Fish Pic Friday - Chezney

Chezney@chezneywosick

Linked at The Right Way in Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama. The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Moving Indoors up on time and under budget.

Fish Pic Friday - Molly Dixon

 Full time Australian travel blogger, occasional fisherwoman:

Molly Dixon@molly_dixon_ 🌴 SOMEWHERE IN AUSTRALIA 🚘 Solo travelling in my 4x4 👇🏼 I make YouTube’s 🎥

Linked at The Right Way in the weekly Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama. The Wombat has Rule Five Sunday: My Next Ex-Wife up on time and under budget at the Other McCain.

Fish Pic Friday - The Bikini Angler - Ellie Meuwissen

 Ellie Meuwissen@bikini.angler Just an Aussie girl who loves to fish + 4WD Pro Angler | @pennfishing_anz 📍Bribie Island. With a lot of those strange Aussie fish:

The Wombat makes up time with Rule 5 Sunday: Hangar Queen Double-Scoop Sunday! 

Linked at The Right Way in the weekly Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama.

Fish Pic Friday - Cassie Zero

Cassie Zero@islandgirl11 🐚L.I.V.I N🌊 🌴Fishing/Spearfishing🌺 1 speed, its FFT 🎣 @stayput_anchor @redtailrepublic @subsafeco ♥️ my 22 Apache 💨 Dip Gal @zerossmokedfish

Linked at The Right Way in the weekly Rule 5 Saturday LinkOrama. The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Eri Yoshida up on time and under budget at The Other McCain.

Still Fishin'

Luiza goes lobstering

Linked by EBL in Vintage Hollywood, Annie Starke, National Tweed Day, Bingbing Fan and Melanie Hamrick, Mick Jagger's Current Girlfriend. The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Satellite Girl and FMJRA 2.0: Let’s Dance up and collecting hits.

It Was a Waste, But This is Just Nuts

Maine DOT denies request from PETA to put up memorial for lobsters killed in crash

The Maine Department of Transportation has denied a request from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to build a 5-foot tombstone memorial where lobsters may have died after a crash on Route 1 in Brunswick last week.

Brunswick Police say a Cozy Harbor Seafood truck, carrying nearly 70 crates of lobster, rolled over and crushed several of them. 

Several lobsters or several crates?

It is because of the lobsters that were pinned under the truck that PETA wrote a letter to the Maine DOT on Wednesday asking for permission to put up a memorial.

At least PETA managed to also work some of their "naked ladies for veganism" into the fray (in a previous protest against Maine Lobsters).

“Countless sensitive crustaceans experienced an agonizing death when this truck rolled over and their bodies came crashing down onto the highway," PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said. "PETA hopes to pay tribute to these individuals who didn't want to die with a memorial urging people to help prevent future suffering by keeping lobsters and all other animals off their plates."

The Maine DOT says they denied the request Thursday because Route 1 in Brunswick is a “controlled-access highway,” which means they prohibit signs, and in this case a tombstone, because of safety concerns.

Wombat-socho has Rule 5 Tuesday: Happy Birthday, Mitzi! up and awaiting your approval.

Can We Conquer Canada Now?

I mean, Celine Dion was bad enough, but now they're stealing our lobsters!

Machias Seal Island is a 20-acre, treeless island teeming with puffins, razorbills, terns, eiders and other seabirds, making it a prime destination for birdwatchers. Canada and the United States both claim sovereignty over the island, which is about 10 miles off the coast of Maine, and the surrounding 277-square-mile Gray Zone, where fishermen from both countries compete over valuable lobster grounds.

In late June and early July, Canadian fishermen said, U.S. Border Patrol agents in speedboats intercepted Canadian lobster boats in the Gray Zone.

“I have no idea where they came from,” said Laurence Cook, a lobsterman and representative of the Fishermen’s Association from nearby Grand Manan Island. “We’ve never seen U.S. Border Patrol in the Gray Zone before.”

Cook said at least 10 Canadian boats were stopped and their crews interrogated about whether they were carrying drugs and illegal immigrants.

 Canada’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it is investigating the incidents, which it said “occurred in Canadian waters.”  “Canada’s sovereignty over Machias Seal Island and the surrounding waters is long-standing and has a strong foundation in international law,” the statement said.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said U.S. Border Patrol agents — who are a part of Customs and Border Protection — were simply conducting “regular patrol operations” to enforce immigration and other U.S. laws in “the jurisdictional waters of the United States.” The agency said it boards Canadian vessels only with consent.

The State Department maintained in a statement that Machias Seal Island belongs to the United States and has since 1783.

The dispute dates to the signing of the Treaty of Paris between Britain and the newly independent United States. The United States was granted all islands within “20 leagues” of the Maine shore except for the islands that were owned by the British colony of Nova Scotia, which later became part of Canada. The two sides have differed ever since over whether Machias Seal Island was historically part of Nova Scotia.

When Washington and Ottawa went to the World Court to settle the boundary differences over the adjacent fishing grounds of Georges Bank in the 1980s, they deliberately left out Machias Seal Island and the Gray Zone.

There are four boundary disputes along the countries’ border, but the fight over Machias Seal Island is the “only one that actually involves sovereignty over a piece of territory,” said Stephen Kelly, a retired U.S. diplomat and a research scholar on boundary issues at Duke University. The other disputes are squabbles over marine boundaries.

Both countries insist the waters in the Gray Zone are rightfully theirs, so for years there has been an arrangement whereby each country imposes its fishing rules on its own vessels. That means Coast Guard and fisheries vessels from the United States and Canada do not impose their rules on boats from the other country.

Kelly, who has a summer home on the Maine coast, said the recent presence of U.S. Border Patrol in the Gray Zone was unusual. “I don’t know what they were doing out there. It’s hardly a well-known smuggling path,” he said.

Kelly said there are occasionally disputes between lobstermen in the zone because there are different rules for the fishing season and the size of lobsters, for example. “The Mainers have to throw back lobsters that are too small or too big,” he said. “The Canadians don’t have a limit on the big lobsters.”

Isn't it time to settle this matter the traditional way, by comparing size of armies, and numbers of nuclear weapons, and deciding if they want it bad enough to fight for it?

For amusement, you might also check out Jazz Shaw's post on it at Hot Air: And You Laughed When I Said We Were In A Lobster War With Canada.

Wombat-socho brings us "Rule Five Sunday: Barbi Benton" on time and within budget.

Maine Sea Goddess Undeified For Premature Pot Use

Wow, undeify is a word! Whoda thunk? Maine Lobster Festival Strips Sea Goddess, 18, of Crown Over 'Inappropriate' Social Media Photos

Taylor Hamlin dreamed of winning the Maine Lobster Festival’s prestigious Maine Sea Goddess pageant since she was a little girl, but two social media photos deemed “inappropriate” by competition officials would cause the 18 year old to be stripped of the title just 24 hours after she was crowned.

The problematic pictures in question? Hamlin tells PEOPLE one snapshot shows the teenager with a marijuana cigarette, while another depicted her holding a juuling device (or e-cigarette).

She should be grateful. That dress does nothing for her.

Both surfaced on Wednesday, after Hamlin’s coronation ceremony. By Thursday, the executive board of directors and the coronation committee of the Maine Lobster Festival had made the announcement that Hamlin would no longer represent the 71-year-old celebration, saying the images “were not in keeping with the behavior and image of the Maine Sea Goddess.”

“I was really upset,” Hamlin tells PEOPLE of the decision. “It’s been tough. I never thought that this would happen. They told me it was disgusting and they’re disappointed. The whole thing made me feel really terrible about myself.”

I imagine she can get on with life quite nicely without serving as Maine's Sea Goddess for whatever the term is.

Hamlin says the photo of her with the vape pen was taken after she was 18, making her of legal age. However, the picture of her with marijuana — recreational and medical use of which is legal in Maine for people over 21 — was taken last year when she was underage.

At the time, she posted it to a private Instagram account. “I had deleted it a while ago so someone must have had it and saved it,” recalls Hamlin, who tells PEOPLE she isn’t certain how the photographs came to the attention of the festival. “It’s only my exclusive friends on this private account, so it had to be one of my friends or their parents [who shared it]. It’s frustrating. I don’t know who it is and at this point, and I don’t care.”

Taylor Hamlin (center)

Well, that was stupid. Remember the 11th Commandment? (Don't Get Caught!)

Instead, Hamlin says she is bothered by how the festival has approached her exit.

Reps for the festival did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment, but in a statement released on Friday, organizers said “Taylor decided to resign her position,” adding that Crown Princess Erin Dugan will assume the Sea Goddess duties.

“We wish all the best to Taylor Hamlin in her future endeavors,” the statement reads in part. “This is a terrible situation for everyone involved. We hope that everyone will enjoy the rest of the festival that over 1,300 volunteers have worked so hard to put on to support our local community and the lobster industry.”

But Hamlin claims she was forced out. “They’re telling everyone that it’s a mutual agreement and that I resigned, and that’s not true,” Hamlin tells PEOPLE. “They didn’t give me an option. They told me, ‘Several of our community members have complained about you.’ I told them, ‘What other choice do I have?’ And the lady shrugged her shoulders and didn’t say anything. She said, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

Alright, they were wrong to dismiss her, but she was stupid to do the pot, and very much stupider for putting it on Instagram. I hope she's learned at least that.

FYI, How to Catch, Cook and Clean Lobster

Rapunzel Darcizzle shows you how. Watch it as many times as you need to:



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