DIFF Club hopes to expand website

AWFC opens March 30
Alger Willis Fishing Camps will open the cabins at the Great Island Camp on March 30, which is the first day the ferry will run 
The cabins will close on Dec. 9, and the last ferry run on Dec. 31 by special arrangement.

Mackerel limit raised
In order to comply with the federal fishery management plan, the Marine Fisheries Commission has increased the bag limit for Spanish mackerel. Effective  Aug. 2, 2000, the new bag limit increased from 10 to 15 mackerel per person, per day.  The size limit still remains at 12 inches fork length.

Inside or outside?
There has always been confusion about where the sound begins to determine whether summer flounder need to be 15 inches or 13 inches.
Smaller flounder can be legally kept if caught inshore. Flounder caught in the ocean must be 15 inches.
But where does the ocean stop and the sound begin?
The place where once starts and the other begins is called the  COLREGS Demarcation Line, a pink line on most navigation charts. Any flounder caught seaward of the line must be no less than 15 inches total length.
At Drum Inlet , it's a line drawn across the inlet parallel with the general trend of the high-water shoreline.
At the south end of the island, the COLREGS line is drawn from the lighthouse to the seaward tangent of the southeast end of Shackleford Banks.

he DIFF Club's website, www.diffclub.com , is up and running. The content right now is limited to newsletters, an application form, our mission statement and links to related sites, but we'll be expanding the site during the next several months. A history of the club, tournament rules, a club message board are all possibilities. Let us know what you would like to see on it.
Tom Dunaway, tomdunaway@diffclub.com, is our webmaster.

Work trip in limbo
The club's annual spring work trip to the island is up in the air at the moment. The National Park Service has said it plans to take over the maintenance of the cabins at the Great Island Camp, but club members may still help renovate a couple of cabins for Alger Willis Fishing Camps Inc.
The Park Service has raised the notion of building a comfort station on the north end, but the club is reluctant to commit its members to major projects like that. We may, though, help the park pay for the comfort station.
The topic is sure to come up at the Annual Meeting in Pineville on Feb. 24 and will be addressed in the next newsletter. Stay tuned.

New mailing address
Take note of our new mailing address: P.O. Box 268, Mooresville 28115. We made the change from Pineville to make it easier on our treasurer, Bill Stiles, who lives in Mooresville, to pick up the mail each day.

License plates, photos on sale
We still have plenty of DIFF license plates, which cost $5 each. Send you order to DIFF, P.O. Box 268, Mooresville, N.C. 28115.
An order for the historic lighthouse prints is on Page 7.
License plates and prints will be available for purchase during the the club's Annual Meeting in Pineville on Feb. 24.

Club in good shape
The DIFF Club ended 2000 in good financial shape. The club had $26,333,39 in certificates of deposits and our checking account. That's about $3,000 more than what we had at the end of 1999.
Membership dues, the club's largest source of income, brought in $4,500 last year. The generator raffle took in $2,185 and the lighthouse prints $1,232.
The annual fishing tournament, the club's biggest expense, cost $9,701, which included the $6,225 spent on the purse and other prizes.