Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 681 is a conversation with Neill Holland, founder and captain of Ocean Aid 360, a Tampa Bay nonprofit that finds and retrieves derelict and abandoned 'ghost' traps and lost fishing gear from Florida waters. Through its Ghost Trap Rodeo tournament series, Ocean Aid 360 turns volunteer anglers into a cleanup fleet, pulling hundreds of traps in a single day. We talk about how he got started, why ghost gear is so destructive, and how the fishing community became the solution.
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Neill Holland is the founder and captain of Ocean Aid 360, a Tampa Bay-based marine conservation nonprofit, and he also runs a fishing charter company out of St. Petersburg, Florida. After repeatedly encountering lost crab and lobster traps on his charter grounds, he built an organization dedicated to finding and retrieving derelict and abandoned traps and other ghost fishing gear from Florida's waters.
Ocean Aid 360 is a nonprofit based in Tampa Bay that focuses on locating and removing derelict and abandoned traps and lost fishing gear, known as ghost gear, from Florida waters. It began its programming in 2018 with a pilot grant from NOAA's Marine Debris Program and now works alongside the FWC, NOAA, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to clean up hot spots selected by state biologists.
The Ghost Trap Rodeo is a tournament event series Ocean Aid 360 created, modeled on familiar inshore fishing tournaments like redfish tourneys. Volunteers bring their own vessels, family, and fishing buddies and spend roughly four hours during the closed season searching for derelict traps and marine debris and bringing it in. One event in May brought in 822 derelict and abandoned traps in a single day.
Lost and abandoned traps keep fishing indefinitely, trapping and killing marine life that can never be harvested. Neill describes pulling up a single derelict trap that held 26 adult spiny lobster, and another single trap holding 18, illustrating how thousands of commercially valuable spiny lobster, stone crab, and blue crab are lost to ghost gear that stays in the fishery.
While running his charter company out of St. Petersburg, Neill kept seeing ghost traps on the grass beds. The defining moment came when he had to jump into ten feet of water during tarpon season off St. Pete Beach, with customers aboard and a school of tarpon running the beach, to cut a stone crab trap out of his propeller. That experience set him on the path to founding Ocean Aid 360.
Tom Rowland Podcast Episode 681 with Neill Holland is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and iHeartRadio. The video version is embedded at the top of this page.
Most conservation conversations stay abstract. Neill Holland's work is anything but. He runs a charter out of St. Petersburg, and he kept seeing the same thing I have seen on the water for years: lost crab and lobster traps littering the grass beds, still catching and killing fish that nobody will ever harvest. Instead of complaining about it, he built an organization that does something. What I love is that he did not fight the fishing community, he recruited it. Ocean Aid 360 turns anglers into a cleanup fleet, and the numbers he is putting up are staggering.
Press play in the player above to hear the whole story.
If you have ever wondered why a single lost trap is a big deal, Neill answers it with a number that stopped me cold. He describes pulling up one derelict trap that held 26 adult spiny lobster, and that was one of 822 traps brought in during a single event. A trap that stays in the water never stops fishing. He explains the scale of what is sitting on the bottom right now and why it keeps killing long after anyone has forgotten it. Listen to that part of the episode.
This is the genius of what Neill built. Rather than ask volunteers to do a chore, he launched the Ghost Trap Rodeo, an event series modeled on the inshore redfish tournaments we all know. Boats compete during the closed season to haul in the most derelict traps and marine debris, family and fishing buddies aboard, four hours on the water. He walks through how the model came together and why making it fun is what makes it work. Hear him explain it in the player above.
Neill's origin story is the kind of thing only a working captain would have. He talks about having to jump into ten feet of water during tarpon season, customers on board, a school of tarpon running the beach, to cut a stone crab trap out of his propeller. That moment, and the realization that there were no other traps anywhere nearby, set him on the path. He tells it better than I can summarize it. Listen to that stretch of the conversation.
Ocean Aid 360 started in 2018 with a twelve-month pilot grant from NOAA's Marine Debris Program and seven events around Tampa Bay. Neill explains how that first year collected nearly 30,000 pounds of traps and plastics, and how the organization now collaborates with the FWC, NOAA, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to travel to hot spots across the state. The growth story is a blueprint for anyone trying to build a conservation mission that actually scales. Press play in the player above.
Listen to the full conversation: Apple Podcasts · Spotify · or watch in the player at the top of this page.
What stays with me about Neill is that he found a way to make conservation feel like fishing. Nobody is being lectured. People are out on the water with their families, competing, and at the end of the day they have pulled hundreds of death traps off the bottom.
The fishing community gets painted as the problem in a lot of these debates. Neill's model proves we can be the solution, and that the people who know the water best are the ones most capable of cleaning it up.
Press play in the player above, or grab Episode 681 on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Neill Holland · Ocean Aid 360 · Ghost Trap Rodeo · NOAA Marine Debris Program · FWC (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Tampa Bay · St. Petersburg, Florida
The Tom Rowland Podcast brings you long-form conversations with the most accomplished anglers, hunters, conservationists, and outdoor professionals in the game. Listen to every full-length Tom Rowland Podcast interview.
Neill Holland is the founder and captain of Ocean Aid 360, a Tampa Bay-based marine conservation nonprofit dedicated to retrieving derelict and abandoned traps and lost fishing gear from Florida waters. A working charter captain out of St. Petersburg, he launched Ocean Aid 360 in 2018 with a pilot grant from NOAA's Marine Debris Program and created the Ghost Trap Rodeo tournament series, which mobilizes volunteer anglers to remove ghost gear during closed seasons. Ocean Aid 360 collaborates with the FWC, NOAA, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to clean up debris hot spots across the state, and has removed hundreds of traps and tens of thousands of pounds of marine debris.
Full transcript of the Tom Rowland Podcast, Episode 681 with Neill Holland, president of OceanAid 360, on retrieving derelict traps, cleaning up Florida's fisheries, and his own winding path from fishing writer to conservation nonprofit founder.
Neill Holland: This is Captain Neill Holland, president of OceanAid 360, with the Tom Rowland Podcast.
Tom Rowland: Neill, what's up, man? How are you?
Neill Holland: Hey, Tom, good morning. Happy to be here with you. I'm calling in from the OceanAid 360 houseboat office here on the St. Petersburg waterfront.
Tom Rowland: It's nice. I can see it moving a little bit in the background. You said the Sea Tow boats were leaving. Is that what's going on?
Neill Holland: That's right. I think the seas will calm here in a bit, but yeah, they've got us rocking for the moment.
Tom Rowland: So tell me about that boat you're on.
Neill Holland: It's a project I wanted to do for many years. I was looking for a trailerable houseboat to do my little Everglades mothership trips and runs up into some of the Panhandle river systems, and I found a 1979 Yukon Delta tri-hull — under most circumstances, a pretty darn stable fiberglass hull. I built a cabin on it, and it's been great so far. I just love it. It's got a nice breakfast bar workstation, a kitchenette, a big oversized custom-made futon-style couch and bed, and a Mercury 135. We've had this little 26-footer up to 30 miles an hour, believe it or not.
Tom Rowland: That's awesome. Twenty-six feet — what kind of fuel and water can you carry?
Neill Holland: We can do 40 gallons of water, 40 gallons of fuel, and yeah, it's been fantastic for everything we're trying to do.
Tom Rowland: Right on. So you can stay out there — do you have solar, batteries, that kind of stuff?
Neill Holland: No solar at this point. We may go to that eventually, but right now we're running the generator setup.
Tom Rowland: So how long have you gone out without having to come back?
Neill Holland: So far, about four days.
Tom Rowland: That's pretty good. And if you could pull a skiff behind it, that'd be even better.
Neill Holland: That was the vision. I don't know if I want to take it to the Marquesas, but —
Tom Rowland: The Marquesas is a pretty easy trip, honestly. What about the draft? What kind of draft do you get in that houseboat?
Neill Holland: Fourteen inches.
Tom Rowland: Not bad at all, man. So you can go anywhere. I've always wanted something like that.
Neill Holland: Well, like I mentioned, I have it moored down here on the St. Petersburg waterfront, and I sit behind tinted glass when I'm working on the laptop. All day long people come by and say, "Look at that houseboat, we've got to get one of those." So it makes me feel good about having it.
Tom Rowland: And simple is best. You don't need that much, but the draft is huge — if you can go into shallow water and stay out there for three, four, seven days, and it's got enough horsepower to tow a skiff or a bay boat behind you, that's a really nice setup.
Neill Holland: That's right. I'm going to be working with Chris Peterson and our buddies over at Hell's Bay to come up with a little bitty skiff to put behind this thing at some point — they've got the Eldora model, and it'd be perfect for this.
Tom Rowland: So tell me a little bit about OceanAid 360.
Neill Holland: Sure. We started it up in 2017. It's a nonprofit based here out of Tampa Bay, and our focus is on finding and retrieving derelict and abandoned traps and other ghost fishing gear. We started our programming in 2018 through a pilot grant from NOAA's Marine Debris Program. That grant lasted us twelve months and allowed us to do seven events around the perimeter of Tampa Bay with different communities, about an event every month or month and a half. What we did was launch a sort of inshore tournament fishing model, like we're all familiar with for redfish tourneys, called the Ghost Trap Rodeo Tournament Event Series. We work through a volunteer model — nobody's compensated, but participants bring their vessels, their family or fishing buddies, and go out for a four-hour search for derelict traps and other marine debris during closed seasons. We do a leaderboard experience and provide industry-donated prizes to top collectors. Through that first year of NOAA programming, we blew through our targets — we collected almost 30,000 pounds of blue crab traps, stone crab traps, and other plastics and non-biodegradable items jammed up in our mangroves, and that kind of set us on our path. Today we're working closely with FWC, NOAA, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, who collaborate with us and provide support so we can travel around the state to hot spots selected by FWC and provide this cleanup service with a fun community angle.
Tom Rowland: So what was it that drew you to derelict traps specifically, as opposed to just picking up debris and trash in general? I know ghost traps keep catching — maybe you can go into how damaging they are. I'm interested in why you moved in that direction. Was that where you thought you could move the needle the most?
Neill Holland: That's a great question. I think we were cognizant that other groups were already focusing on general flotsam — styrofoam, plastic bottles, that kind of thing. In the course of running my fishing charter company here out of St. Petersburg, I noticed plenty of ghost traps on our grass beds. And I guess if I'm looking for the genesis, it could be the fact that I had to jump into ten feet of water in the middle of tarpon season off St. Pete Beach to cut a stone crab trap out of my propeller, with all my customers on board and a tarpon school running down the beach. There were no other traps in the area — it was just a ghost trap. As I've traveled around the state and talked to other anglers, everybody has an experience or two like that. Beyond that, once my team and I really started to educate ourselves on the ghost fishing angle and the impact that lost and abandoned gear can have on our shared resource, we said, okay, this is something we could focus on — let's see what we can do about it. Our first couple of events really came off with flying colors, and there was more gear out there than we expected. We showed up wondering if anybody would even find one that day, and by the time it was all said and done, we had to call in the city to bring special dump trailers to help us get it all out of there. So now, after four years of doing this kind of programming, we're pretty well set up, and we've seen a lot.
Tom Rowland: So let's talk about how damaging a trap is that's just sitting out there, besides catching in your prop. What else does it do that's bad for the environment?
Neill Holland: Honestly, I think the best anecdote is that we just came back from the Keys. We've now done three events out of Big Coppitt Key, just above Key West near Stock Island, and our event last May brought in 822 derelict and abandoned traps during the closed season — not supposed to be out there, of course. Anything that remains in the fishery, FWC deems derelict or abandoned. Just one of those traps had 26 adult spiny lobster inside of it. That's big numbers for a single trap. And then you consider we had 821 other traps come up that same day. When you consider we're seeing thousands of specimens of commercially viable spiny lobster, stone crab, and blue crab — the event we just got back from in Key West, two weeks ago, right before mini-season started, had the biggest haul in a single trap: 18 adult-sized spiny lobsters. And in addition to that, we're getting mutton snapper, hogfish, all kinds of stuff in the traps. So I always explain it to folks as an economic element — this gear is out there fishing when we're all asleep, depleting our resources unnecessarily. The nice thing is that in the Keys, our participation is almost entirely from commercial stone crabbers and lobstermen, so we're getting real commercial buy-in, and every user group at this point knows it's problematic.
Tom Rowland: When the commercial guys help out and pull up some of these traps, some of them are perfectly good — the buoy just got chopped off, or it moved and the fisherman couldn't find it again. Do they get to keep those traps and use them, or what happens to all the gear?
Neill Holland: That's a fantastic question, one we only get from folks who are really in the know about the fishery. The challenge with reusing stone crab or lobster traps is that current legislation doesn't allow permitted retrieval groups like OceanAid 360 to gift or resell a trap unless it's going back to its original owner — and traps don't always have the owner's name on them. As it stands right now, our FWC permit mandates that all the gear we bring in goes to landfill, with one exception: wire-mesh blue crab traps get reused through partner municipalities for living-shoreline projects. They actually dip the wire mesh traps in concrete, stake them out in shallow areas in a pyramid formation, and use them to recruit larval oysters and clams, starting new pilot oyster reefs for water filtration and to prevent shoreline erosion. We're also in early negotiations with FWC about a possible buyback program that would let commercial guys who participate with us repurchase some of the reclaimed gear at a reduced rate — it's something they've asked us to look into, because they know the value of that gear and so do we.
Tom Rowland: That trap costs money, and when you look at what they have to rig up, that's not something they want to lose. So it's not like these are careless fishermen leaving their stuff out there on purpose — boats run over the ropes, storms break the lines, and a lot of times it's not even a named storm, just a thunderstorm with a 40 mile-an-hour gust that snaps something.
Neill Holland: I wouldn't change a thing about your explanation — that's the perfect way to describe it. The guys we've worked with in Key West, like folks all over the state, are conscientious. They care about the fishery, and everybody knows there's real value in that gear.
Tom Rowland: Have you ever run an event right after a hurricane? That seems like it would be a gangbusters trap-collecting opportunity.
Neill Holland: It's a great question. Most of the debris we've seen in the Keys, from Big Coppitt to Big Pine, has been residual or legacy Hurricane Irma losses, in addition to the non-trap debris jammed in the mangroves. The event we just came back from two weeks ago, we pulled in an eight-foot aluminum fuel tank resting on the grass beds. The event before that, last May, we found somebody's dishwasher jammed in the mangroves. It really speaks to the harrowing time residents went through down there, but we're glad to have a role in helping clean it up and get it back to its natural state.
Tom Rowland: In your events, do people get credit for the trap itself, and also for the lines and buoys? A lot of times you don't see the trap — just the line up in the mangroves with the buoy.
Neill Holland: That's exactly right. With traps being our priority type of debris, we award a high number of points for each trap a team brings in, and then everything else gets weighed and we come up with a points valuation per fifty pounds or so. Whether we're working with weekend-warrior volunteers, recreational anglers, or commercial men and women around the state, we employ that tournament model and try to make it fun — we provide a nice catered lunch for free, event participation is free, and when we part ways at the end of the half day together, the camaraderie is strong and people's sense of stewardship gets reinforced. It's impossible to stand back and look at a twenty-foot trailer completely crowded with debris and traps and not feel like you've had a real impact for the day, and that it's something worth continuing in your fishing practice going forward.
Tom Rowland: A lot of people have probably wanted to pick up a trap they saw out there, but if you're not a commercial fisherman, you don't necessarily know the rules about touching somebody else's gear. So if somebody wanted to do something like this, is it best to just come to one of your events, or can you go do it on your own in the off season if you see a trap sitting there?
Neill Holland: That's a great question, and I'm glad to have the chance to speak on it. In order to tamper with traps you find — whether they're buoyed or not, whether they're clearly derelict or abandoned — you are not allowed to touch that gear without a permit. If you're operating under an organization with a permit in place, that's the time to do it; otherwise it shouldn't be done. You can report it to your local FWC office, or to us at OceanAid360.org. But I do want to mention that FWC is actually looking for community groups, homeowners associations, rod-and-gun clubs, fishing clubs, whatever it might be, to get informed about this issue, apply for a permit from FWC, receive a bit of training, and conduct their own retrieval events in their community during the closed fishing season. Any gear left out when the season's closed is deemed derelict and abandoned and should be removed, but it has to be done with a permit, and FWC is really looking for additional support around this issue.
Tom Rowland: Who would somebody contact if they wanted to do something like that?
Neill Holland: If you go to the FWC Blue Crab page — it's as simple as searching "FWC Blue Crab" — at the bottom of the page there's a section dedicated to trap retrieval programming that explains the permit process, the templated form that needs to be filled out, and the program coordinator up in Tallahassee to contact.
Tom Rowland: Would that also cover stone crab and lobster traps, off that same blue crab process?
Neill Holland: Yeah, it does, exactly, because the state's coastal fisheries are managed in different quadrants or management zones. The stone crab trap fishery closes statewide, the lobster fishery closes statewide, but the blue crab trap fishery is strange — it was only implemented about a decade ago, and it rolls around the state through different management areas instead of closing everywhere at once. Say the northeast region closes: it's just a ten-day period, and on their side of the schedule it's even-numbered years only, so it's the same ten-day stretch each cycle, in January, but it only comes back to that area every other year. I know that's a bit confusing, but the blue crab closure rolls around the state at very clearly defined times posted on the FWC website, and those ten-day windows are the opportunity for community groups or fishing clubs to get out and remove lost and abandoned gear.
Tom Rowland: What do you know about the blue crab fishery outside of Florida? I heard the craziest thing and I want to know if it's true. Do you know anything about Maryland blue crabs and that whole crab-cake reputation?
Neill Holland: Yeah, sure, that's what you hear — it's supposed to be made from a Maryland blue crab.
Tom Rowland: Somebody was telling me — and I don't know if it's true, but it sounded true — that if Maryland's having a hard season and not catching a lot of crabs, crabs caught somewhere else could get shipped up there, sit in the water in a trap for some period of time, days or weeks, and then get sold as Maryland crab. Do you know anything about that? Is that a conspiracy theory, or what is that?
Neill Holland: I don't know. The extent of my knowledge on the Chesapeake blue crab situation is that they've had a really tough run of fishing seasons over the last several years. But as far as soaking them for ten days and calling them Maryland blue crabs, I don't know about that.
Tom Rowland: I don't know about the ten days either, that's just what I was told. But it's like, you do all this marketing for the Maryland blue crab, and if you have a tough season — which everybody does eventually, whether it's weather or whatever, it's like being a farmer — you'd have to change all your marketing too. Meanwhile these are Florida crab cakes, almost as good as Maryland's, maybe even better, but then you're shooting yourself in the foot — now Florida's built up this whole industry and we just gave the credit to them. I don't know, somebody was telling me there was a strategy where you could take crabs up there, soak them, and then they'd be called Maryland blue crabs. That got me wondering what kind of laws there are about crossing state lines with live crabs and putting them in the water — seems like there'd be all kinds of rules you'd have to abide by.
Neill Holland: You'd probably be totally hunted down by the USDA for that one.
Tom Rowland: Let me ask you this, man. I was doing research on you and OceanAid 360, and there's a story on your website about how you got started that is crazy — I want to hear this story, because the way it's written is really interesting, about this guy Tony L.
Neill Holland: This guy doesn't even know he was a catalyst. That was actually a profile written about me on the Catalyst business website, not even our own site.
Tom Rowland: That's what I'm reading too — I looked it up. Because I looked at your OceanAid 360 website, which is very nice, but I found some other information, and I started reading it and thought, I've got to ask him about this, because it led you to the UN. Tell me about this — it's a crazy story.
Neill Holland: Yeah, man, let me see if I can tell the mildly abbreviated version. I grew up here in St. Petersburg — a beach rat, crawling on residential docks we shouldn't have been on so we could fish the snook lights, and then transitioned into a flats-and-canoe setup, fishing all our mangrove preserves. The next logical step for me, based on my other joy — writing about my fishing experiences — was that I got a kick out of reading the fishing reports in the St. Petersburg Times, which was a really heralded newspaper at the time. I was introduced to Terry Tomalin, our sports and outdoors editor, who had a great reputation and was well liked around the Tampa Bay area. I chatted with him about my passions, and he said, "Alright kid, come on in, let's see what we can work out." He let me write some of the Captain's Corner columns in the St. Petersburg Times and got me started publishing my stuff. As I graduated high school and was still fishing like a maniac, he encouraged me to try to get into the Columbia University writing program up in New York. I applied, and lo and behold, I was accepted. During that time I spent all my off hours working at the two premier fishing tackle shops in New York City: Urban Angler, a fly shop right on 5th Avenue owned by the Fisher family for many years, a world-renowned spot where dignitaries and rock stars from all over the world passed through to buy their gear —
Tom Rowland: When I went to New York I made a special stop by there — they used to send out a really nice catalog, and I felt like I knew these people because I'd been getting their catalog so long. I dropped by just to say hi, and it was a beautiful store. I was also getting a lot of customers from them, for some reason.
Neill Holland: Yeah, and I also worked at Capital Fishing Tackle, which wasn't a fly-fishing shop at all — it was dedicated to conventional gear and the party boat scene out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the late-night bluefish and striper trips, that kind of thing. So I got to experience a really wide range of that fishery, everything from the Montauk stuff to fishing right behind JFK Airport in Jamaica Bay, casting for striped bass up in the marsh — a really cool fishery. But I graduated college in 2008, right into the economic recession, and really struggled to find a more career-oriented job. Lo and behold, one of my regular customers, a guy named Tony Luscombe, had worked for the USDA for many years, and his wife worked at the United Nations, in the Peruvian delegate's office I believe. He said, "Hey, I know you, I can vouch for you. I know you're looking for writing work — I have a contact at a federal contractor doing humanitarian work, and they're looking for grant-writing support. Do you think you could write a grant?" I said I'd write anything they'd pay for, I was glad to do it. So I applied, and I was hired, not really knowing what I was getting into. It turned out my boss for the next seven years in that role was a fellow who'd retired from the State Department as a diplomat and foreign service officer for twenty-five or thirty years. He taught me the ropes — how to engage in some diplomacy, do grants administration work, and conduct business with the federal government. It took me all over the planet, from East Timor near Indonesia and the north of Australia, working on food-aid programming and agriculture, with the chance to get away for a day and catch wahoo and yellowfin tuna on a hand line out of a dugout canoe, all the way to Sri Lanka. That work taught me how to design programming, a skill I was able to use as we set out toward our passion of protecting our watersheds here in Florida when I returned in 2016.
Tom Rowland: That is such a crazy turn of events — it's like the door closes in 2008, but it's not really closing, it's an opportunity that takes you all around the world. What made you want to change and come back to your roots?
Neill Holland: Well, by 2015-2016 I'd logged right at eleven years in New York, and I really missed my home waters. I missed my family — everybody's here in the St. Petersburg area. And I'd met a girl.
Tom Rowland: There it is.
Neill Holland: Of course — every fishing guide's move-to-New-York story ends that way. So we were both ready to make our break, and luckily, by that time I'd established myself enough in my grants administration work that my director told me, "Take the laptop, go do your thing, just don't let the work suffer. I'm old school, so this isn't going to last forever, but while we're transitioning the portfolio to junior staff, let's have you stay on board." So I came to Florida, consulted for another year and a half or almost two years doing that work, and then launched my own entity doing international consulting while also launching OceanAid 360 at the same time, in 2017.
Tom Rowland: So did all that background — the grant writing, learning how to do business with government agencies — actually help you with OceanAid 360?
Neill Holland: It's so funny — I was talking to the executive director of the Coastal Impact Fund, a fund based here in Tampa Bay that supports projects doing innovative work in marine debris or coastal habitat restoration. We were having dinner just two nights ago, and he admitted that back in 2017-2018, when we wrote our very first proposal and won our first grant award, a lot of people in the space were standing back with their arms folded saying, "Now who the hell is this?" They'd never heard of us and had no context for how we worked. But luckily we had a solid design, and we proved ourselves, and we formed a lot of great partnerships in that first year that are still with us today and allow us to do what we do well.
Tom Rowland: And are those partners industry partners, or outside the industry?
Neill Holland: A lot of different things. When we first started, we collaborated with the Coastal Conservation Association, the Clearwater Marine Aquarium here in west central Florida, the Coastal Impact Fund, and Tampa Bay Watch, the preeminent watershed organization in our area. Collaborating with them helped give us some credence to the work we were trying to do. Even though I laugh about the arms-folded moment, that might have lasted fifteen minutes around the water cooler — in truth, they welcomed us with open arms and wanted us to succeed, and to collaborate on informing residents in our region about ghost fishing and ghost gear, and how we needed more hands and people out there on event days to help clean it up. I wouldn't change a thing about it.
Tom Rowland: That's super cool. So what's the vision for the future of OceanAid 360?
Neill Holland: We have an event coming up on August 13th in Titusville, focused on the northern stretch of the Indian River Lagoon. We've recently welcomed a new partner in Hell's Bay Boat Works — they're passionate about what we're doing, they understand the value behind it, and they're bringing their build team out with three of their boats to participate and help us promote the event on social media to get boots on the ground. I'm glad to report that event already has about 115 teams registered — between boating teams, paddling teams (kayakers and canoers), and shoreline walkers, we've got about 40 boats registered, which is a damn good field for a marine debris collection event.
Tom Rowland: That's huge. Let's talk about that for a second — have you done an event in Titusville before, and how do you market something like this to get that many people to buy in? Is it the tournament format, the fun, big prizes — what is it?
Neill Holland: We haven't done Titusville before, that's a new area for us. Great question — I'd say it's the tournament format. I think that's allowed us to be successful from the very start, creating a sense of excitement and fun and making it clear that it's family friendly. From the general public we see a great response and turnout. Our work with the commercial groups and hardcore fishing guides is a different conversation — explaining that this isn't about walking the beach in flip-flops with a floppy hat on; this is about being up on the poling platform of your tower boat, your Dorado, or your Lake & Bay, moving quietly and calmly through the shallows with polarized glasses on, elevated so you can see down into the water, using the same sight-fishing techniques you'd use hunting redfish, bonefish, or permit — except in this case you're looking for traps. The buoyed traps are easy to spot, and that's the first round of collections that everybody grabs. But among the more seasoned angling crowd, that's where we start finding the traps that lost their buoy or line entirely, sitting on the edge of a grass bed or a roll-off. Having folks who are really intimately familiar with their fishery, who care about it and know how to move through the shallows and grass beds without doing damage, is really important.
Tom Rowland: Well, a lot of those guys already know where the traps are — they pass by that thing all the time thinking, get rid of that. I remember after one of the hurricanes in the Keys, there was a spot at Snow Hawk's Cay where it looked like two hundred traps had been thrown in a washing machine and spun together, this huge mass of rope you couldn't get your arms around, buoys everywhere. It sat there for a long time, and then one day it was just gone — must have been FWC or somebody who came and cleaned it up.
Neill Holland: Very fortunately, we're not the only game in town, thank God. There are a handful of groups doing this type of work, and FWC does some light-duty contracting to commercial guys on special-interest cases like that. So there's other work going on, but obviously we all still see plenty of derelict gear in our fisheries.
Tom Rowland: So what's the strategy for getting somebody to put all these traps up on the deck of their hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar boat? There's got to be some kind of prize or incentive that makes it worth it.
Neill Holland: You're so right. We see a lot of T-crafts in the mix when we're doing the commercial participant events, but in all our events we supply a U-Haul-style moving blanket, tarps, and gloves to make sure no damage is done to the gel coat. It's definitely a consideration, and I'm sure it keeps some folks from participating — they say, "I don't dare do that with the boat sitting behind my house right now." But everybody's got some kind of work boat in their neighborhood or on their canal — a Carolina Skiff or a T-craft — that they could use for the weekend. And even if people don't feel like throwing a 35 or 40-pound stone crab trap, or a 90-pound lobster trap, into their Lake & Bay, we're looking for other types of debris too, so we've got a place for everybody. During our public events we're collecting traps and other non-biodegradable debris — a lot of styrofoam, bottles, we've even had pieces of floating dock come in.
Tom Rowland: How many points do you get for a flip-flop?
Neill Holland: Not very many, man, but a few — it works toward your aggregate.
Tom Rowland: I keep wondering when the day comes that crocs outnumber the flip-flops I see on the beach. Those things float so well. But it's crazy how many people lose just one flip-flop in the ocean — always the left one, it seems.
Neill Holland: Always the left. Somebody's out there making a lot of right turns, I guess.
Tom Rowland: I love what you're doing, man. It's something people can really get their arms around, because there are so many ways to help in conservation where you never really see the effect — you give money to something, or even work on water quality, and it's like, okay, well, hopefully next year there isn't a bunch of dead fish on the beach like there was last year. But with your thing, there's an immediate visual component: a dumpster full of trash that was just out there on the flats. In the places we're talking about fishing, the water's perfectly clear, and that stuff shows up — you can see it, and it's not great for the experience of being out in a beautiful place with trash everywhere. A lot of it is abandoned fishing gear. I really like that people can put their arms around it and feel like they're part of it — like Carter Andrews's one-piece-a-day thing. That's awesome. But then to come participate in one of your events and pick up 35,000 pounds of trash, that's pretty sweet, man.
Neill Holland: That's pretty sweet. We take a lot of pride in the action-oriented nature of it. In this day and age of instant gratification, in terms of habitat and watershed work, this is about as close as you can get. In the course of four hours you're going to see more than you could ever imagine — you're opening traps and saying, oh my god, look what's in here, I can't believe it, this is unbelievable — and you're turning it out, throwing that box in the boat, getting it out of the watershed. At the end of the day you could go home with a nice fishing setup, a Yeti cooler, a guided trip, or a hotel stay for two. It's a nice experience, and it's worth saying that what we do is just one part of the full-court press that needs to happen for Florida's coastal fisheries. Captains for Clean Water is doing wonderful work in the halls of power, making sure our policymakers and legislators are listening to the needs of our fishery — that's absolutely essential, and we're not set up to do what they do, just like they're not quite set up to do what we do. We really see it as a symbiotic relationship with other organizations doing habitat restoration.
Tom Rowland: That's fantastic. So where do people go to learn more and participate in one of your events, or maybe propose a location that's particularly bad?
Neill Holland: We've got a lot of information at OceanAid360.org — it gives good background on what we do, and there's lots of video content so folks can see what a day in the life looks like at the rodeo. As far as coordinating with us on events, we're always open to hearing about debris hot spots that need attention, and there have been plenty of cases where a local business comes to us and says, "We want to fund one of your events — what would it cost to have you come to our area, put this on with us, make us a sponsor, and collaborate together?" That's something we're totally interested in. Beyond that, we're actually working with FWC right now on designing a full year of programming that will take us through 2023, so a lot of listeners will see us show up in their backyards over the next year. So far, it's worth mentioning, we've got about 130,000 pounds of traps and other debris out of the water, well over 2,000 traps, and probably going on 10,000 specimens of commercially viable marine life released back into the fishery out of these ghost traps.
Tom Rowland: You see a lot of octopus in there, I'd imagine — that's one animal that does nothing but benefit from the trap. It'll slip right in between the boards, no problem, and live in there, and nothing else can eat it. It probably uses it as a great ambush spot, and then it can slip right back out.
Neill Holland: We do see them. FWC actually put up a video a month or two ago of a GoPro they'd mounted inside a test trap, and they watched the octopus come in and eat the lobster — or it might have been a stone crab — that was inside, then slip right back out.
Tom Rowland: That lobster's not that fast, and it's basically trapped in a cave — the octopus looks in and says, you can't go that way, and comes in head first and eats it. I'd love to see that video, I'm fascinated with octopus. We don't see that many of them, but they're around, and I'd imagine if you're opening all those traps you'd see a ton.
Neill Holland: Yeah, we had a good number during this most recent event in late July, actually a couple bigger than any of the commercial guys had seen before. They'd come in and say, look at this picture I've got — a big octopus sitting inside the trap.
Tom Rowland: I bet they're one of the octopus's favorite things to eat — that lobster's stuck in a cave, and the octopus knows exactly where it can go that the lobster can't follow. I'd imagine you get a lot of moray eels in the traps too.
Neill Holland: None were reported to me at this particular event, but when we're down there free-diving for lobster during the open season, I see a ton of them.
Tom Rowland: Well, good luck with all of it, man, it's fantastic, and I'd love to support you, whether that's doing an event or talking about it on the show. Stay in touch and let me know what's going on. I think what you're doing is really good — good for you.
Neill Holland: Thank you so much, buddy. I wanted to tell you, I had the chance to turn some of the Keys participants at our event onto your show — they were particularly interested in the segment about the valve system that the two oil-and-gas industry guys came up with, for detecting issues in water pipes and sewage pipes.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, he's got a great thing going on there. And again, that's another example of one person doing something that isn't going to make all the difference in the world on its own — but when he's doing that, and you're doing your thing, and Captains for Clean Water is doing their thing, it all amounts to a big sea change. That was a great show, a great product, and I hope they put it in everywhere, because it really seems to be working.
Neill Holland: I agree, and I saw some parallels in their story and my own experience with OceanAid 360, because my approach to habitat work, water quality, and our fisheries is that everybody, in a perfect world, would look at their own experience and say, here's what I have to offer, how do I get this into the mix. That's what I tried to do with the grants administration work — dedicating federal resources, if I could win them, toward projects I thought were really important for our watershed. It's what a lot of other folks are doing too, like that valve system trying to give municipalities better, more timely data when there's a leak or a break coming in their water or sewage system. That's their background and experience, and they saw it could be really beneficial for Florida's fisheries. I loved that, I thought it was really cool, and I hope other people feel inspired to do the same thing.
Tom Rowland: Me too. So if you're out there and you've got a good idea, go for it — you could end up making a really big difference. Neill, thanks, man, thanks for coming on, I really appreciate it, and thanks for what you're doing. It's making a difference, so go support OceanAid 360 and Neill in what they're doing. Do one of their events, visit their website, and see how you can sponsor or donate.
Neill Holland: And volunteer.
Tom Rowland: Yeah, volunteer, even better.
Neill Holland: I wanted to mention that our Keys events are funded by the Grassy Creek Foundation and Eleven Angling, and they've been great partners to us. On the last two Ghost Trap Rodeo events we've done down in the Keys, they sent Brian O'Keefe, the famous fishing photographer, to come participate with us. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect when I knew I was going to meet him for the first time, but he's just the most laid-back, cool guy.
Tom Rowland: Brian O'Keefe is fantastic. We used to spend a lot of time together when we were both working for Scott Rods, doing casting competitions. Have you fished with him? Have you ever seen him cast a fly rod?
Neill Holland: No, I haven't seen either.
Tom Rowland: I've fished with a lot of really great anglers over the years doing those Best of the West fly casting competitions, and I'll tell you right now, Brian O'Keefe is the best fly caster there is. His stroke is so beautiful, and he's a powerful guy, but he doesn't rely on that — he uses technique, he's not overpowering the rod. He's incredible, and he's also an incredibly good angler. He's done so many crazy things, been all over the place, and then he comes back with these drop-jaw photographs that are incredible.
Neill Holland: He sure does. When we were at the Ghost Trap Rodeo event down at Big Coppitt a couple weeks before this recording, I asked him if he could help us collect a couple of portrait shots of the commercial folks who participated with us that day — a mix of men and women running T-crafts and commercial boats. The pictures he took, he shot them on my iPhone as a favor to me, and when I got my phone back at the end of the evening, I had no idea what setting he could have used to make photos that beautiful.
Tom Rowland: You know what he reminds me of? Have you ever seen The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, chasing after that mythical globe-trotting photographer who just shows up wherever, gets on a plane, and takes off? You're going to have a hard time getting ahead of Brian O'Keefe. And then you see the pictures and think, how did he do that, even with an iPhone.
Neill Holland: I'm going to share some of what he sent us — he's given us permission to share them with the fishing community for reposting. I'll send some your way in case you want to share them with your listeners.
Tom Rowland: For sure. You've got a good man on your team there, and if nothing else you'll be entertained and get some good photos. But give him a fly rod sometime and ask him to hit something way out there, any weight rod you want.
Neill Holland: He could catch a three-weight or a thirteen-weight, whatever you want.
Tom Rowland: I don't know how he is with spinning tackle or conventional gear, but with a fly rod, the dude is legit.
Neill Holland: Let me ask you this — I heard a story once that when Lefty moved down to South Florida, I think to take over one of the prestigious fishing tournaments, the MET, a lot of the guys in the room had no idea who he was. The way he got their attention was by spooling the fly line off a reel and casting it with no rod at all, just his hands, and shooting it clean across the room. Every, you could hear a pin drop, so the story goes, and the rest was history. Is that true? Have you ever heard that story?
Tom Rowland: I'm sure it's true. Lefty had a lot of tricks — when he was a younger man he had even better ones, he could shoot a cast with real precision. He was the real deal — he could shoot guns, cast fly rods, cast spinning rods, do it all, and he was legit. So he could definitely cast a whole line with just his arm, and it wouldn't surprise me, especially back then when the fly lines weren't what they are today — fifty feet with a fly rod was a big deal back then, so he could throw that with his arm, no problem. He was very talented, a very unique individual, completely original, and completely legit. There are people who have a lot of talent, but Lefty was a great combination of talent and showman — he could really put on a good show. I saw him do it many times, starting from the first time I ever saw him as just a regular guy who'd read a couple of his books and went to get them signed at a fly casting demonstration at the local fly shop. He'd have people stand out there and say, "Now I'm going to curve it right around you," and he'd curve the line around somebody, then have somebody else stand over there and curve it around them the other way, and he'd do it all with just his hand, no rod, shooting the whole line in one haul, and everybody would just stand there like, I thought I could cast, but apparently I don't. He was a good mix of real talent and showmanship, and it was entertaining — he brought that to the fly fishing world, because fly fishing can be pretty boring, and before he came along everybody was just casting with big, slow strokes. He was throwing line like nobody had seen before, telling funny jokes, keeping the whole crowd entertained. He took this fairly boring thing and opened it up to so many more people — that was one of his great gifts.
Neill Holland: I'd say he's definitely responsible for getting me into fly rodding — the warmth he had toward newcomers, that every-man quality where he'd communicate that this isn't beyond you, come on in, I'll teach you how to do it. He was always so funny, too — it really jumped off the page in his writing. I had Fishing the Flats and, I think, Memories, Mangroves, and Magic, the book he put out years ago — I'd flip through that thing every day.
Tom Rowland: I remember the first time I saw him, he'd get somebody up there and say, "Have you looked at your back cast?" And the guy would turn around and look, and Lefty would say, "Well, I don't blame you, I wouldn't look at it either if my back cast looked like that." He'd always talk about the "underwear-ripping double haul" being totally unnecessary — he'd say you just need a little flick, eight inches, and you can cast so far, and there's some guy up there ripping his underwear doing all this unnecessary effort. He was a funny dude, man.
Neill Holland: Love it, he was really funny. I channeled my inner Lefty when I was in New York working for those two tackle shops — I used to give fly casting lessons out on 23rd Street, right in front of the Chelsea Hotel, which is where Capital Fishing Tackle was. We'd wait for the cabs to stop at the red light, jump out into the middle of the block, and send a double haul back and forth while they waited. Those were good times.
Tom Rowland: That sounds fun. Well, Neill, thanks, man, I appreciate it. Good luck with everything, and keep me posted on what you're doing — I'd like to help out if I can.
Neill Holland: Thank you. Alright, thanks, Tom.
Tom Rowland: See you.
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