Steering the course

Most offices are pretty much the same. You have a desk, chair, computer, a few plants and maybe a window, if you are lucky. Matt Steelfox, an officer with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), falls into the “luckier-than-most” category, to say the least.

Dan Hermes/For the Chronicle

Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Matt Steelfox patrols the Crystal River recently. Steelfox, a Citrus native, has been with the agency since 2009.

Dan Hermes/For the Chronicle

Matt Steelfox checks a crab trap to make sure it has the required equipment on it to be legal. The FWC is responsible for regulating all commercial industry on the waterways of the state.

His “office” is the woods and waterways of Citrus County.

“You can’t beat this when it comes to work,” said Steelfox, 25, while recently patrolling the inshore waters of Crystal River. “I couldn’t do anything else after doing this.

“I spend 50 percent of the time on water patrol,” he added. “I patrol all of Citrus from the Withlacoochee down to the Chassahowitzka. It’s a huge area.”

Steelfox is a Citrus High School graduate and has been hunting and fishing in the area since he was a young man, so the terrain he works on is his home turf. But there is always something new around every corner.

“I am always finding another canal to venture down, plus I find a lot of areas to fish when I get off work,” Steelfox said with a laugh.

He has been married to his wife, Jordan, for almost a year.

The duties of an FWC officer are many. Checking boaters and fishermen for safety equipment, proper vessel registration and licenses is just one aspect of the law enforcement work that is done. They also keep an eye on commercial activities that in the waterways of the county, such as crab, grouper and snapper fishing and shrimping. There are seven officers and a lieutenant assigned to the county.

“We have two or three guys out on any given day,” said FWC Lt. John Jones. “We also have three officers from the Guardian (an offshore patrol boat) that fill in and augment as needed. We try and be proactive when we are out there.”

“Any commercial interest out here, we regulate,” Steelfox said after issuing a warning to a crab boat captain because the vessel didn’t have numbers visible from the air.

The numbers have to be visible on the side of the vessel and from the air. In this case, the numbers were covered by gear at the front of the vessel.

Steelfox offered a suggestion about where to post the numbers, and the crabbers agreed to resolve the issue.

“I see them out here all the time and will check them out in a couple of weeks to make sure it’s taken care of,” Steelfox said.

Jones said the FWC trains its officers to “walk the line” when they are on and off the job. He added that there are times when a hard stance is needed, but for the most part, officers are trained to interact with the general public in a respectful, helpful manner.

Steelfox inspected several crab traps, and one trap did not have the required number of escape rings (three.) After writing down the number on the buoy, Steelfox said he would keep an eye out for any further violations. A person with an active trap without the required equipment could face a misdemeanor charge and a $318 fine.

Some violations, however, are sure to get a ticket, a stern warning or even a trip to jail.

Steelfox was called out to a boating tragedy in April 2010 that involved a fatality. A passenger was thrown off the front deck of a pontoon boat and killed by the boat’s propeller.

“You can never be safe enough out on the water,” Steelfox said. “If I spot a similar situation, with a speeding boat, they are going to get a ticket.”

Steelfox also talked about a scalloping mishap from a few years ago that has left an indelible mark on his memory. He had spotted a scalloper who didn’t have a dive flag present. The man then showed Steelfox his fins, which were chopped up by the prop of a boat that had recently passed over him.

“Who in the world would go in without a dive flag after that?” Steelfox asked.

Another major concern is keeping an eye out for impaired boaters. The FWC has been stringent in its efforts to curtail boating under the influence (BUI), and officers are trained in detection of impaired
operators.

“It’s tough sometimes to know that you arrested a guy for BUI and he’s going to lose his job,” Jones said about the deadly practice of operating a vessel while drinking. “I’ve had guys crying, pleading with me. I’ve gone home at night thinking about the guy’s life. But when you add alcohol and boating, the results can be deadly.

Sometimes it’s easy to put the handcuffs on them. We have to protect the public and sometimes protect (operators) from themselves.”

Jones and Steelfox stressed that their agency is dedicated to educating individuals about proper, prudent vessel operation
and the importance of having the required safety equipment.

“If your motor starts burning up, what are you going to do?”

Steelfox asked. “Reach for the fire extinguisher. What if it is empty? You have 30 gallons of fuel in your tank. Then you are going to jump overboard. Do you have life vests? That is why it’s important to have safety equipment on board.”
For more information on the FWC, go to www.myfwc.com.

Dan Hermes is an outdoors writer based out of Inverness. He can be reached at danoutdoors2001@yahoo.com