Image by Maarten Bruinenberg
The president of the Bahamas Fly Fishing Industry Association is pushing back against what he calls government “lip service” toward protecting the country’s world-renowned flats fishery.
In an interview with Tribune Business published December 9, BFFIA President Prescott Smith said a conservation fund established under the 2017 Flats Fishing regulations has never been implemented—despite being written into law. The fund was designed to channel flats fishing license fees back into fisheries management, guide education, and habitat protection.
“The conservation fund that was passed was never actually implemented,” Smith told the newspaper. “And it needs to be implemented so that resources go directly back into the industry to strengthen and further build capacity in the industry for education, and for conservation.”
Smith is also renewing calls for stricter regulation of do-it-yourself anglers, arguing that dramatically increased license fees and proper zoning are needed to protect both the resource and the guided fishing industry. He pointed to the slow growth rate of bonefish—six to seven years to reach five pounds—and the cumulative impact of unregulated pressure on prime flats.
“If you got a school of 100 bonefish, and let’s say you have two anglers come through catching 20 bonefish at that school, half of them get eaten by sharks, then the next angler come and does the same thing,” Smith said. “You need to have zoning where people can go and do it yourself, but the fishing licence fees for persons to do-it-yourself should be increased dramatically.”
Smith also called for mandatory guide certification, which he argued would bring guides into compliance with insurance, licensing, and boat registration requirements while generating additional government revenue and professionalizing the industry.
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