Know your limits with Fishing Tape

• If you have difficulity remembering the size and bag limits for various species of fish, here's some help. Florida's Fishing Tape, designed by Lake Helen taxidermist Rick Hardy, lists minimum sizes for everything that can legally be taken from saltwater .....from clams (1 inch) to blue marlin (86 inches). The tape sells for $9.95

• The Outer end, where the numbers usually start, is the logo -- the numbering starts about four inches from the outer end. It looks like any ordinary carpenter's tape but when you extract it from it's bright lime green case, that all changes.

• The tape is not just for fish -- it starts off at the one-inch mark for hard clams. The next mark is at the 2 3/4-inch line for stone crab claws, then the 3-inch mark is noted: oysters, crawfish, more than 3-inch carapace. At five inches, it notes blue crab carapace.

• This continues down the 120-inch length of the tape noting the legal size -- both maximum and minimum length for each species. It then picks up on sailfish and how they are measured (lower tip of the bill to the fork of tail), and then white marlin and the bigger blue marlin limits.

• Between the 35- and 56-inch marks, it gives fresh water fish (general bag and length limits).

• The back of the tape includes all the details of limits and closed seasons as well as the fish on the protected list and those unlawful to have in your possession. If this isn't enough, flip the tape over and it lists the girth and length measurements and computes the weight of the fish. It is computed for blue marlin and then a scale for sailfish and white marlin, grouper and snapper, dolphin and tarpon.