Have you noticed trash on the sides of the road each morning when you go to work or in the afternoon when you return home?
For all of you who enjoy our waterway each weekend boating, skiing, and fishing, do you notice the soda bottle floating or the plastic bag in the water?
Unfortunately, many of us are too preoccupied with other things that we tend to miss these things. One soda bottle doesn”t sound like much, but what if everyone in Lowndes County dropped one soda bottle in the water or tossed it out the car window?
An angler would get hung up and have to break his or her line. The other line and the lure is now a part of the environment.
My partner and I have been fishing and have gotten hung up into someone else”s fishing line. We don”t just move on down the bank after freeing our lure. We try to get the line free, twist it up and put it in the boat to throw it away at the end of the day. We also take all of our empty drink bottles and store them back in the cooler or dry storage until the end of the day.
Do these actions classify us as “tree huggers”? If so, I”m a tree hugger.
There is nothing more aggravating than to see litter on our waterway. There are no public workers riding our waters and picking up trash like we have on our roads. The only way our litter leaves us by a flood or by a current. Even then it isn”t gone, it just has moved to another location. I used to hunt the Corps of Engineers property and you would be surprised at how much litter gets collected in the woods where flood waters deposit the trash.
This can be avoided if we ALL become a little more conscientious when we”re on the water. Every retail store now bags your items in plastic bags. Keep a couple in your boat and put your trash in them instead of throwing it into the water. Keep the bags in a dry storage instead of the bottom of the boat. A boat doesn”t have to travel very fast for the wind to blow an empty soda bottle out of the boat.
There are trash cans at every ramp I have launched my boat. This is the perfect place to deposit your drink bottles at the end of a day.
And for all of you who use jugs for catfishing, know how many you bait up and throw out so none are left behind at the end of the day.
If we all become more aware of the impacts of our actions, our local waterway will look clean. If not, what will it look like when our grandchildren become our age?
The Thursday Night Tournaments, directed by Tony and Marian Parson, held its weekly tournament this past week with twenty-four boats competing. Chase Harris and Jonathan Alexander won the event with 7.74 pounds. They also had the big bass of 3.46 pounds. Lance and JD Jackson finished second (6.24 pounds). Austin Hill and Jason Frye took third (5.73), and Steve Moore (5.19) rounded out the top four places.
I think everyone was surprised at how the fish didn”t bite after the rain Thursday evening, but it was still enjoyable because the cloud cover kept the heat down.
For more information fishing the Thursday Night Tournaments, contact Parson at (662) 386-9629.
Good fishing and God Bless…
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