LOBSTERS THE BOUNTY IN ANNUAL MINI-SEASON
With tickle sticks ready, divers seek daily bag limit of 12 crustaceans per person.
Boats bobbed from Mar-a-Lago to The Breakers over the nearshore reef off Palm Beach on Wednesday, dive flags signaling their captains’ intentions and hope, that on this day, they would bring home some bugs.
The two-day mini lobster season kicked off at 12:01 a.m., Wednesday, the first chance since March 31 for recreational lovers of the leggy crustaceans to tickle their dinner from hidey holes in rocks and under ledges.
Once valued so little they were used by colonists as fertilizer and bait, lobsters are now coveted enough that hunters embarked under a waxing gibbous moon, searching with flashlights underwater to meet their bag limit of 12 lobsters per person, per day. In Monroe County, nighttime diving is prohibited, and the limit is six lobsters per person, per day.
Lake Worth resident Joe Hart has participated in lobster mini-season for more than two decades, taking two vacation days to try his luck. On Wednesday, he and his five friends on the boat Knot Workn’ hit the jackpot — 72 lobsters in all, 12 per person.
“I wouldn’t say we are experts, but we do well,” Hart said after finishing a four-hour hunt that began at 7:30 a.m. “We love lobster, and this is the time that sportsmen have an opportunity to get them before the commercial season opens.”
Regular lobster season stretches from Aug. 6 to March 31, with the mini-season occurring on the last consecutive Wednesday and Thursday in July. This year’s 48-hour mini-season ends tonight at midnight.
While commercial lobster operations use wood-slatted traps, recreational fisherman use tickle sticks with a noose on one end designed to close around the tail of the lobster. That way, no damage is done to the legs or antennae of the lobster in case it is undersized or is an egg-carrying female, which may not be harvested. A saltwater fishing license ($17 for residents, $47 for nonresidents,) and a special $5 spiny lobster permit are needed to participate in mini-season.
Monica Peroleo, of Stu- art, was loading up her tickle stick for the first time Wednesday at Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach. A regular fisherman and free diver, it was her first attempt at lobstering.
“It’s a tradition for a lot of people,” Peroleo said.
But it can also be danger- ous.
In 2014, Joseph “Joey” Grosso, a former all-state linebacker at Pope John Paul II, died during a dive on the first day of the mini-season. A 60-year-old man died in 2010 after a mini-season dive off Jupiter. He complained of feeling ill after surfacing from the dive and died later of unspecified medical prob- lems.
Four divers died statewide in 2009, with at least three dying the previous year.
“The last thing you want on vacation is to get hurt,” said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Officer Robert Dube. “You need to keep your head on a swivel out here.”
Dube was working in the Islamorada area Wednesday. One of his co-workers included a black Labrador retriever K-9 officer named Mags. Mags is trained to sniff out lobster that a diver might be trying to hide because it’s too small or the diver is over the allowed limit.
Dube also cautioned to check the weather fore- cast. Summertime storms can erupt quickly. Towering cumulus clouds threatened far offshore Wednesday morning, but mostly clear skies danced sunshine off the ocean like diamonds. By 3 p.m., thunderstorms hugged the coast from Miami to Jupiter.
A southerly wind today will allow scattered showers and thunderstorms, but they are expected to develop in the afternoon and evening with the highest chances inland.
On the shallow reef off Palm Beach, people can often look for lobsters with no more gear than a snorkel and mask.
Palm Beach Ocean lifeguards Jose Ruiz and Hous- ton Park cruised the reef at first light Wednesday before work. They came ashore with two lobsters.
“It was a lot of work for the amount we got,” Ruiz said. “We saw a lot of shorts.”
And they weren’t the first lobster hunters out.
“There are boats that show up at midnight with flashlights,” Houston said. “I don’t think it’s worth coming out at midnight for a few bugs.”
An Allegiant Airlines flight made an emergency landing after a bird struck the engine during takeoff.
Airline spokeswoman Lauren Rowe tells news outlets no one was injured during the Wednesday morning incident.
She says Flight 1592 departed Punta Gorda Air- port bound for Milwaukee. It made an emergency land- ing at Sanford International Airport.
Allegiant spokeswoman Krysta Levy tells the Orlando Sentinel bird remains were found in the engine.
The low-cost airline based in Las Vegas specializes in flying from smaller airports to vacation destinations. It has suffered a spate of mishaps, including mechanical issues that have caused flights to be diverted or canceled.
Fire-rescue officials say around 40 golf carts were destroyed in a fire at the golf course where David Beck- ham wants to build a soc- cer stadium.
Capt. Ignatius Carroll tells The Miami Herald that crews found a “large body of fire” near the golf clubhouse at Melreese Country Club on Tuesday night.
Carroll says fire crews contained the fire in the parking lot, keeping it from spreading to the pro shop. No one was injured, and the cause is under investigation. The 911 call about the fire came A perennial candidate for in about an hour and a half mayor took a phone call from after the golf course closed God during a recent debate. on Tuesday night.
“Hello? What? God?” Sloan The C ity Commission Bashinsky said into his cell- agreed last week to let voters phone during Monday night’s decide in November whether debate for City Commission the golf course should be and mayoral candidates. developed into a soccer and
According to a report in retail complex.
The Miami Herald, Bashinsky then talked about cuts to nonprofit funding and told God he thinks city officials have lost their minds.
Bashinsky has a law degree from Vanderbilt University
KEY WEST and used to be among Key West’s homeless. He says God told him to seek office.
Weird is relative in Key West, where another peren- nial candidate, the late barkeep and ship captain Tony Tarracino, eventually won the mayor’s office after saying, “All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego.”
MIAMI
TALLAHASSEE
Wildlife officials say 20 threatened Eastern indigo snakes have been released.
A Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission news release says the reptiles were set loose at The Nature Conservancy’s Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve.
Government agencies, wildlife groups and universities are trying to return the native, nonvenomous apex predator to the region. A similar release was conducted last year with 12 snakes.
The Eastern indigo snake is the longest snake native to North America, growing to over 8 feet long. Scientists say it serves a critical function in its environment, consuming a variety of small animals. The snakes were historically found in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, though their range is now more restricted.
ORMOND BEACH
Authorities say a man who was injured when a tree fell on him during a thunderstorm has died.
The Daytona Be a ch News-Journal reports that 56-year-old Benjamin Allen died Monday.
Police say Allen and another person were unloading furniture outside an home Sunday when the tree fell. Allen suffered critical injuries and was taken to a Daytona Beach hospital.
Investigators say the other person suffered minor injuries.