Welcome to the Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida, Inc., web site. For those of you who are viewing our page for the first time, we thank you for coming and encourage you to take a few minutes to browse our pages. You can find information about the organizations that are members of ASAF, upcoming events, and even how to become a member organization or individual supporter.

The mission of the Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida is to provide a statewide, unified voice for the concerns of all sportsmen and conservationist, to insure their rights and interests are protected, and to protect and enhance the environment and our natural resources. We accomplish this by working with Florida Legislators, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and other local, state and federal agencies.

One of our newest features on the site, and one that we hope you will come back often to review, is our Executive Director's Report. Here you will find updates from Lane Stephens, our executive director, on items of interest. Depending on the time of year, the reports may contain legislative information, items pertaining to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, reports on meetings that ASAF has participated in, or other useful information. The current report will show up when you click on the Executive Director's Report button, and previous reports will be available as PDF files. If you have a web site, we encourage you to place a link to us on your site, and if you are an individual sportsmen, we ask that you share our web address with your friends. Feel free to contact us by e-mailing our executive director at lane.asaf@comcast.net. Thanks for joining us and we wish you success in the field or on the water!

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September 22, 2010

Alligator season is half over, bow hunting season is in full swing, and bird hunting will be upon us before we know it. Now, if it will just starting cooling off a little bit!! Hello members and welcome to guests of the Allied Sportsmen’s Associations of Florida web site. With hunting season upon us, its time to take a look back and forward at issues that have, are, and will be affecting sportsmen and women in Florida. And there is plenty to discuss.

The most obvious event that impacted the greatest number of sportsmen in not on Florida, but the entire southeastern United States, was the BP/Horizon oil spill. What started as a tragic explosion that took the lives of 11 oil rig workers on April 20, turned into the largest oil spill and ecological disaster to be experienced in the United States.Throughout the latter part of spring and the early parts of summer, Floridians watched as the closure of federal fishing waters kept expanding eastward. This “watch” culminated with the closure of federal fishing grounds off the coast of Cape San Blas on the week prior to the 4th of July weekend. Fishermen were experiencing one of the best red snapper seasons in recent memory, and this all came crashing down with that final Gulf of Mexico closure. Recreational and commercial fishing came to a grinding halt, and we were all left to wonder why.

The lack of reports of any actual oil making it to the most eastern closed areas only led to the frustration felt by many. Florida elected officials scrambled to help protect our way of life. Numerous meetings were held around the panhandle of Florida, and as the summer wore on, many officials put pressure on the federal government to open back up the waters where no oil was being found. Representatives Leonard Bembry and Jimmy Patronis, Senator Don Gaetz, and US Senator Bill Nelson were among the dedicated elected officials who spoke out on behalf of sportsmen in Florida. In addition, ASAF played a key role when we had newspaper articles question the closures and why it was taking so long to open the federal waters back up. We even make a Freedom of Information Act request of NOAA relative to the closure. Not two weeks after that request was made, we were informed that the most eastern sections of the closure were the areas that were receiving the highest priority from the federal agencies in order to open the waters back up. Finally, those waters were opened back up, and we now look forward to an additional red snapper season this fall.

But even with these successes, this environmental disaster is far from over. While the US Coast Guard incident commander announced on September 19 that the well had been successfully closed, the long term impacts of the spill will negatively affect sportsmen and women for years to come.

The September meeting of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission brought to an end (at least for now) the regulation of enclosed fox and coyote pens in Florida. The Commission voted to ban the approval of permits for the operation of such pens, which hound chase competitions took place. The vote was the culmination of 8 months of work by proponents, which included not only the operators and users of the pens, but also supporters of hunting, in general. The result, obviously, did not go the way we wanted it to go. But, public perception and the pressures brought to bear on the commissioners by that perception, was just too much to overcome.

The Sportsman Channel brings its national Hunt Fish Feed program to Florida in September and October. This program brings awareness to the hunger issues being faced by many in our nation and allows sportsmen to play a part in addressing the issue. At homeless shelters in Orlando (Sept. 22), Tampa (Sept. 24) and Pensacola (Oct. 27), representatives and celebrities from Sportsman Channel and from local sportsmen’s organizations will join together to prepare meals of wild game and fish to be enjoyed by clients of the shelters. If local sportsmen would like to participate, please contact Lane Stephens at lane@scggov.com.

Sportsmen in the central Florida area who receive Sportsman Channel on Bright House Cable in Orlando, need to know that Bright House plans to move Sportsman Channel from the basic digital package to a premium tier package, effective around November 1. This means that you will now have to pay an additional $4.99 per month in order to watch the best hunting, fishing and shooting shows on television. Now, while most of us dedicated sportsmen will probably pay that amount, probably 80% of the central Florida Bright House customer base will not pay it. What does that mean? It means that hundreds of thousands of viewers will no longer get to see shows that promote the heritage of hunting and fishing that we all enjoy. And that, I believe, could lead to additional anti-hunting sentiment, or at the very least, it means that those folks who do not currently hunt or fish will receive less exposure to shows that could have gotten them out in the field or on the water. If you are a Bright House customer in central Florida, you need to take action now. Pick up your phone and call 1-800-710-1922 or get on the web and go to www.IWANTSPORTSMAN.COM and let Bright House know that you want Sportsman Channel to remain on the basic digital package.