Exporting Joy and Common Sense

© Mohamed Zoheir

“When I told my parents I wasn’t going to college and was going to work on a sport fishing boat instead, they were like, ‘What? People do that?’” Anthony DiGiulian remembers. “Of course back then, there used to only be a handful of boats out there. Now, it’s grown into a legitimate industry.”

And DiGiulian has only made that industry larger. It’s his job to take sport fishing to more and more places, opening up uncharted territory, while bringing the sport to more places.

Most recently DiGiulian, with his company, Saltwater Professional Consulting, has been in Saudi Arabia, teaching a new breed of recreational fisherman how and where to fish in the Red Sea. ”People had an idea that there might be swordfish in the Red Sea, but they just didn’t know. We caught the first one.”

With that first fish, DiGiulian and the group he was teaching killed it and ate it. With the second one, they tagged it for the Billfish Foundation and released it.

“When I go to a place, I like to teach people how to do things the right way.” For DiGiulian, and other responsible offshore fishermen, the “right way” involves following IGFA regulations, using circle hooks, and catching, tagging and releasing more fish than you take home. Because, he notes, “You can’t just go out there and take everything that you catch.”

Besides, “I’ve seen what’s happened over the years with people being greedy…people tend to get caught up in their own little world and not think things through.” Fishermen, he says, need to understand that they’re the frontline of defense against the interests of the commercial fishing industry. Who, he explains, kill marlin to sell it for nine cents a pound for use in cat food.

Without the sport fishing industry, they might be wiped out completely.

If there’s anything that DiGiulian has learned over the years, it’s that a clean, healthy, ocean makes for a clean, healthy community. It’s just that kind of attitude he’s trying to export. Another is that well-stocked fisheries makes good economic sense. “Sport fishing brings development, tourism. It creates jobs.”

Still, it’s his own job that he likes the best. “My goal is to turn people on to those same experiences I had growing up in Long Island, fishing.” Through accomplishing that goal, DiGiulian has leaned what he calls “invaluable live lessons…When you travel around the world and meet other people, you realize that we’re all the same. We all have the same needs. I think that fishing is an unbelievable way to bring people together from all walks of life.”

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