Adding order to the law of shark fishing from shore, Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) Commission in December approved regulations that it hopes will reduce if not end conflict between shark catchers and beach bathers.

The commission did not go for the notion of designating separate sections of shoreline for sharking and not sharking.

Here’s what it did do, including the application of some of the new rules to fishing from boats: Shoreline shark fishers will have to possess a special annual permit, although they won’t have to pay for it.

No more chumming from the beach — not for sharks or any other species. Chum is stinky and attracts sharks (and barracuda, etc.) into the surf, which beach bathers find scary.

Shark species that are protected from harvest (there’s a long list) will have to be released right away while in the water, not dragged for admiration and photos up on the sand where their survival odds would be reduced. If caught from a boat, they may not be brought aboard.

When fishing with live or dead natural baits, one must use straight-shanked circle hooks, not made of stainless steel. Circle hooks are least likely to stick in a fish’s interior, where removal would be dangerous to shark and sharker alike. The same rule will apply to boat fishing.

A quick-release knife and/or wire clipper must be possessed and used for cutting the leader when the hook cannot be removed safely, whether the shark is caught from shore or a boat.

December’s approval of the regs is preliminary. They will be brought up for enactment in February.

2018: worst year for red tide in a decade

The Gulf Coast’s colossal red tide epizootic of 2018 abated considerably in December’s colder weather, with no fish kills in the middle week of the month but “respiratory irritation” still affecting humans at the beaches of Manatee, Sarasota and Collier counties.

In plainer language, that’s something like breathing difficulty, choking, that sort of stuff. Eye irritation usually goes with it.

The Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) Commission said there still were background, low and medium concentrations in the waters of those counties as well as Pinellas, Charlotte and Lee counties. Except for the breathing and eye problems, those concentrations (other than medium at Manatee County) would be close to ignorable.

Not in 2018, the worst year for red tide in at least a decade. With numbers still being crunched, fatalities among dolphins, manatees, and sea turtles were not fully tabulated. Tonnage of dead fish and other lost marine life were still in estimate stages. The same goes for economic loss in beach towns, stunk up so severely that tourist activity was scuttled.

The outbreak, excessive by historical standards for red tide alone, was accompanied by foul algae and other pollutants in water flushed from Lake Okeechobee to prevent it from overflowing in the rainy season.

Most of that went west down the Caloosahatchee River to the Gulf. Scientists have not parsed out each source’s share of the damage, and may not be able to do it accurately, but it’s generally agreed that the blue-green lake flush mixed with red tide made everything worse.

The fact that it happened in an especially contentious election year made the outbreak a political issue, too. While there’s nobody to accuse fairly of causing the naturally occurring red tide, sugar farm pollution is pinned to the bullseye of the blue-green alga's blame target.

Whether the new administration in Tallahassee does or can do much about it figures to be Florida’s biggest conservation question in 2019.

Snook rules applied in the Gulf

As a result of red tide fish kills, the FWC imposed a catch-and-release rule on Gulf coast snook and redfish early in the crisis, and then extended it to May 10, 2019. Until then, all snook and redfish that are caught have to be turned loose. Flattening the barbs on hooks will make it easier to release fish unharmed.

The regulation applies from the border between Hernando and Pasco counties, south to Gordon Pass in Collier County. It includes all of Pinellas and Hillsborough too, and not just the coastlines but upland as well.

Snook’s open season on the Gulf side, including the Keys and Everglades National Park, closed anyway on Dec. 1, normally would be reopened on March 1 if not for the red tide kills. Redfish do not have a closed season.

Neither species is affected on the Atlantic coast. For regulation purposes, that includes Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee River, which have small populations of snook. That open season closed on Dec. 15 and is to be reopened on Feb. 1.

Bass fishermen enter Hall of Fame

Bass fishermen Michael Donohue and Mark Lemieux made the biggest of the big catches among seven fishing-doers who registered Hall of Fame largemouth bass catches of 13 pounds and up in season six of Florida’s Trophy Catch promotion.

Neither man had to travel far.

Donohue, of Port St. Lucie, caught the heaviest bass of the season in his own town’s O.L. Peacock Sr. Park. It weighed 15 pounds, 11 ounces.

Lemieux, of Ocklawaha, made two Hall of Fame catches:13 pounds, six ounces on March 29 in waters reported coyly as “Ocklawaha River area” and a 14-pound, 5-ounce bass on Nov. 25 in an “Ocklawaha area lake.”

Those two fish, with a combined weight of 27 pounds, 11 ounces, were the cream of a crop that earned Lemieux a “Big Bag” prize for entering the heaviest five-bass total, 63 pounds and 12 ounces. The prize is a three-day stay at Mission Inn Resort & Club in Lake County, a guided trip with pro fisherman Tim Frederick and a new rod from Enigma.

All the new Hall of Fame guys won Bass Pro Shops gift cards, Spiderwire lines, fiberglass replica mounts by New Wave Taxidermy and plaques from American Registry.