To date, the OBBC has given over $400,000 to The Billfish Foundation and Coastal Conservation Association. These two organizations have been very successful in protecting our fisheries from commercial exploitation and over fishing by foreign and domestic commercial fleets. CCA and TBF have made certain that the federal government and its regulatory sanctions and agencies do not unnecessarily hinder or prohibit the sports fishermen from enjoying fishing.
The OBBC is a World Billfish Series Event and is a release only billfish tournament. It will be held July
29th – August 2nd, 2009 at Orange Beach Marina, one of the nicest marinas on the upper Gulf Coast in Orange Beach, Alabama. Ten minutes by boat from the marina you will be in the Gulf of Mexico and soon you will be in one of the hottest billfishing areas in the country!
Johnny Dorland, Tournament Director
Telephone:
251-981-4207
E-mail:
accounting@orangebeachmarina.com |
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December 12, 2006
Mayor Pete Blalock
City of Orange Beach
P.O. Box 458
Orange Beach, Alabama 36561
Dear Mayor Blalock:
CCA Alabama has recently received a very generous donation from the Orange Beach Billfish Classic, a catch-and-release billfish tournament held in your city each August. The tournament’s printed brochure lists the City of Orange Beach as the presiding sponsor, and I’d like to take a moment to thank you for the city’s support of the event and to tell you how much it means to CCA and to Alabama’s coastal marine resources.
One hundred percent of the OBBC gift to CCA has been invested right here in coastal Alabama, and it has been used for conservation projects that directly affect the cultural and economic development of the area we believe is the best place in the world to call home. As you probably know, CCA is a grass roots conservation organization working in Alabama’s coastal areas to preserve, conserve and enhance our saltwater recreational fishery.
CCA’s formula of advocacy, membership, fundraising and education has served us well over the past twenty-five years in Alabama. We’ve been a major part of every fishery debate, and we have played a leadership role in Alabama’s artificial reef building program—a program that has built one of the largest arrays of artificial fishing reefs in the world and has given us the best snapper fishing on the Gulf coast.
Funding for such projects as the recently completed “Ono Reef,” a new inshore reef in Perdido Bay, must come from sources beyond what our normal fundraising events can provide, and the OBBC gift came at exactly the right time this year. As a matter of fact, the OBBC has invested in CCA Alabama’s mission for the past nine years! Additional reefs—inshore and offshore—have been permitted and will be built, as funds are available.
Here a few of the CCA projects that the OBBC has helped fund:
- The Ono Reef project, just north of Ono Island and just south of the Intracoastal Waterway.
- Restrictions on commercial gill netting practices that are harmful to the marine fishery.
- A lawsuit in federal court to force the National Marine Fisheries Service to stop the excessive restrictions on snapper fishing and to focus on the real cause of the alleged decline in snapper populations: shrimp trawls. Each year, more than 80 percent of juvenile snapper die as bycatch in Gulf shrimp trawls. CCA is pressuring the NMFS to examine the real cause of the decline and to take action to reduce bycatch mortality.
- Obtaining game fish status for tarpon, billfish, redfish and speckled trout.
- Convincing the governor to stop the building of an open loop LNG terminal ten miles off our coast.
- Assisting Alabama’s Marine Resources personnel by purchasing surveillance equipment for enforcement of fishing regulations.
Additionally, CCA Alabama has Dr. Bob Shipp, head of the marine sciences department at the University of South Alabama and a renowned Gulf of Mexico marine scientist, on our staff as a consultant. Bob also serves on the National Marine Fisheries Service Gulf Council, and he is an effective spokesman for recreational fishing interests on the northern Gulf coast, especially Alabama. He is widely known as an authority on snapper, and he is a strong proponent of efforts to enhance snapper fishing in coastal Alabama.
CCA’s governmental affairs staff member at the CCA national level serves on the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna. President George Bush appointed Bob Hayes to that position. He has been active in the effort to restrict long-line fishing in the Gulf by foreign fleets.
As we approach the end of another successful year of marine conservation it seems appropriate to pause and offer a sincere word of thanks to those who have helped CCA enhance the recreational fishing experience for thousands who live in or visit Orange Beach and our other coastal areas. Your sponsorship of the Orange Beach Billfish Classic is genuinely appreciated. It is helping to make the community known around the world as an ideal place to live, work and enjoy.
Sincere best wishes for a merry Christmas and a prosperous 2007.
Yours truly,
Ed Williamson
Executive Director
January 5, 2007
Mayor Pete Blalock
City of Orange Beach
P.O. Box 458
Orange Beach, AL 36561
Mayor Pete Blalock,
It is an honor and privilege for The Billfish Foundation (TBF), the world’s leading sportfishing conservation organization, to share with you the prestige that an event held in your town, Orange Beach Billfish Classic, has received within the world of billfishing. As you probably know, billfishing is the top level of sportfishing, somewhat akin to racing cars at Le Mans or horses in Lexington. It is a tournament that requires top conservation ethics and whose participants exhibit the best fishing skills in the sport. Every year many of these individuals and top boats are drawn to Orange Beach, Alabama, for the OBBC, including TBF. We at TBF receive many invitations to attend tournaments worldwide and are very selective in the ones we elect to attend. OBBC is one that we attend and we consider it a TBF Tournament of Distinction.
This event distinguishes itself from many others because it is produced with volunteers under the lead of only one staff person, who serves as the coordinator to pull this grand event together. While we often see this sort of volunteer and corporate charitable fundraising and giving in the golfing tournament world, it is an incredible accomplishment in the fishing world. Because of this the profile of the OBBC has risen above many events that have been in existence for years, some decades.
The OBBC reached a new level of distinction in 2006 by its charitable contributions to TBF in support of TBF’s research and education focused on the Gulf of Mexico and the wider Caribbean Basin. In other words, the OBBC donation will help guarantee healthy billfish stocks and fishing opportunities in waters off Orange Beach; this is an investment back into the community and for the continued future robust fishing opportunities.
Alabama’s OBBC can draw more boats and anglers of distinction if it can reach a little further in terms of publicity, associated social activities and press coverage. TBF will continue to work diligently with the Board of the OBBC and we hope that the City of Orange Beach is completely in support of this event and recognizes it for the prestigious stance it has within your community.
We look forward to working with the OBBC Board of Directors and hope we get to meet you as they start on the production of the 2007 tournament. We will feature the tournament in our magazine and on our website, which are viewed by thousands of individuals worldwide. In addition, the fact that last year’s OBBC was recorded and aired numerous times by the new television station in Orange Beach helped to bring greater exposure to the Orange Beach event.
Good Fishing,
Ellen M. Peel
President
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