Mississippi Gulf Fishing Banks, Inc.
Activity Report for the Period
March 13 - June 12, 2014

Summary
During this period there was one reef monitoring trip. On May 24 a trip was made to the Great Wicomico Pogey Boat in FH-13, Platform MO992A, and FH-10 Bay Balls and CableOne Antenna Debris. Comparisons were made between wrecks, oil platforms, and inland reefs in the Sound. The gap in the reporting period was due to having to replace a boat engine and foul winter weather.

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091124 Great Wicomico 517F13
Position: 29°59.794'N / 88°29.892'W 86' Depth This 175' Pogey Boat was donated by Omega Protein and deployed in FH-13 on November 24, 2009. Surprisingly the visibility on this dive was quite poor compared to many of the previous visits. Fish observations were virtually nill except for some mid water red snapper. We followed up this dive with one on nearby oil platform MO992A located about 1nm at 225° away at 29°59.123'N 88°30.704'W. This gave an opportunity to compare upper water life with that in the silty bottom layer that is unfortunately becoming the norm. Fish were abundant on that reef as shown in the Video. This shows how important it is to develop methods to get more relief on the reefs.

100330 FH-10 Bay Balls and 120918 CableOne Antenna Debris
Position: 30°15.887'N / 88°38.969'W 12' Depth
Video: http://youtu.be/JEqZ_sO9ONs
Following those dives, a visit was made to FH-10. Observations and video were taken of the Bay Balls deployed March 30, 2010 and CableOne Antenna Debris deployed on September 18, 2012. The reef shows encrustation of barnacles and oysters. Spadefish, blennies, and sand bass were observed. White and Speckled trout were caught topside. While the visibility was not ideal, it was a little better than what was experienced on the Wicomico. Also worth noting was a piece of shrimp net in the bottom that was barely visible on the sand bottom. Barnacles and other life was encrusting on the webbing suggesting that this material or something similar could be beneficial reef material on these shallow reefs. You can see this near the end of the video between times 6:55 and 7:15.




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Mark Primo Miller
PO Box 1737
Gautier, MS 39553
Phone:512-677-4661 (512-MPRIMO1)
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