First report by Florida’s Daily Commercial: The first large-scale, comprehensive evaluation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission of artificial, recycled plastic fish attractors in Florida is beginning in Lake Griffin. According to Florida Fish and Wildlife fisheries biologist Brandon Thompson, the attractors are being assembled and taken into the lake from Leesburg’s Herlong Park.
Thompson said there will be 18 quarter-acre sites in the lake, with 100 structures in each site. Twelve of those sites are regular brush attractors that already have been deployed, while six of those are the recycled plastic attractors.
Thompson said the usual oak brush attractors start to lose their complexity after three to five years, while the plastic attractors could last for 10 to 20 years.
The brush attractors were placed several weeks ago, and Thompson expects to be finished putting in the recycled plastic attractors by next week.
The attractors will be both for research and to help concentrate fish for fishermen. Thompson said in areas that are not over-harvested, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission wants to help people catch fish.
“Sometimes people view the FWC as putting in regulations to limit people, but really we work for the anglers and we want to see the highest populations of fish; we want to see them catching the most fish,” he said.
Thompson said any offshore structures and cover help attract fish, and more complex structures attract more fish.
“There’s gonna be a lot of different stuff growing on these, similar to how there would be on oak trees, that attracts the bait fish all the way up the food chain,” Thompson said.
Thompson added there are short- and long-term goals for the project, with an initial goal being to see how the plastic attractors compete with brush attractors in concentrating fish, and a long-term goal of seeing how the plastic attractors compete with brush once brush starts to break down.
Twelve members of the Hawthorne Fishing Club volunteered to put together the artificial attractors on Monday.
“I think it’s really, really important to involve the stakeholders, the people that are going to take advantage of these attractors and the people that are gonna be out there catching the fish on them,” Thompson said.
Bill Connelly, a member of the fishing club, said the group of fishermen wanted to do what they could to help Fish and Wildlife improve fishing and the lakes.
The artificial attractors have 30 limbs on each.
The plastic attractors have been used in other states and, from what Thompson has seen of those results, they look promising, he said.