Raleigh

"This isn't over -- not by a long shot."

With those words, Joe Albea left the room where a state House committee had just met. It was May, and the committee had failed to take a vote on legislation that the Greenville resident and other recreational fishermen were pushing to put two species of fish -- speckled trout and red drum -- off limits to commercial fishermen.

Albea, co-host and producer of UNC-TV's "Carolina Outdoor Journal," and a group called the Coastal Fisheries Reform Group had already suffered a defeat before the state's Marine Fisheries Commission in January.

The nine-member commission, which sets coastal fisheries policy, rejected a petition from the group to establish tougher restrictions on recreational catches of speckled trout and ban commercial fishing nets from trout nursery areas.

Albea, though, was right. It's not over.

A lawyer representing a sea turtle hospital on Topsail Island recently sent a letter to state and federal fisheries officials signaling its intent to file a lawsuit to remove gill nets from state waters. Recreational fishing groups are encouraging the suit.

The letter essentially says that the gill nets -- nylon mesh nets typically set in shallow-water bays in 200-yard lengths -- are killing sea turtles in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

Assuming the lawsuit is filed, it won't be the first targeting the commercial fishing industry in North Carolina.

But it could turn into one of the most serious.

Turtles are dying in nets, and fisheries officials know it's happening.

In June, National Marine Fisheries Service observers, in four of five trips taken to gill nets set in Core Sound in Carteret County, reported finding 11 turtles ensnared in nets, four of them dead or dying. The findings prompted a warning from national fisheries officials that dead turtles at this level could expose the state and commercial fishermen to prosecution under the Endangered Species Act.

Meanwhile, the rhetoric between commercial and recreational fishing groups has become more overblown every day. Recreational fishermen pushing for change are "anti-commercial zealots," according to the head of a commercial fishing industry trade group. Commercial fishermen are "indiscriminate killers" operating "walls of death," according to recreational blog posts.

Over the years, I've spoken with many commercial fishermen. I once spent a night on a shrimp trawler with a fishermen and his wife in Rattan Bay, at the mouth of the Neuse River.

They're a lot like farmers -- hard-headed and proud, and they can't be told a thing about their business that they don't already know. When times are good, they could be better. When they're bad, they've never been worse.

One of the worst things that could happen to coastal North Carolina is to see the fishing villages and the watermen's way of life disappear. But smart fishermen don't dismiss a change in the wind, a dark cloud on the horizon. And you can't always fight every front that blows through.

Scott Mooneyham writes for Capitol Press Association in Raleigh. Contact him at smooneyh@ncinsider.com.