Holiday wishes vary for area outdoorsmen

Dec. 19–With shopping opportunities dwindling by the day, the time is nigh to load up the sleigh with stocking stuffers for outdoor enthusiasts on the Christmas list.

Whether your outdoorsmen prefers items to enhance his fishing experience, hunting gear for hitting the woods or just new clothing to heighten the experience, tackle shops and sporting goods stores are stocked with just the right gifts to check off the list.

Department of Natural Resources’ Coastal Resources Division Director Spud Woodward said if someone with fairly deep pockets were shopping for him this holiday season, he has a few suggestions.

“If money was no object, I’d like one of the new Browning A5 shotguns,” Woodward said. “After many years, Browning has resurrected this legendary shotgun. The signature ‘hump’ on the receiver is still in place, but the internal system — still recoil, not gas-operated — has been modernized.

“However, being more realistic, but still not cheap, I’d like an Ambassadeur C3 6500 bait casting reel for inshore saltwater fishing. Spinning reels are great, and I use them quite a bit, but there is no substitute for a bait casting reel when drifting live shrimp under a slip float.”

Also, Woodward said, any angler — including himself — would welcome a few new lures.

“You can never go wrong by stuffing a stocking with a few Betts Halo Shrimp in chartreuse sparkle, a package or two of Berkeley Gulp Mantis Shrimp in New Penny/Chartreuse or some Cajun Thunder rattling floats.”

Longtime charter fishing captain Mark Noble said his Christmas wish list includes continued success for area charter captains, especially in these tough economic times. Noble, the founder of Golden Isles Charter Fishing Association, also said “the perfect outdoor gift” for him would be wiser thinking when it comes to the management of our fisheries.

“My biggest one would be for our legislators and DNR to get together and figure out how we can best model our fishery to mimic what we do all across the nation for our freshwater fish and all our game animals,” Noble said. “We’ve got very successful models of natural resource management, whether it’s freshwater fish or game animals.

“I would love to just sit down and have an open conversation on the different ways to manage the ocean, to see how and what we can do to better manage our ocean.”

Noble said strict limits on species like snapper and black sea bass affect the livelihood of charter captains and often lessen the enjoyment for their charters. He said those types of concerns should be addressed.

“I want the recreational people across our nation to be well-educated on what we can do so that the ocean won’t be shut down like we’re seeing now,” Noble said. “One day, there will be certain fish stocks missing and there will be gaps. That happened with many of these different game animals and freshwater fish — many of them crashed, but we brought them back. It’s a political thing because it does deal with commercial take on certain species, but what can we do to better things? Because it does deal with commercial harvest in most places, people might not think it’s important. But 20 or 30 years from now, it will be.

“That would be the best Christmas present I could ever get, to see if we could not manage our fish to the margins of overfishing every year because that’s what we’re doing now. Instead of managing to the margin, manage to where they flourish. In order to do that, we’ve got be more restrictive in certain areas, but we must deal with the fisheries. The ocean is our last frontier for proper management.”

Truth be told, said Noble, who also books and guides hunting trips, his wish list is actually quite short since he is doing what he loves.

“I take people recreational fishing for a living and I offer them a chance to hunt, too, and there’s not a lot more I want than that,” Noble said.

As for something more tangible, he said there is one particular item no outdoorsman should be without.

“I highly recommend the Thunder Chicken,” Noble said of the unique popping cork he invented and markets. “What great stocking stuffers they make.”

— Sports Editor Dave Jordan writes about local sports. Contact him at [email protected], on Facebook or at 265-8320, ext. 319.