Lifelong Harpswell Neck fisherman remembered as cribbage competitor, neighborhood mentor

February 5, 2025 New England

Sheldon Morse Sr. died Dec. 5, two weeks shy of his 86th birthday. He lived his whole life on the land where he grew up on Allen Point Road, fishing into his late 70s on a boat he built with his father and named after his daughter. Family and fishing were the focal points of his life. Sheldon grew up around his father’s boat shop, but he wanted to be out on the water. He started with a few traps and a skiff as a teenager. He was fishing that same way near the end of his life, when he couldn’t operate his lobster boat anymore. His grandson, Josh Morse, is also a fisherman and lives with his family down the road from his grandfather’s house. The two of them built the skiff that Joshua first fished from, and Sheldon’s Teresa Ann was the first boat that Josh worked on. Sheldon’s youngest granddaughter, Lauren Webster, remembers her grandparents’ house as a place where she and her cousins could be kids, with as many Popsicles and grilled cheese sandwiches as they could eat. photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:03

Boat builder, commercial fisherman, cribbage competitor, father, Grandfather, has passed away, husband, Lifelong Harpswell Neck fisherman, Maine lobsterman, neighborhood mentor, Sheldon Morse Sr.

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The New England groundfish debacle (Part III): who or what is at fault? Nils E. Stolpe/FishNet

It took me a while to decide how to most accurately describe the situation that has been visited upon the New England fishing communities that are and since colonial times have been dependent on the groundfish fisheries.

NILS STOLPE: The New England groundfish debacle (Part IV): Is cutting back harvest really the answer?

While it’s a fact that’s hardly ever acknowledged, the assumption in fisheries management is that if the population of a stock of fish isn’t at some arbitrary level, it’s because of too much fishing. Hence the term “overfished.” Hence the mandated knee jerk reaction of the fisheries managers to not enough fish; cut back on fishing. What of other factors? They don’t count. It’s all about fishing, because fishing is all that the managers can control; it’s their Maslow’s Hammer. When it comes to the oceans it seems as if it’s about all that the industry connected mega-foundations that support the anti-fishing ENGOs with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in “donations” are interested in controlling. Read the article here

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