Captain’s Corner for September 13 Dave Zalewski 397-8815

For years we have proudly called ourselves the “trashmen” of the Gulf of Mexico because we have stopped to pick up, return to shore and properly dispose of floating debris found offshore. Some of our finds have been lengths of line ranging in size from crab trap line to large pieces of hawser discarded by a tug or freighter, plastic swimming floats, skim boards, bags of trash, fuel tanks and mylar balloons. Probably the most deadly of these to the environment is the balloons. The printing wears off and soon the balloon resembles a jellyfish floating in the water. Endangered sea turtles dine on jellyfish and are not able to distinguish a balloon from a jellyfish. Ingestion of a balloon can result in death to the turtle by interrupting the digestive process.
As the days get shorter more and more anglers are beginning their run offshore before the sun gets up. This makes it difficult to see a line floating on or just below the surface. Entangling a line in a propeller at best will result in a loss of fishing time while the line is removed or at worst the destruction of a lower unit or bending of a shaft or strut which will result in the costly loss of another day.
One of the benefits of stopping to pick up trash is that one never knows what bonus may be lurking near the debris. Recently we have been rewarded with tripletail (found on a piece of plastic chair), cobia (near a skim board) and small mahi-mahi (near a plastic gas tank that we had watched several boats run past).
Tip: It pays to throw out a small handful of cut pieces of sardine when stopping to pick up trash especially if the water is 80 feet or deeper. The small dolphin are sometimes spooked by the boat and will not be visible, but will come running to the chum.