The National Ice Fishing

The National Ice Fishing Association

The National Ice Fishing Association is dedicated to bringing diverse groups of ice fishing enthusiasts together and providing them the best sources of information, tips and tactics to improve their time on the ice.

Ice Fishing Essentials

The Ice Fishing World: We have found the best of the best ice fishing gear for you. It's the leading edge real deal. Be the first in your group to show them how it's done. Don't wait on these like you did on the Vexilar FL-8 or MarCum LX5s.Ice Fishing Gear to discover what is leading the ice fishing field.

Tactics: Learn the controls and structure used for different species of fish in iced over lakes. This helps you with location and presentation that put you on and catch fish. Discover the "Ice Leaders" information you need, what to use, where to use it, and how to use it.Ice Fishing Tactics for tactics.

Tackle: New and innovative ice fishing tackle will include, lures, jigs, Thorne Bros rods, reels, line, tip-ups, bobbers, spring bobbers, rod holders, and other ice fishing accessories used to catch fish.Ice Fishing Tackle for tackle.

Electronics:Prices are coming down and the technologies are improving. Some have started revamping their entire line to provide a superior ice fishing product in the future. Check out MarCum fish locators, underwater viewers, and Lowrance GPS units here.Ice Fishing Electronics for electronics.

Augers: Better fuel efficiency, easier drilling, and lighter weight packages are starting to come out now. If you want to learn about Nile Master power augers that help you become more mobile information will be provided here.Ice Fishing Augers for Strekemaster and Jiffy augers.
Shelter: From large luxury units to small one man portables, they are all becoming more mobile. Moving to find fish is a necessity and many manufacturers have heard the call.Ice Fishing Shelters for Otter, Clam or Frabill shelter.

Clothing: Space age insultex insulation technology is coming. Layering is still one of the best options, yet soon we may be able to discard the extra weight and still stay warm in sub-zero temperatures. Again easy mobility is the key.Ice Fishing Clothing for clothing.

Bait: Good old fashioned lively bait is still a key. Yet advances in texture, scent, and taste may make them less necessary. Are you willing to experiment with waxies, eurolarva, mousies and minnows?Ice Fishing Bait for bait.

http://www.nationalicefishingassociation.org

Women's Flyfishing

Women's Flyfishing

Experience Alaska with the fly fishing experts. Women's Flyfishingฎ is dedicated to helping women learn and enjoy the sport of flyfishing in a supportive and non-competitive environment. We believe that flyfishing can be experienced on many different levels and that one need not be an expert to appreciate the beauty of the fish and flies, the peace of the environment, and the adventure, fun and challenge of the sport. Women's Flyfishingฎ practices catch and release for all wild species in the spirit of conservation, and we will not kill a wild rainbow trout. We may take a limit of salmon where regulations and healthy stocks permit.

http://www.womensflyfishing.net

Bass Fishing South Africa

Bass Fishing South Africa

Welcome to Bass Fishing South Africa. This Bass Fishing Community consists of a number of fishing enthusiasts from all over the world. Most of the community is based in and around SA and information is shared freely on a daily basis. Everyone is invited to “Share and Care” on the website via our information packed Bass Fishing Forums. No other local website can offer you more information on local fishing waters and how to prepare for them than BFSA, “Sharing and Caring” is what it’s all about

So what is BFSA all about? Working together, we have created not only a friendly and welcoming environment but an excellent source of vital information that would otherwise take years to learn on your own. Being part of this community is the best way to improve your bass fishing skills instantly. There is no pressure on having to participate, that will come in time. Soon you will feel part of the family and share and communicate willingly.

BFSA is an fully interactive and user friendly website We offer some excellent features that no other bass fishing websites offers which keeps us number one on net! We ensure the user finds the website easy to use; members can easily find what they need when they need it instantly. '

http://www.bassfishing.co.za/bassingnews

American Sportfishing Association

The American Sportfishing Association (ASA) is the sportfishing industry’s trade association, committed to looking out for the interests of the entire sportfishing community.

We give the industry a unified voice, speaking out on behalf of sportfishing and boating industries, state and federal natural resource agencies, conservation organizations, angler advocacy groups, and outdoor journalists when emerging laws and policies could significantly affect sportfishing business or sportfishing itself.

We invest in long-term ventures to ensure the industry will remain strong and prosperous as well as safeguard and promote the enduring social, economic, and conservation values of sportfishing in America.

ASA also represents the interests of America’s 40 million anglers who generate over $45 billion in retail sales with a $125 billion impact on the nation’s economy creating employment for over one million people.

http://www.asafishing.org/asa

Safety While Fishing

Safety While Fishing

• If using a boat to fish, wear your life jacket and make sure that your passengers wear theirs, too


• Use caution when baiting and removing hooks


• Do not fish on unauthorized waterways


• If operating a houseboat, be careful of carbon monoxide build-up around the boat


• Obey the posted speedlimits and wake warnings if using a watercraft when fishing


• Bring along extra safety items such as water, flashlights, maps, and a cellphone or radio
  
  

General Tips

General Tips

Fishing is the activity of hunting for fish. It is an ancient and worldwide practice that dates back about 10,000 years with various techniques and traditions and it has been transformed by modern technological developments.
Fishing continues to be a favorite pastime in the United States, in 2001, 16% of the U.S. population 16 years old and older (34 million anglers) spent an average of 16 days fishing. Freshwater fishing was the most popular type of fishing with over 28 million anglers devoting nearly 467 million angler-days to the sport.

Practice Good Stewardship of our Waterways

You can help to take care of our lakes, rivers, and other waterways so that others may enjoy these areas for years to come by practicing some of the following actions

• Don't Litter... take along a trash bag or other receptacle for collecting your trash so that you can deposit it in the proper trash receptacle. Use proper dumping stations instead of tossing refuse into the water.
• Make sure that you use the correct type of bait and fishing gear permitted in that area. There may also be limits on the number, size, and kind of fish that you can keep. Check with your destination ahead of time to see what the local regulations allow. If you use a boat or watercraft when fishing, check to see what kinds of watercraft are allowed at the body of water where you are going to fish.
• Pay attention to local procedures and cautions for cleaning your watercraft after you leave the water so that you don't encourage the spread of npn-native species, such as the Zebra Mussel, to the next body of water you may visit with your boat.
• Don't fish in areas where it is not permitted. These areas have been declared "off limits" to fishing to protect wildlife, vegetation, or for your safety.

http://www.fishing.com

Fishing by Sarah Rossiter

Fishing by Sarah Rossiter

offer this poem for all of you who have ever fished for fish, or ever knew someone who did. It is "Fishing" by Sarah Rossiter, reprinted from The Anglican Theological Review, Summer 2006, Volume 88, Number 3, page 419 (used by permission of the managing editor).FISHINGWho can explain what holds me at the river's edge: is it the scent of water, or the sound of liquid slipping over stone,the solitude,or, then again, the line unfurlingback and forth through whispered air,like breath, perhaps, or maybe prayer,or the White Wulff, light as milkweed,drifting, or that moment whenthe salmon leaps, such silver shining,fish, fly, sky, as if the river catches fire.And so I wonder how it was that whenHe met them by the sea, and all He said was "Follow me," they turned, it seemed,with no regret, leaving boats and netsbehind, as if He was the fish they sought,as if their hearts burned even then.

Linda+The Rev. Linda McCloudFounding PastorThe Episcopal Church of Our Savior at Honey Creekhttp://www.oursaviorhoneycreek.org/

http://oursaviorhoneycreek.blogspot.com/

The Biggest Fishing Trip

A billion-dollar survey of the world's oceans has so far pinpointed 38,000 marine species - and identified new fish at the rate of two a week. The census of marine life, a concerted effort by hundreds of scientists from more than 70 nations, is in effect the first hi-tech inventory of life in the so called "blue planet" Oceans cover 70% of the globe. But marine scientists have been pointing out for years that the surface of Venus has been better mapped than the world under the oceans.

The latest "end of term report" by the census scientists assembles data from more than 5.2m new and existing records, and maps the distribution of the 38,000 species. Details of the survey will be unveiled at a meeting in Hamburg next week.

Scientists in Australia, China, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, New Zealand, South America and sub-Saharan Africa are to form nine new regional networks to create a new "information seaway" But the worldwide bid to probe life in the seas has hardly begun.

"We have barely skimmed the surface," said Frederick Grassle, of Rutgers University in the US, who chairs the international scientific steering committee of the census.

"Humans have explored less than 5% of the world's oceans, and even where we have explored, life may have been too small to see. Thus, opportunities abound to discover species and increase our knowledge of abundance and distribution."

Life on earth is a mystery: life in the oceans is an even deeper mystery. The seas cover long sloping continental shelves rich in nutrients that drain from the land; huge, muddy abyssal plains fertilised by detritus from the surface; ocean trenches far deeper than the Grand Canyon, and a vast chain of volcanic mountains known as the mid-Atlantic ridge, where submarine hot springs support colonies of living creatures were discovered only about 25 years ago.

All of these habitats are home to living things.

So far, taxonomists have named and described around 230,000 species of marine creature. But there could be 10 times as many, still to be identified.

At the same time, many ocean species are under threat. Commercial fishing has damaged and depleted the north Atlantic cod and the bluefin tuna and reduced the world's whale population to a hundredth of its original count.

Many of the world's coral reefs - shelter for rich ecosystems of lagoon creatures - are threatened by global warming, habitat destruction and pollution.

The push for new commercial species now threatens deep ocean fish such as the orange roughie, which take decades to reach maturity. As commercial species disappear, so complex ecological networks are disrupted. So the the census is part of a concerted international effort to make a detailed map of life on the biggest - and most unexplored - region of the planet.

The payoff so far is a $9.5m (£5.1m) ocean biographic information system that pinpoints 95% of all records so far on or near the surface of the sea.

Less than 0.1% of the records are from the bottom half of the water column. So there are depths of knowledge still to be plumbed. Researchers calculate that a creature collected from below 2,000 metres is about 50 times more likely to be new to science than one found in the first 50 metres.

In this year alone, the census has added 106 species of marine fish to the database - an average of more than two new species a week. The total of known fish species in the sea now stands at 15,482. There could be another 5,000, awaiting discovery. The database has also counted 6,800 species of zooplankton, animals that drift with the ocean currents. They could identify another 6,000 over the next decade.

The discoveries rest on a whole range of new submarine technologies, from robot submersibles to a network of seafloor "listening posts" Some scientists have concentrated on collecting specimens from 6,000 metres below the surface, off the coast of Angola, or from the hidden world underneath the Antarctic ice shelf.

Others have "tagged" open ocean species, to provide the first ever map of marine "highways" for sharks, turtles and marine mammals. Biologists have found not just new species of octopus, but a new genus - a much larger grouping - of these puzzling animals in the Southern Ocean. Others have been examining colonies of rhodoliths - a kind of coral-like marine algae that moves like tumbleweed - in southern Alaska. Remotely operated vehicles with robot arms have picked up a clam that survives on methane deposits on the sea floor off the coast of Chile, and a new species of mollusc that lives down thermal vents in the Indian Ocean.

Researchers "listening" to salmon in northern California also picked up signals from tagged green sturgeon - rarest of the 26 sturgeon species - as they travelled to the Canadian coast. Other researchers have explored not the present but the past, to map the change in sea fish populations. Records from 400 years ago show that cod taken by hand line from the side of a fishing boat could weigh as much as 80lbs (about 36kg). With the advent of trawl nets, more cod were taken but the average size began to fall dramatically. Oceanic white tip shark numbers in the Gulf of Mexico have fallen by 99% in the last 50 years. Shark populations in the north Atlantic have fallen by from 40% to 90%, depending on the species. Hardest hit has been a once-feared predator, the hammerhead.

Catches of the day

Biologists identified a new species of grenadier in the Tasman Sea, a new species of scorpionfish in the IndoPacific region and a strange finned octopod they nicknamed "Dumbo" at 3,000 metres on the mid-ocean ridge. But other signals from the seas in the past two years have been less cheerful. These include: Carbon-dioxide exhausts from human industry are not just creating warmer oceans, they are gradually increasing their acidity, scientists reported in August. This could affect corals and marine shellfish - and subsequently the species that depend on them.

American shoppers face an identity crisis. Researchers found in July that 77% of all fish sold in the US as red snapper were in fact some other species. Marine biologists have identified a "lost world" in the Arctic ocean. The Canada basin is a vast pool of still water walled in by steep ridges far below the surface. In one cruise, researchers picked up 400 unidentified species. In June, British scientists calculated that 30% of the world's seas could be protected from all fishing at a cost of £8bn a year. This is roughly what tourists spend each year on ocean cruises.

Project Neptune (North-east Pacific time series underwater networked experiments) is to establish a network of 30 sea-floor "laboratories" 100kms apart and up to 3,000 metres deep, connected by 3,000kms of fibre-optic cable. Students will be able to link to the submarine laboratories via the

The leatherback turtle has outlived the dinosaurs by 65m years. But scientists warned last year that it could be on the road to extinction in 10 to 20 years. Only about 1,500 females now nest in the