Tag Archives: Cape Cod fishermen

1889: Cape Cod fishermen sail to Cape of Good Hope for mackerel

A century ago the fishermen on Cape Cod were making plans to spend the winter fishing for mackerel off the Cape of Good Hope off the southern tip of Africa, a distance of almost 8,000 miles away from homeport. For the wives of the Cape’s fishermen that would mean nearly year-round widowhood as the trip a century ago took weeks under the best of conditions and mackerel were believed to abound in South African waters after December 1st, the same fish seen here six months later. The Cape Cod schooners will salt the mackerel and return to Provincetown to sell their catch. >click to read<10:12

Cape Cod fishermen want to see “buffer zones” for midwater trawling in the region

herring-1Cape Cod fishermen are looking for regulators to address the impacts of industrial midwater trawling in the region. The New England Fishery Management Council recently voted to analyze possible “buffer zones” to limit where trawlers can fish to help manage the herring fishery. Current regulations protect waters up to 40 miles offshore from Canada through Cape Cod Bay for about 10 months out of the year, according to local fisherman Pete Kaizer, from the fishing vessel Althea. “What they’ve done in the last seven or eight years is they have depleted this whole flow of forage food coming down this coast and therefore we have seen a decline, and the localized depletion, of predators,” Kaizer said. Read the rest here 11:13

Some Mass Lawmakers fear some Cape Cod fishermen will miss out on aid

cashMany Cape Cod fishermen, operating under shrunken quotas for cod, have shifted their focus to catching other fish species such as dogfish, skate and monkfish. But that business decision, some lawmakers worry, could be jeopardizing the fishermen’s ability to qualify for the last pot of federal disaster relief funding being dispersed by the Baker administration to help offset the hit to their livelihoods from declining fish populations. Read the rest here 14:10

Cape Cod fishermen hoping for a lifeline as the region faces ongoing cod shortages

The fishermen of Cape Cod have been forced to approach the American government for a bailout to save the region’s fishing community. Falling catches, caused by a combination of overfishing and a predatory seal population, are driving many fishermen out of business, The Telegraph reported.Permits worth £50,000 ($85,000) just five years ago are now barely worth the paper they are printed on, Read [email protected]  07:00