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Guides take ‘jig’ fight to court

The battle over the use of the so-called break-away jig is moving from Boca Grande Pass to a Tallahassee courtroom.

The Boca Grande Fishing Guides Association, a group comprised of local, traditional live-bait tarpon guides, is asking a Leon County court to find that the device, also known as a “pass jig,” is being illegally used to snag or snatch hook tarpon.

The guides association wants the courts to order the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to recognize that the jig violates state law and the FWC’s own regulations.

The FWC is named as the lone respondent in the petition for declaratory relief filed with the court this week.

Specifically, the guides association is asking the court to find:

• That the break-away jig is a snagging or snatch-hooking device used to impale or hook tarpon in areas other than the mouth of the fish.

• That the jig is a break-away device contrary to FWC regulations.

• That angling techniques used by “jiggers” in Boca Grande Pass are causing irreparable damage to the tarpon population and the conservation efforts of the guides and “the true sportsmen of our state.”

• That the FWC be instructed to recognize the ruling of the court.

Should the guides association prevail, it is likely the FWC – barring an appeal by the commission – would be required to ban the use of the jig in Boca Grande Pass.

In its petition, filed by West Palm Beach lawyer Joseph D. Farish Jr., the guides association argues that the FWC has assumed and recognized its responsibility to protect Boca Grande’s tarpon and the Pass as a “world famous location for tarpon, one of Florida’s premier sport fish.”

“The future of the Pass and its tarpon fishery depends on conservation and ethical angling of the tarpon,” the petition states.

The local guides argue that “a group of alleged fishermen, identified as ‘jiggers’ under the pretext of sport fishermen, have adopted a fishing and angling technique using fishing gear to hook tarpon. The thrust of the ‘jigger’s’ endeavors has been during the months of April, May and June, even conducting tournaments when tarpon are tightly congregated prior to spawning in Boca Grande Pass.”

The petition identifies ‘jiggers’ as “mainly professional guides who take charter parties and allegedly try to hook and retrieve tarpon by the aforesaid rig. That the rig and catching actions are a shock to the conservationist minded sportsman causing the tarpon to languish and die or be eaten by sharks.”

The guides claim that the jigs “are nothing more than a device used to capture the tarpon by piercing its body with a hook and weight, and retrieved by a means called ‘foul hooking’ or ‘snatch hooking’.”

These techniques, the guides argue, “cause the tarpon to die or languish exhausted even after a release.”

The FWC, the guides say, has recognized that there are problems with the jig and the methods of fishing the device by jiggers. Instead, the guides argue, FWC policies have “exacerbated the slaughter of the tarpon.”

“It is necessary that this court consider the facts as alleged herein, and determine and declare that the ‘snagging’ or ‘snatch hooking’ by the jiggers is an intentional catch of the tarpon by this device.”

A study conducted by the FWC in 2004 showed that 74 percent of tarpon caught in Boca Grande Pass on the controversial break-away jig were hooked in an area outside the “button” or mouth – compared to 13 percent caught using traditional live bait methods.

The Catch and Release Study conducted by the institute studied hook placement of 92 tarpon caught using both methods in Boca Grande Pass from early May through the end of June of that year. Of the 56 tarpon caught using the break-away jig, the data showed that just 13 were hooked in the mouth. There were 38 fish hooked in the “clipper plates,” four in the head and one in the pectoral fin.

By comparison, all but five of the 36 tarpon caught using live bait were hooked in the mouth. Five were hooked in the “clipper plates” and none of the remaining 31 fish were hooked elsewhere on the body.

The “clipper,” also known as the maxilla, is a bony protrusion directly below the eye of the tarpon.

In its findings, however, the FWC determined that the study did not provide evidence that the jig was snagging or foul hooking tarpon and characterized the issue as a conflict between two “user groups.”