What to Take, What to Bring

Although they’ll be leaving their bait buckets at home, participants in the Orange County Marine Institute Environmental Fishing Program should come prepared as they would for any other sportfishing outing.

According to Julie Smith, the institute’s Floating Lab coordinator, children and adults should wear rubber-soled shoes and casual clothes (“You will get wet, and you will get fish scales on you,” Smith warns) and pack a Windbreaker, hat and sunscreen.

Those with a tendency toward queasiness on the high seas should take a motion-sickness medication a half-hour before departing the dock. Not to mention looking the other way during that mackerel dissection.