"OBAMA DON'T KNOW 'JACK”: Fishermen take to the street in FWB to protest amberjack lockdown (UPDATED with PHOTOS)

More than 100 fishermen, family and friends showed up Monday morning at the corner of U.S. 98 and Perry Avenue carrying signs in protest of the recent fish closures by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“It’s terrible what they’re trying to do to this fishery,” said Capt. Kenny Aziz, who bay fishes from his pontoon boat, The Toonpang.

 The idea of bringing the Destin charter boat fishermen’s beef with the federal government to the corner of Perry Avenue and U.S. Highway 98 started out as kind of a joke.

That Fort Walton Beach corner is best known, after all, as a spot where vagrants panhandle for beer money.

“We said, ‘Why don’t we stand out there with all the homeless folks, since the National Marine Fisheries is going to make us homeless?’ ” said boat captain Greg Marler.

FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THE PROTEST, CLICK HERE.

Monday, about 100 members of the Destin fishing fleet and their supporters did just that. And in doing so, they garnered a lot more attention and support, judging from the horn honking and thumbs up, than the bums they’d run off.

“This turned out good,” said 74-year-old Olin Marler, Greg’s father and a legend on the harbor. “We just need this going all around the Gulf Coast and up the Atlantic. We need this on a national level.”

Destin’s charter fishing fleet has been in a fighting mood ever since the Oct. 20 announcement that the National Marine Fisheries Service had decided the time had come to shut down the greater amberjack fishing season.

The closure came during the Destin Fishing Rodeo in a year that the fisheries service had already put severe limitations on red snapper fishing.

An already hard-hit charter fleet felt like it was being kicked while it was down.

“I made less all year than I should have made from the fishing rodeo,” fishing captain Steve Land said as he stood on the side of the road Monday. “For the fishing rodeo I should have done 30 charters. I did eight … seven or eight … I can’t remember, it’s too scary to think about.”

Stories of the woes of Destin’s fishermen were not hard to come by at Monday’s protest gathering. Some talked about selling their boats this winter to make ends meet. Others were planning to borrow heavily and try to hold out for better times in 2010.

Jim Westbrook, who owns New Florida Girl, the longest-running head boat on Destin Harbor, and the charter boat Suzie Q, said he’ll be laying off nine of his 16 employees this year.

“I finished the year with no money in the checkbook,” he said.

Land, who said he’s gone from fishing to taking tourists to see dolphins, held up a sign that read, “Save a fisherman and our fish, uproot a Crabtree.”

The Crabtree reference was to Roy Crabtree, regional administrator at the National Marine Fisheries Service Southeast Regional Office.

Crabtree has become a focal point for objections the fishermen like to raise about flawed federal fish counts and bureaucrats so far removed from the actual fishing they can’t possibly know what’s happening beneath the waters they regulate.

“Their counting system is so flawed. If they’d jump on a boat with us they’d see how many fish there are out there,” Greg Marler said. “My dad is 74 years old and he says snapper fishing is better than it has been in years.”

Greg Marler, who organized Monday’s protest, said what clamor Destin’s fishermen have been able to raise hasn’t done much good to this point.

“We’ve heard nothing positive from the National Marine Fisheries,” he said.

Charlene Ponce, who speaks for the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, said Monday she’d not heard about the Fort Walton Beach protest.

She did say, however, that fishermen across Florida seem to be adopting an “attitude.”

“We have noticed fishermen are becoming more involved and organizing,” she said.

Destin’s fishermen and their friends channeled some of their attitude into creative sign making. Some of those on display Monday included:

• “Let Them Eat Fish Closures.”

• “Ban the Politicians, not the Fish,” and

• Obama Don’t Know Jack.”

A couple of politicians took advantage of the protest to shake hands with some potential voters. Also present were members of the local Tea Party organization, the “tyranny response group.”

“This is what we’re about, fighting the tyranny of government,” said member Don Kreis. “These people need jobs. There’s too much government right now.”

The NMFS closed the amberjack fishery to recreational fishermen in federal waters on Oct. 24. Earlier in August, federal regulators closed the red snapper fishery.

The fishermen are planning a flotilla “Rally for Recreational Anglers” this Saturday in Destin harbor beginning at 10 a.m.,  also in protest