• New Hampshire derby using polygraph to cut down on lie-fishing

    AP file photo

    Anglers in this year's Winni Derby on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire will have to pass a lie-detector test before claiming any prizes.

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    There will be no fish stories at this year's Winni Derby in New Hampshire.

    Organizers of the annual landlocked salmon-fishing contest will force the winner to take a polygraph exam to ensure the grand-prize specimen isn't imported from another lake or caught earlier.

    "It's something that's always been in our rules, but it was never done before," derby chair Diane LaBrie said Thursday, the eve of the three-day competition.

    She said no one has been caught cheating, but "there's a lot of rumors."

    "People talk. Fish and Game hears things. We just feel it's necessary to do."

    The derby costs $40 to enter and the grand prize is $12,500. The rules say that the salmon and lake trout must be caught on Lake Winnipesaukee in central New Hampshire.

    LaBrie said over-eager anglers could be tempted to take their boats out on smaller lakes that might have bigger salmon because they're less fished and then bring them to the derby weigh station.

    It's even possible someone could land a big fish before the derby and then keep it alive until the weigh-in.

    So to make sure the scales of justice are not compromised, this year's winner will have to submit to a lie-detector exam within a week, as first reported by the New Hampshire Union Leader. If they flunk, the title will be stripped.

    Last year's top winner weighed 5.4 pounds and was almost 25 inches long.

     

  • Florida guide uses hunting as rustic therapy for combat veterans

    By Bill Briggs

    Courtesy John Bennett

    John Bennett, shot by a sniper while serving with the Army in Iraq, is one of many wounded veterans to go hunting with the Sportsmen's Foundation for Military Families. He bagged a nine-foot alligator in Florida.

    In the swamps and river bottoms near his Florida ranch, outfitter Danny SantAngelo has spent 20 years guiding veterans — some without arms, legs or sight — back to soothingly familiar country: in the field, stalking live prey, armed with weapons.

    Often, such group hunting excursions were contract jobs that SantAngelo accepted from what he calls "these big, million-dollar-a-year projects for wounded soldiers."

    "They take these soldiers and veterans, gather them up from different areas, and take them to a facility like mine where we’d house them, host them and hunt them for a few days," SantAngelo said. "A bunch of soldiers getting together in a camp again, sitting in the woods with guns, and maybe a lot of them even drink too much, so to say. And at the end, they’d high-five each other, hoot and holler and pull out of here.

    "We've always donated 100 percent of our services to help these groups. And, of course, I never said no. I always said yes, and did it."

     

    For SantAngelo, however, that changed three years ago when, during one outing, he spotted a veteran hunter with tears in his eyes.


    “He was having a tough time. He confessed to me he couldn’t believe he’d been so selfish and had come. He’d been gone several years on tours, fighting in combat. He’d only been home a couple of months. But now he was off again with a bunch of soldiers, sitting around this campfire,” SantAngelo said. “He’d felt like he’d walked off and left his family all over again. Well, I began to see that for these guys, there’s really no benefit afterward.”

    As large, organized hunting trips for veterans proliferate in popularity, SantAngelo is changing the rules, at least in his corner of the swamp. He's launched the Sportsmen’s Foundation for Military Families, escorting combat veterans — and their spouses, children, parents or siblings — onto land he leases for hunting to spend a few days, as he sees it, of badly needed family bonding.

    He’s executing his mission, he said, on a sparse, nonprofit budget, guiding one family per week. His two-person operation — it’s just SantAngelo and his wife, Carla — is headquartered on their ranch along the Kissimmee River in central Florida, about 30 miles north of Lake Okeechobee.

    “You don’t come here with a couple of war buddies. You come here to be with your family,” SantAngelo said. “We try to support the people who suffered back home while their hero was away.

    “So many of these vets go on different hunting trips all over the country. But I see a lot of bad things going on out there through these big nonprofit groups," SantAngelo said. "A lot of these guys are on medications (for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). They get there with a group of guys they don’t even know. They go to drinking while on medications. Not good. So you have veterans researching all these free hunting trips that are out there for them. But those trips have nothing to do with their families. And what do they really get out of that? They go home and have all the same problems.”

    Iraq veteran John Bennett, 41, has been on several of those group-hunting expeditions, despite using a wheelchair since a sniper shot him in 2005 while he was on patrol north of Baghdad, acknowledging: “Those trips are wonderful, don’t get me wrong.”

    But two years ago, Bennett personally saw SantAngelo's vision: hunting plus family may equal better days. He headed to Florida to track alligators at night with one of SantAngelo’s hired guides. For that visit, Bennett had hoped to bring his daughter, but she couldn’t attend. Instead, Bennett spent time with another veteran and his family, he said, riding in a pontoon boat, armed with a bow and arrows, searching for his intended catch.

    Click here for more military-related coverage from NBC News.

    “It’s really neat to be able to include your family, especially your kids, so they can see that dad can get out there and still do the things he used to do,” said Bennett, who bagged a nine-foot gator. SantAngelo later shipped him the meat. (If a veteran-client's spouse or children prefer not to hunt, they can fish or canoe or ride horses while at SantAngelo's ranch.)

    “The military was such a big part of my life,” added Bennett, a former infantry soldier who joined the Montana Army National Guard in 1991. He lives in Cascade, Mont. “Even if I had not been a hunter before, just knowing that I could still shoot a firearm and not be completely freaked out by it was good.”

    Indeed, SantAngelo contends hunting and fishing can serve as a form of rustic therapy for combat veterans from all wars, a return to some of the tactics and tools they once knew intimately, but now utilized in a safe, quiet environment.

    For that reason, SantAngelo’s foundation foots the bill to bring in and then guide ex-military members with an array of devastating wounds.

    Blind veterans who come to his ranch use a double-stocked rifle, sharing the weapon with a guide who — when the prey is in the scope — whispers to inch the barrel slightly up or down, left or right, then instructs the best moment to squeeze the trigger. Veterans without arms can blow into a special tube, which actives the trigger of a rifle. Veterans without full use of extremities use laptops and joysticks to aim their weapons and fire at wild boar, alligators, coyotes and turkeys. SantAngelo also takes his clients on the river to fish for trophy bass.

    Meshing outdoors sports with the tricky transition from the battlefield to home front is a concept the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs also has adopted. VA officials have seen the same behaviors SantAngelo has witnessed: that many large hunts arranged for veterans morph into drinking parties and families are never invited.

    “He’s exactly right,” said Jose Llamas, the community and public affairs officer for the VA's National Veterans Sports Programs. “These other organizations put on weekend trips where it’s hunting, camping, fishing. But it’s drinking, and there’s no follow-up at the end.”

    In addition to hosting adaptive sports summits across the country where family members are encouraged to join disabled veterans in surfing, cycling, skiing, fishing and target shooting, VA recreational therapists — via various VA medical centers — routinely take local veterans fishing, Llamas said.

    “Hunting is not one of those things you can do in every community,” he added. “But from our Paralympic grant program, we just gave $25,000 to a VA hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., to get the equipment needed to take the (disabled) veterans out hunting.

    “What we do is incorporate (hunting, fishing and other sports) into the health-life plan of the veteran,” Llamas said. “The secretary of the VA, Eric Shinseki, is very adamant about this being not just one weekend out of the year, not a vacation, but a step in the right direction of the veteran becoming more productive in the community by living a healthy lifestyle, by being an example to other veterans.”

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  • Fishing boat sinks near Galveston, Texas; 6 people reported missing

    By NBC News and msnbc.com staff

    HOUSTON - The Coast Guard searched Monday for six people reported missing after a fishing vessel started sinking in the Gulf of Mexico near Galveston, Texas.

    The Coast Guard received a mayday call on Sunday afternoon from the captain, who reported the boat was taking on water. The captain said the six people aboard were abandoning ship and getting into an orange life raft.

    Because of the poor quality of the radio transmission, the name of the vessel was difficult to make out. It sounded like either Scallywag or Skylark, Coast Guard officials said. The boat was described as a purple-and-blue-colored fishing vessel with a white stripe.

    Multiple Coast Guard units responded, and on Monday were searching an area roughly the size of Delaware.

    "The Coast Guard is expending all available resources to try and locate the six missing people," Elvie Damaso, a Coast Guard command center controller for Sector Houston-Galveston, said in a statement.

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  • Making a Difference: Kids fishing for (and catching) success

    The Florida Fishing Academy is not only teaching kids about the thrill of the catch, it's helping them cope with peer pressure and stay on the right track. NBC's Mark Potter reports.

     By Mark Potter, NBC News

     

    RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. — On a morning fishing trip to a reef near the South Florida coast, 13-year-old Ray Moody was having the time of his life as he reeled in an exotic-looking species.

    "Hey, it's a parrotfish," he yelled. "It's blue, it's a slippery blue one."

    Brad Houston/NBC News

    Anthony Del Valle, 16, gets a turn at the helm of Rich Brochu's fishing boat.

    Standing near him along the boat rail was 16-year-old Anthony Del Valle, who had also hooked one. Captain Rich Brochu offered encouragement and a quick angling lesson: "It looks like you may have something there. Yep, keep that rod tip up."

    The weekend trip was part of an after-school fishing program that Brochu, a former police officer and construction company owner, started at his daughter's school in Boynton Beach six years ago to help kids from low-income areas experience the excitement of fishing. Since Brochu opened the Florida Fishing Academy, more than 4,000 students, ages 8 to 18, have signed on to learn the thrill of the catch.

    "It's almost like playing a sport. You don't know what's on the other side; there's a kind of mystery to it," Brochu said. "If they catch a fish that's like 3 inches, it's the biggest smile. They love it."

    Along with ocean conservation, catch-and-release fishing techniques, boating safety and first aid, Brochu also teaches the kids how to avoid peer pressure, the dangers of drug abuse and the advantages of keeping busy and off the street corners.

    "All the kids benefit from activities like this. You know, it gives them something to look forward to," he said. "Obviously, we want to give them a choice in life and hopefully do something better with their life."

    In a high school classroom recently, Brochu and Bob Cawood, another fishing captain who helps teach the program, planned to teach knot-tying, But first, they took a few moments to talk about the dangers of smoking.

    "Cigarettes can cause mouth cancer. If you think that's true, raise your hands," they asked. Most hands went up. A short time later, the two men began teaching how to tie a clinch knot and made a game of it by insisting the students tie them behind their backs. The room erupted in noise and laughter as the students tried to see who could do it fastest.

    Brad Houston/NBC News

    Youngsters get a taste of the sea aboard Ray Brochu's fishing boat.

    Excitement also broke out at gymnasium in Riviera Beach when elementary school students learned how to cast toward plastic fish scattered along the floor, and during foot races for which the children had to first put on life jackets correctly before running to the other side of the room.

    A boating reward

    For students in the program who stay in class, keep out of trouble and do some volunteer work, there is a special reward most of them would never have a chance to experience otherwise. At a dock in Riviera Beach is a colorfully painted 38-foot fishing boat that students can go out on to fish with Brochu and Cawood.

    "Some of these kids have never been on a boat, never been on the beach. That's one of the goals, to get them out here," Brochu said.

    Derrick Campbell, an instructor at Village Academy in Delray Beach, is convinced the fishing program and the promise of boating trips work to inspire good behavior.

    "They're more disciplined. They don't act up," he said. "They know that there's something at the end of the rainbow."

    Vickie Verzi, a single mother, wholeheartedly agrees. She believes the fishing program has been "the salvation" of her teenage son, Donnie, by keeping him engaged and away from troublemakers.

    "It taught him how to fish," she said. "It gave him an interest in something that was good for him, and it gave him a direction in life."

    Donnie now volunteers on the boat and is known among his friends as an accomplished angler.

    Anthony Del Valle's mom, Tania Serrano, is also a fan of the program. "It's a new passion, and it keeps him busy," she said.

    A shark-fishing trip is a particular source of pride for Anthony, and his mom couldn't be happier.

    "A lot of people are like, 'wow, shark fishing?' and I'd rather have him out shark fishing than be hanging out with the sharks on the street."

    For Anthony, the fishing boat not only gives him something to do; it also brings him a sense of inner peace.

    "It gives me a second chance to do something I like and stay out of trouble," he said while cranking his fishing reel. "It just puts me in my own world."

    Sharing the experience

    The nonprofit Florida Fishing Academy program is paid for by donations, grants and fundraisers. Among the supporters is famed marine wildlife artist Guy Harvey, whose foundation wrote large checks to support the school and also supplied the colorful vinyl wrap that covers the boat hull.

    "What a win, win, win situation," said Steve Stock, president of Guy Harvey Inc. "What a great sport this is, but way beyond that, if we can turn some of these kids' lives around, pretty good."

    Brad Houston/NBC News

    Janel Scholine and Nick Corzo, in the background, cast their lures.

    During the recent weekend trip, 16-year-old Janel Scholine reeled in several fish and said she was thrilled to learn a new skill.

    "I love it. It's awesome. I didn't know anything about fishing, and now I do," she said, beaming. In fact, Janel learned so much that she is now a volunteer instructor teaching as many as 50 children at a time an academy program called Angling For A Healthy Future.

    Layne Reyka, also 16, says fishing with captains Brochu and Cawood is a lot of fun and matches his personality: "I'm very competitive, so it's definitely the pursuit and the hunt, whether it be a big fish or a small fish — preferably a big fish!"

    For Brochu, the size and the success of the program are a surprise. His plan had been to work just with the kids at his daughter's school. Since then, he said, the Florida Fishing Academy has taught in 46 Palm Beach County schools.

    "I set out for one goal, and that was to save one kid," he said. "Now it's one child at a time, and we've saved a lot."

    The reward, he said, is in hearing from parents how well their kids are doing and in watching kids fully engaged in a sport he and Cawood love.

    "Bob and I are both on their level. We just enjoy it. It's a great time sharing the experience with them. We're living the dream." he said. "Making a difference is more important to us than making money."

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  • Fishermen lose massive tuna -- to the law

    By Miguel Llanos, msnbc.com

    Stephanie Rafael via AP

    Carlos Rafael shows off the 881-pound tuna on Nov. 12 in New Bedford, Mass.

    It's a part of fishing lore to talk about the one that got away, but the true life story for a fisherman is about the one that got taken away -- an 881-pound tuna that his commercial fishing boat hauled in. Unfortunately for him, the tuna was illegally caught with a net instead of sanctioned gear.

    That difference led to confiscation by federal authorities, and on Tuesday, a federal agency told msnbc.com that the behemoth had been sold for just under $5,000.

    The saga began Nov. 12, when the boat and crew, which had been using nets to catch other fish, returned to port in New Bedford, Mass.

    "They didn't catch that fish on the bottom," the boat's owner, Carlos Rafael, told southcoasttoday.com. "They probably got it in the mid-water when they were setting out and it just got corralled in the net. That only happens once in a blue moon."

    Rafael, who was not aboard at the time, even had permits to catch tuna and figured he'd be able to cash in -- a 754-pound tuna sold for a record $396,000 last January in Japan.

    But the catch was illegal, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, since the bluefin tuna, a highly regulated species that has been overfished, was caught with a net.

    "The vessel that caught this bluefin tuna has a general category permit for bluefin tuna, which allows for bluefin tuna to be caught with handgear (such as rod and reel, handline, and harpoon)," the agency said in a statement. "This particular tuna was caught in a trawl net. There is no permit that allows bluefin tuna to be caught with trawl net, even accidentally."

    "The amount of bluefin tuna U.S. fishermen can catch is divided up among gear types," it added, "and there is not enough bluefin tuna left to allow for incidental landings by all the gears that have the potential to catch bluefin on occasion."

    So what should Rafael's crew have done with an accidentally caught bluefin tuna? Toss it back into the sea, dead or alive, fisheries service spokeswoman Monica Allen told msnbc.com.

    As for the big discrepancy in tuna prices, it turns out the bluefin was damaged by the net and thus not valued as highly by buyers. "It wasn't in the best condition," Allen said. 

    The service on Tuesday also posted a reminder for fishermen about tuna regulations at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2011/11/bluefin.htm.

  • Fake fishermen snatching BP jobs

    Dave Martin / AP

    Shrimp boats skim for oil just off the beach in Gulf Shores, Ala., on Friday.

    As is the case in almost every disaster, some people are trying to take advantage of the misfortune of others.

    NBC station WJHG of Panama City, Fla., reports widespread complaints that recreational fishermen are trying to get into BP's Vessels of Opportunity program ahead of out-of-work commercial fishermen with legitimate claims.

    Florida officials report a surge of people applying for new saltwater fishing licenses, which BP requires for anyone entering into the program that pays captains to help make up for the business they've loss because of the spill.

    "These are attorneys, doctors who have their boats in the program" illegitimately, says Bob Zales, president of the National Association of Charterboat Operators.

    Henry Cabbage, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, confirms that if someone applying for the program doesn't make most of his or her money from commercial fishing, "they aren't eligible."

    He says BP is working to make sure those who aren't eligible are weeded out.

  • NOAA opens thousands of miles of fishing area

    NOAA

    The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration opened more than 8,000 square miles of previously closed fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico this afternoon, saying it had not observed oil in the area.

    From the NOAA statement:

    The most significant opening is an area due south of Mississippi which was closed Monday, June 21.

    Additionally, some smaller areas were opened off the Louisiana and central Florida coasts.

    These areas were initially closed as a precaution because oil was projected to be within those areas over the next few days. However, the review of satellite imagery, radar and aerial data indicated that oil had not moved into these areas.

    The federal closed area does not apply to any state waters. Closing fishing in this area is a precautionary measure to ensure that seafood from the Gulf will remain safe for consumers.