Daily Archives: May 19, 2019

Blue crab stock healthy with above average abundance

Results from the latest Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey — conducted annually by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and Maryland Department of Natural Resources — show the Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab stock remains healthy and able to support quality commercial and recreational harvests. The results — available due to months of field sampling and laboratory analysis by VIMS researchers Mike Seebo, Katie Knick, Gabby Saluta, Alison Smith, and colleagues at Maryland DNR — were announced by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and Maryland DNR leadership. >click to read<21:22

Salmon researchers seek funds for expanded expedition in 2020

Organizer Richard Beamish, emeritus scientist at Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, is seeking $1.5 million from governments, the private sector and non-profit organizations — the same groups that funded his 2019 expedition. Next year’s survey would again be supported by the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, an international organization based in Vancouver. The 2019 expedition was a signature project of the International Year of the Salmon program, which is backed by the Anadromous Fish Commission, as well as the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization and other partners. >click to read<20:27

‘I’m out of work:’ Open Bonnet Carre Spillway hurts local fisherman

The Bonnet Carre Spillway is currently open to keep the Mississippi River from overflowing and damaging the levee system.  But crab fisherman say there’s another side to the water diversion: The longer it stays open, the more damage it will do to the fishing industry. Fisherman along Lake St. Catherine say this time of the year their traps are usually brimming with crabs, but Saturday when Eyewitness News came to look, most of the traps had been pulled out of the water. >Video, click to read<15:16

MFC draft plan would cut southern flounder harvest

The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission (MFC) heard a presentation on draft Amendment 2 to the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan Friday during its meeting in Jacksonville and voted to send the draft plan to advisory committees and hold a meeting for public comment on June 3 at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City. A time has not yet been set. The draft amendment calls for significant management measures for the commercial and recreational fishery and includes significant harvest reductions for southern flounder coast-wide. >click to read<14:31

Assessment Oversight Panel (AOP) meeting for Monkfish, Scup, Bluefish, Black Sea Bass, May 20, 2019,

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center would like to inform you of the 2019 stock assessments.,,, There will be several sets of assessments conducted this year, and the assessment process begins for Scup, Bluefish, Black Sea Bass, and Monkfish on Monday May 20, 2019 with a panel review of scientific information and assessment plans (details below). After this plan review, the assessments will be conducted and later peer reviewed in 2019. Attend In Person, >click to read< or online, >click to register<13:59

Louisiana Shrimp Season to Open May 20 in the Remaining State Outside Waters

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced that the portion of state outside waters between the Atchafalaya River Ship Channel at Eugene Island westward to western shore of Freshwater Bayou Canal shall reopen to shrimping at 6:00 a.m. on May 20, 2019.  The area to open is defined as follows: >click to read<10:48

Invasive mussels challenge commercial whitefish fishing in the Great Lakes

Denise Purvis’ family began fishing the waters of northern Lake Huron off Manitoulin Island in 1882. Over the years their operation came to expect the unpredictability of a livelihood dependent on the ability to capture wild fish. Purvis came back to the family business in the mid-1990s after college. Her return home coincided with the arrival of zebra and quagga mussels into the Great Lakes. The mussels have since become synonymous with the problem of invasive species in the Great Lakes. They’ve colonized the lakes and negatively impacted their ecology. For Purvis and the dwindling number of Great Lakes commercial whitefish fishers, the fishery has fallen on hard times. >Video, photo’s click to read<10:28

Alaska’s biggest ever commercial seaweed harvest is happening right now

The biggest commercial seaweed harvest in Alaska history is unfolding this week in waters off Kodiak, one slick blade of sugar kelp at a time. By the end of the two-week harvest, two Kodiak sea farmers expect to haul in a total of 150,000 to 200,000 pounds of kelp. This year’s harvest is at least three times larger than last year’s, said Lexa Meyers, who co-owns Kodiak Kelp Co. Subsistence seaweed harvests have been happening along Alaska’s coastline for millennia. But Alaska’s commercial seaweed industry is only a few years old, and growing fast. >click to read<10:04

By dint of hard work

It’s a story of being in the right place at the right time. But mostly, it’s a success story by dint of a long life of hard work. It shows on Capt. Willy Roe’s face. He’s earned his wrinkles and thinning hair. But there’s a cragginess, a waterman’s weathered visage that tells its own story of too much sun, frigid gales and choppy seas on the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and creeks. An official old-timer at 85, Roe still is working. >click to read<09:00