PHOTO BY ROB MATSUURA and aquatic vegetation , which limited access – not to mention the James River has tidal currents , making access even more limited . Luckily , we had the SeaArk boat and were able to clean floating debris carried by the current for over 4 miles of river . This resulted in 500 pounds of trash being removed .
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cleanup 3 — lake champlain , n . y .
The third and fourth Costa Clean Water Matters cleanup events took place in New York . The July cleanup was at Lake Champlain for Stop 6 of the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit . This event had six local volunteers join Dakota Ebare , Cole Hewett , Robby Lefere , Terry Luedtke , Jeff McClain ,
Jimmy Reese , Skeet Reese , Scott Towry and the FMD . We focused once again on the host marina ’ s parking lots and shoreline . The park was already quite clean , and after a few hours , we had collected over 300 pounds of trash . More importantly , we planted the seed of conservation within the kids that joined us .
cleanup 4 — cayuga lake , N . Y .
The final cleanup was held at Cayuga Lake during Stage Six of the Bass Pro Tour . The days before the cleanup at Frontenac Park , MLF hosted a fan festival . Our volunteers worked to clean up that park along with the launch ramps and parking areas . FMD was joined by Dakota Ebare , Alton Jones , Michael Neal and Kevin VanDam . In all , the group of pros collected 200 pounds of trash over a 4- mile area .
Over these four events , we were able to clean 12 miles of shoreline , 6 miles of water and collect 1,300 pounds of trash . We did see some common themes at each site :
• The most commonly found trash item by far was cigarette butts .
• The most common fishing lure was a soft plastic stick bait , and at every ramp we found at least one bunk board .
• Other often-found items were , of course , plastic bottles . You might be surprised at how quickly water bottles , ice bags , snacks , lures and lines add up to a full bag of
PHOTO BY MASON PRINCE trash . Many of the common trash items we found take a long time to biodegrade . A cigarette butt is estimated at 10 years ; it ’ s 20 years for a grocery bag , 450 years for a plastic bottle and 600 years for fishing line .
Following the successful cleanups , Costa now plans to provide every Bass Pro Tour and Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit angler with a reusable “ Kick Plastic ” bag for their boats . This will be important in helping all our anglers become personally responsible for any trash they might have on the boat each day .
we ’ re all in the cleanup together
We as anglers have to be concerned about keeping our fisheries clean and put in the extra effort to clean up other people ’ s trash , because it ’ s the only way to keep our fisheries thriving . If you plan to do a trash cleanup at your local body of water , we recommend pre-walking the area to make sure your volunteers know what to prepare for . We used trash grabbers that we found on Amazon that turned out to be extremely useful . When on the boats , long-handled dip nets were a must-have .
You may also check before any cleanup with local marinas or tourism groups , as they often have supplies available to use and a dumpster that ’ s easy to access .
You can see photos from the Costa Clean Water Matters shoreline cleanups at majorleaguefishing . com / fisheriesmanagement .
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OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2022 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM 13