Tag Archives: Nick Muto

#ShowUsTheRope – Blamed for Right Whale Entanglements, Lobstermen say Show us the rope!

Snow Cone has triggered an outcry of frustration from fishermen, who say they’re being unfairly blamed for the decline of the critically endangered species. On Wednesday, March 10, a team from Provincetown’s Center for Coastal Studies freed Snow Cone from 300 feet of rope. The center described the team’s success on its Facebook page, and used a photo from an aerial survey that shows the whale and the telltale rope from 1,000 feet in the air. “So, I remember seeing this,” said Nick Muto. The Facebook post said the retrieved rope likely came from a fishery, but there was no close-up picture. “So my hashtag, #ShowUsTheRope, is me trying to lay it right on the Center for Coastal Studies,” >click to read< 20:06

Electronic monitoring long-awaited boon for Cape Cod fishermen

Cape fishermen first started advocating for the use of electronic monitoring in 2006, said Melissa Sanderson, chief operating officer of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance. “I would say it’s a long time coming,” said Sanderson of the 14 years it took to finally have approval. But six years ago, Maine fishermen revived interest with their own pilot program and Cape fishermen joined the following year using equipment and technical support provided by The Nature Conservancy and grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. >click to read< 09:09

Seals On Cape Cod Are More Than Just Shark Bait – They are also destructive.

There are tens of thousands of seals on Cape Cod and the Islands, and everyone seems to have an opinion about them. Some see them as an adorable tourist attraction that helps the ecosystem. But to others, they’re Public Enemy No. 1 — a messy, fish-eating shark magnet that needs to be culled. Chatham-based commercial fisherman Nick Muto is one of the latter.,, He says fishermen see the seals as “totally protected eating machines.” “They’ve destroyed a lot of the inshore fish populations,” he says. “They’ve become a real nuisance to people, fishermen. They’ve attracted the sharks. And they’re also polluting the waters.” Amend MMPA, and Cull! >click to read<  08:32

Fishing in winter: Captains talk risk vs. reward

Fishing in winter. It’s a weather game, and it isn’t an easy guess as to when and how conditions will change, and what a crew might suddenly be up against. So say two commercial fishing boat captains working out of Stage Harbor and now on the hunt for monkfish some 100 miles south of Chatham – an area near Atlantis Canyon, considered Southern New England territory. Nick Muto owns the Dawn T, Greg Connors the Constance Sea.These southern trips are 36 hours – a 12-hour ride there, 12 hours of work, and a 12-hour ride home. >click to read< 14:50

New England’s Wild Fish Oil – Skate liver oil could boost fishing industry

Two engineers showed up at the Chatham Fish Pier a few winters ago and struck up a conversation with some fishermen who were unloading their catch. Steve Daly and Bill Hannabach asked for some of the fish because they were doing research for a new business venture. The fishermen obliged and the men took home totes with a variety of species. “You have two rubes from out of town. They could have easily said get out of here,” said Daly with a grin. “They didn’t know what we were doing. We could have been making fertilizer, we could have been making pottery.” This week Daly and Hannabach were once again at a Cape Cod dock, this time at Saquatucket Harbor in Harwich, with some of the same fishermen they had met when they first began experimenting with everything from monkfish to dogfish. But now they had with them the results of their foray into the fishing industry, their first product, MassOMEGA: New England’s Wild Fish Oil, set to be launched today and almost totally made from winter skate brought in by local fishermen. continue reading the story here 17:42