April 1, 2024 — Protecting our state’s coastal waters is an ongoing effort, and one nonprofit recently hit a major milestone in that endeavor.
The North Carolina Coastal Federation marked 10 years of working with commercial fishing crews to find and remove thousands of pieces of lost fishing gear from the water.
Matt Littleton and Carson Whetherington spend their mornings in Swansboro searching for bouys — but these crab pots aren’t providing their next meal; they’re looking to pull lost and forgotten gear from the water.
“The areas we’re working, continuously we’re seeing lost pots or leftover or one that might have gotten moved around from a storm. In this area we’re running up on just pots that are derelict, debris that’s been discarded somewhere or it’s been hit by a boat or hit by a prop because it’s been in the water for so long,” says Littleton, with Friendly City Fishing Charters.
For years Littleton, who’s a charter boat captain in Swansboro, worked alongside his father as part of the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s lost fishing gear recovery project- but now he continues that effort with his own team.