory of gathering clams,” says Carrick. “My grandfather on my dad’s side, William...
www.9and10news.com www.9and10news.com
 

Blak bart said:
Just our way of life down here.....and all of it by the laws. If you could go out and dive up shells 15 at a time for 40-160$ each. You would....its one of the greatest past times of islanders. There are so few of us doing this that no one else even knows the habits, mating season, moon phases and favorable tides, and even what they feed on. I'm a true expert on there life cycles and habits.....I let go 5 for every one I take, I've never wasted the animals, and I take only the best most mature specimans. Large chipped specimans are left to breed. They are not near extinction, and are only one in a large number of shells I harvest. Milk conch are smaller more tender versions of the queen conch and are a delicacy. I eat every cowerie I can catch because they taste so great. And I pick up all sorts of "sheds" from all species. So many people just don't know.....oh well...others ignorance of the situation or even the laws does not concern me !! Im doing what I do and am obeying the laws !! There are so few of us doing this that very few people know the laws or condition of the fishery because they just don't do shells like this !!
Click to expand...
40 to 160 ? ? ? sheesh i have a bunch laying around outside...heh
 

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