he much-delayed federal study of driving at Cape Lookout National Seashore has been delayed again, this time for another year or more.
A draft of the study was ready for release in March. It recommended, among other things, that driving be banned at night to protect nesting and hatching sea turtles and that the two long-term parking lots in the Great Island camp be limited to 60 vehicles each. Nothing in the draft, though, suggested that vehicles be banned from the island, said Karren Brown, the park superintendent.
"We don't have the statistics in our off-road vehicle plan to say you are harming the beach," she told DIFF board

members in February. "I have no intention at the park of doing anything detrimental with respect to ORV use without going through a lot of statistics and a reasonable plan. I don't want it to be arbitrary and capricious."
The draft, though, was never

Continued on Page 5

Fishing tournament filled up

We're filled up.
The DIFF Club's annual Surf-Fishing Tournament, which be held this year on Sept. 28-30, reached its 135 cap in early May, the earliest that the tournament has ever reached capacity.
The Tournament Committee is pleased with the way things have gone the last two years, and only

one major change is  planned.  Contestants will have to personally bring fish to the weigh-in. In the past, people were allowed to weigh in fish for others.
Entrants will once again compete for $6,100 in prize money in six categories - red drum, flounder, bluefish, whiting and two species that will be chosen on the island before the tournament begins.

Special points of interest:

• A stricter interpretation of the state's rule on keeping cleaned fish gets some DIFF members in trouble, Page 3
  
• Want to write someone about the threat to ORVs on the beach.? Here are some folks, Page 6.