Through the work of the Organization for Artificial Reefs, the City of St. Marks has been awarded a grant from FWC’s Artificial Reef Program for enhancing the reef systems off-shore of Wakulla County.
The Dog Ballard Reef, which was deployed in honor of Doug “Dog” Ballard in 1994 will be substantially enhanced with new artificial reef habitat; The construction work is scheduled to be completed this Friday, June 25th.
The Dog Ballard Reef will be receiving approximately 31 engineered reef modules from Walter
Marine that are called their “Florida Limestone Reefs”.
The addition of materials will enhance juvenile fish species in reaching maturity and also attract
recreational game species including bait fish, mackerel, rock bass, flounder, sheepshead, grunt and
larger migratory fish such as cobia, near shore grouper and sharks.
The reef site is located 7.4 miles SE of the #1 Buoy at roughly 137 degrees; The maximum depth is 27 feet.
The FWC has awarded $60,000 to the City of St Marks for this project – the funding is from the federal Sportfish Restoration Foundation and state Marine Resource Conservation Trust Fund.
Both funding sources have been designated as a user pay, user benefit program, so when you
purchases fishing equipment, motorboat fuels, and fishing tackle it allows the SFR foundation to
redistribute these funds for marine projects such as artificial reefs.
Additionally, every time someone purchases an FWC saltwater fishing license they are contributing to
the Marine Resource Conservation Trust Fund used solely for marine-related and boating-related activities.
The Organization for Artificial Reefs mission is to create artificial reefs in Wakulla and Franklin Counties; and they have established over 30 reef systems in our area in the last 31 years.
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