{"id":4152,"date":"2013-07-23T02:06:51","date_gmt":"2013-07-23T09:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/?p=4152"},"modified":"2013-07-23T02:09:48","modified_gmt":"2013-07-23T09:09:48","slug":"virginian-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/?p=4152","title":{"rendered":"Virginian Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/hamptonroads.com\/2013\/07\/mcdonnell-names-two-state-fishing-board<\/a><\/p>\n

McDonnell names two to state fishing board<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/a>Ken Neill is going to be forced to cut back on his fishing. But he’s doing it for fishing’s sake.<\/p>\n

Neill, a dentist from York County, has been appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell to the board of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.<\/p>\n

A.J. Erskine of Kilmarnock also was appointed. Erskine is a former president of the Virginia Seafood Council and a scientist.<\/p>\n

Neill will be one of the board’s recreational fishing representatives.<\/p>\n

The positions are four-year terms, and appointees can serve two terms. They replace Rick Robins of Suffolk and Carter Fox of Reedville.<\/p>\n

“Yep… it will eat up a lot of my fishing time,” said Neill, 50. “I’ll have to rearrange a lot of my dentistry, but we’ll make it happen. This is an important job, and it’s important that the job gets done.”<\/p>\n

Neill is familiar with the workings of the commission, which is charged with governing Virginia’s saltwater fishing – both commercially and recreationally.<\/p>\n

He has served on its Finfish Management Advisory Committee and Virginia Saltwater Fishing Tournament Committee. He also is a representative to the International Game Fish Association – an organization that keeps track of world records.<\/p>\n

Neill is familiar with such records. Anglers fishing on his boat, Healthy Grin, have caught 10 IGFA world records and set six Virginia records.<\/p>\n

He also is on the National Marine Fisheries Service Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel and a lifelong member of the Peninsula Salt Water Sport Fisherman’s Association.<\/p>\n

He has been involved in research projects for the VMRC, Old Dominion University and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science – from which he received the 2012 Robert Freeman Volunteer of the Year award.<\/p>\n

A longtime angler raised in Yorktown, Neill said he accepted the position because he wants to continue to help the commission’s conservation efforts.<\/p>\n

“I would not be my first choice for this job,” he said with a laugh. “But I’m going to do my best. This is a huge honor and very humbling. Serving on the commission is a thankless job, but the commission has become much more responsive to conservation efforts for both commercial and recreational interests. Everybody at the VMRC is going a great job.<\/p>\n

“And conservation is the most important thing. We have to protect Virginia’s marine resources so that we have them for the future.”<\/p>\n

Lee Tolliver, 757-222-5844, lee.tolliver@pilotonline.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/hamptonroads.com\/2013\/07\/mcdonnell-names-two-state-fishing-board McDonnell names two to state fishing board Ken Neill is going to be forced to cut back on his fishing. But he’s doing it for fishing’s sake. Neill, a dentist from York County, has been appointed by Gov. Bob … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4155,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4152\/revisions\/4155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/healthygrinsportfishing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}