Author Archives: borehead - Moderator
Michael L. Linquata of Gloucester, Massachusetts, has passed away
Michael L. Linquata, 96, of Magnolia, passed away peacefully on Sunday, March 6, 2022, at home surrounded by his loving family. He was the husband of the late Lillian Rose (Ciulla) Linquata who passed away just recently. Michael was born in Gloucester on July 5, 1925, son of the late Leonard and Anne (Favaloro) Linquata. Michael was an early graduate of Gloucester High School class of 1944 and was inducted into the army at Fort Devens on January 12, 1944. He was a combat medic and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. When Michael finished college, he worked with his father and managed Progressive Fish Company. >click to read< 22:08
Lawsuit filed over bridge repairs
On December 28, 2021, a dump truck pulling an excavator on a flatbed truck struck the overhead portion of the Mispillion drawbridge, as a result, the bridge cannot be lifted to allow larger boats to travel under the bridge. This has led to a lawsuit filed by Joan and Sudler Lofland, Russell Brown, Kevin Beam and Jason Watson requesting that the bridge be opened. The Lofland’s own the Vinyard Shipyard, Brown, Beam and Watson are commercial fishermen who docked their boat at the shipyard during the winter for repairs and maintenance. >click to read< 19:50
Louisiana: Violet man found guilty of commercial crab pot theft
A Violet man was found guilty of commercial crab trap theft in the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse in Chalmette on March 17, 2022. The Honorable Judge William McGoey for the 34th Judicial District of St. Bernard Parish found Paul Emile Metzler IV, 40, guilty of theft of crab traps and sentenced him to a fine of $400 plus court costs. Metzler also had his crab trap gear licenses revoked for one year. Additionally, during the period of his license revocation Metzler cannot be on any boat harvesting crabs, possessing crabs,,, >click to read< 16:19
Trawlers and Milford Haven’s history
As promised, in TRM Trawler Corner this week is Shielburn M15, a steel sided trawler built in Aberdeen in 1911, which landed at Milford from May 1915 to January 1919, and from February 1945 to April 1956. Her previous names were Ann Ford Melville and Star of Freedom but became Shielburn in 1933. Here’s an incident reported in a WW Guardian in June 1946. “Fifty miles with death sounds like the title of a thriller, but it was more than a thrill for the crew of the steam trawler Shielburn which steamed throughout Tuesday night with a live mine on the deck on top of a pile of fish. >click to read< 14:50
North Carolina Fisheries Association Weekly Update for March 21, 2022
Last week, on March 15,16, and 17th, the Northern Regional, Southern Regional, and Finfish Advisory Committees met to make recommendations, for the Marine Fisheries Commission to consider, on Amendment 2 to the Striped Bass Fishery Management Plan! There was very little public comment, about a half dozen each night, with the NCFA being the only fisheries group offering comments. We focused on a single issue, allowing the use of gillnets above the ferry lines in the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers, which the MFC chose to remove from the draft Amendment before allowing public or AC input. >click to read the update< 13:24
Man arrested after K-9 used to subdue him
32-year-old William Stringham of Brookings was arrested in the Port of Brookings Harbor following an altercation with Port of Brookings Harbor employees, where one of the employees was head butted by Stringham. When deputies arrived on scene, Stringham ran onto the commercial docks and boarded a commercial fishing vessel. Stringham refused to obey orders to exit from the vessel. During the standoff, deputies learned that there was a firearm on the vessel. Ultimately, K-9 Axel was deployed by his handler, Deputy Jacob Stout. Stringham was taken to the deck of the boat by K-9 Axel. >click to read< 10:55
Fisherman pulls boat out of water by crane to fuel it at a BP station!
Chris Attenborough, a seventh-generation fisherman from Whitstable, Kent, says after reclaiming road duty and VAT it is now cheaper to buy normal diesel than using red diesel. He said: ‘It’s cheaper for me to get my boat craned out of the water, cut the mast down, put it on a lorry and bring it to the petrol station and fill it up with white diesel. ‘It is going to put the price of fish up, which people can’t afford to buy already in this country, and it is going to have a major impact on our businesses. >click to read< 09:55
Fishermen turning back to port early as fuel costs rise
Jersey’s fishing fleet is struggling amid huge increases in fuel costs and is unable to compete on a level playing field with its French counterparts, who are receiving emergency government subsidies, according to an industry representative. ‘The rises over the last two weeks have been the biggest seen in history. The price of fuel is getting close to treble what it was at the start of the year,’ he said. This week the French government announced it would be providing fuel subsidies as various sectors and the population struggle to cope with rising costs brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. >click to read< 09:07
Stop importing £200m worth of cod and haddock from Russia
£200m worth of Russian cod and haddock imports should be stopped and efforts redoubled to open up fishing grounds off Norway and Greenland to the UK’s last distant water trawler Kirkella. Sir Barney White-Spunner, retired British Army officer and chairman of the advisory board of UK Fisheries, which operates the trawler said money currently going to Russia “should be kept here at home, benefiting jobs and investment in the North East and not Putin’s Tsarist ambitions”. The Hull trawler has had to cut crew numbers in the past two years, reflecting her plummeting quotas, a result of unfavourable deals struck by the UK Government, operating as independent coastal state. >click to read< 08:03
Marine Biologist Spencer Apollonio of Boothbay Harbor, has passed away
Spencer Apollonio passed away unexpectedly on March 8, 2022 at his Boothbay Harbor home at age 88. He was born in Camden to parents Dr. Howard L. and Helen T. (Martin) Apollonio. A marine biologist and Fellow of the Arctic Institute of North America (AINA), Spencer made 14 trips to the Arctic. Spencer served as Commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), chairperson of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and executive director of the New England Regional Fisheries Management Council. He started his career researching shrimp (Pandalus borealis) and other marine life, and later focused on fisheries management in the Gulf of Maine. A graduate of Bowdoin College, he received a master’s degree from Yale University. >click to read< 21:23
Gruff, warm, combustible, shrewd: For 49 years, Don Young’s ideology was ‘Alaska’
Rep. Young, at 88 the oldest and longest-serving member of the current Congress, died Friday. A Republican from Fort Yukon, he fashioned a career as Alaska’s winningest politician ever, gradually building the kind of seniority in Congress that became its own compelling argument for his reelection. Don Young, the irascible riverboat captain who did not so much represent Alaska as personify it for half a century in Congress, died Friday as he was flying home to Alaska for yet another political campaign. He showed up in committee hearings wearing cowboy boots and cleaned his fingernails with a Bowie knife. Photos, >click to read< 14:36
British Columbia: Hooked on halibut: For many commercial fishers, it’s a family affair
The commercial halibut season is underway along the coast of British Columbia and boats are already starting to deliver the flat fish to dinner plates. From now until early December, the B.C. halibut fleet will haul in an estimated 5.7 million pounds of halibut. The Americans will take the lion’s share of this year’s 41-million-pound total allowable catch, nearly 80%, because their territory stretches over California, Oregon, Washington and all of Alaska to the tip of the Aleutian Islands and covers nine of the 10 designated halibut-fishing areas along the Pacific Coast. Tiare Boyes and Cheri Hansen weigh in on what it’s like to work on the water during the halibut fishing season. Photos, >click to read< 11:14
Alabama OKs tax cut bill for Gulf Coast commercial fishing operations
The Alabama Senate awarded final passage to a bill by State Rep. Chip Brown, R – Hollinger’s Island, that provides historic and much-needed tax cuts and exemptions to commercial fishing businesses operating throughout Alabama’s Gulf Coast region. The measure now travels to Gov. Kay Ivey’s desk for signature. “Alabama law currently provides the agricultural industry with tax exemptions and other benefits that are not currently extended to commercial fishing operations, which also harvest food,” Brown said. “Passage of this new law corrects a lingering injustice by extending the same taxation benefits to farmers and fishermen alike.” >click to read< 10:33
Fuel: Entire Spanish fishing fleet to stay in port until next Wednesday 23
Basilio Otero, the president of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Guilds, announced this Friday, March 18, that the Spanish fishing fleet will remain in port until next Wednesday 23. This action comes as a result of the “very serious moment” that the fishing sector is suffering after the rise in fuel prices. “The sustainability of the fishing sector right now is in your hands”, he warned the minister, from whom he has also demanded, “firm, forceful, and immediate proposals, or the fishing sector is going to sink”. >click to read< 08:42
Maine lobster industry fights lawsuit that aims to shut down fishery
While Maine’s lobster industry has been fighting an offensive legal battle against impending rules to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales, it also is playing defense in a case brought by environmentalists that seeks to shut down the lobster fishery entirely. Lobster industry groups are intervening in a case brought in Washington, D.C.’s U.S. District Court by the Center for Biological Diversity and other plaintiffs that argues the new federal restrictions aren’t adequate, and that the fishery’s continued operation poses an existential threat to the whales. >click to read< 19:15
Newfoundland fisherman says DFO disregarded his 60-year fishing career
The small longliner June and Judy sits at the wharf in the sheltered inlet, awaiting the start of cod fishing season. Her owner, Winston Boutcher, can keep an eye on her from the window of his living room across the harbour. He knows this boat well. It’s a family legacy. The 28-foot fishing boat has been taking him to the cod grounds in Placentia Bay for many years. He and his brothers used to own her, equal partners in their inshore fishing enterprise. The Boutcher brothers remained equal in all things, until 1995. That year DFO adopted a policy that created two classes of fishing licences: core and non-core. >click to read< 14:59
Federal Funding for Killing Sea Lions Might Help Cowlitz River Salmon
Though the actions taken to secure $892,000 in federal funding for the protection of Columbia River system salmon took place thousands of miles from Lewis County, the process could have positive impacts for fishermen of the Upper Cowlitz River and the Columbia basin as a whole. As a result of a joint effort between U.S. Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, and Kurt Schrader, a Democrat from Oregon, the appropriations bill passed by congress will include funds to continue the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (WDFW) efforts to kill sea lions on the Columbia River, protecting salmon and steelhead. Sea lion extermination has been shown to be effective in protecting fish. >click to read< 11:35
The Maine lobster fishery is coming off a record year, faces challenges ahead
Maine’s lobster fishery scored a record-breaking value in 2021, with a 75% increase over 2020 and a 10% increase in landed weight. But fishermen face increasing pressures, including difficulty finding and keeping crew, rising operational costs, competition for fishing grounds from other industries, new regulations affecting fishing gear and methods and coastal development pressure that’s squeezing waterfront access and opportunities to live they work. >click to read< 09:25
F/V Villa de Pitanxo: Spain holds memorial mass for sunken trawler victims
Spain’s King Felipe VI attended a memorial service yesterday for 21 sailors who died or are missing at sea after a Spanish fishing trawler sank last month in stormy waters off Canada. The king and his wife, Queen Letizia, shook hands and embraced relatives of the victims at the packed church service in the port of Marin in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia where the trawler was based. >click to read< 08:38
Alaska’s Don Young, longest serving congressman, dies at 88
Don Young, a blunt-speaking Republican and longest-serving member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, has died. He was 88. His office announced Young’s death in a statement Friday night. “It’s with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we announce Congressman Don Young (R-AK), the Dean of the House and revered champion for Alaska, passed away today while traveling home to Alaska to be with the state and people that he loved. His beloved wife Anne was by his side,” >click to read< 07:44
“I guess they’re too weak.” Weak lobstering gear recalled as new whale regs approach
The weak link made by Plante’s Buoy Sticks was pulled off shelves by the company this week, taking away one of the handful of gear options at lobstermen’s disposal to meet new federal rules that go into effect May 1. One retailer said their shop was told the links were believed to be breaking too easily. Plante’s links are one of three models approved by NOAA,,, Virginia Olsen, Maine Lobstering Union, said she sent a notice to her members about the issue and hoped the recall would prompt NOAA to review allowing fishermen the easier option of putting knots in their ropes to make them weaker. “It truly would be a great assistance to us if those knots were acceptable,” she said. >click to read< 14:21
Video: Coast Guard medevacs injured man from F/V America’s Finest near Dutch Harbor, Alaska
The Coast Guard medevaced a man from a fish processing vessel approximately 92 miles northwest of Dutch Harbor Thursday. A Coast Guard MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew deployed aboard Coast Guard Cutter Alex Haley hoisted the injured man from 262-foot fish processor America’s Finest at 12:52 p.m. The patient was flown to Dutch Harbor and placed in the care of LifeMed personnel. Watchstanders in the 17th Coast Guard District command center in Juneau received the initial medevac request from America’s Finest at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. Video, >click to read< 12:57
How many more #FishyFridays if fuel rockets in price?
In Lorient, with the fishermen on strike: “If we close it now, the profession will die” Overwhelmed by the soaring price of “fishing diesel”, shipowners have stopped Breton boats from Keroman, the country’s second largest fishing port. Usually, at this time, the boats are offshore. Wednesday morning, they are almost all moored along the quays of the port of Keroman in Lorient (Morbihan). The first fishing port in Brittany, second in the country, is almost at a standstill. La P’tite Mila explains why on a banner painted red, stretched on her deck: “Sailor ashore, diesel too expensive!!!”Another ship sports a hangman in yellow oilskin. Over the past ten days, most shipowners have paused their activity, overwhelmed by the soaring price of “fishing diesel”, tax-free professional fuel: 1.05 euros per liter on average Wednesday,,, >click to read< 11:19
Maryland reps exploring shrimp fishery
A new shrimp fishery could be coming to Maryland, which would have direct benefits along the lower Eastern Shore. Last year, the state’s General Assembly approved legislation that allows the Department of Natural Resources to establish parameters for a shrimp fishery “pilot program” for certain commercial licenses. During the ensuing year, there has been some confusion about just how DNR could and should extend such authority, leading to twin bills in the Senate and House this year intending to clarify DNR’s roles and powers to adopt regulations. “A lot of people don’t realize there’s even a shrimp industry in Maryland,” >click to read< 10:36
Fisherman Yarn Garrick Ward accused of making deckhand swim across crocodile-inhabited river walks free
A professional fisherman accused of torturing his deckhand, including making him swim across a crocodile-inhabited river, has been found not guilty in a Far North Queensland court. Yarn Garrick Ward, from the small fishing community of Karumba, was on trial at the District Court in Cairns this week over the torture of Cairns man George Jelef in 2019. It took the jury less than half a day on Friday to find Mr Ward not guilty. Mr Ward denied assaulting Mr Jelef and suggested his deckhand was under the influence of drugs, which he said would describe his “erratic” behaviour. >click to read< 09:23
Goodbye F/V Santiego, Hello F/V Diamond Lil
It’s always sad when an old lady of the sea is shipped off to far away waters especially when they’ve been a permanent sight in Port Douglas for decades. Such is the case with the FV Santiego, built in Brisbane and owned by her skipper Laurie Moull. The fishing trawler has been in operation for 21 years and to see her sail off into the sunset is tinged with sadness. The old girl is now in Innisfail with her new owners and their gain is certainly our 
loss, however skipper Laurie is like a kid in a candy shop because he has a new gal in his life. He’s bought a new vessel named ‘Diamond Lil’ and she’s a ‘BIG UN’. Laurie and the crew will be proudly showing off Diamond Lil this weekend at the Port Douglas public jetty when they sell their new season prawns tomorrow and Sunday. Photos, >click to read< 08:14
Wallop Breaux funding: the rest of the story!
Folks – I’ve been yammering on and on about the Wallop-Breaux program, an excise tax on boating and fishing gear and non-commercial marine use fuel sales. At the same time I’ve been focusing on a potential conflict of interest because 1/3 of the votes on the eight regional fishery management councils and 1/3 of the total votes on the three marine fisheries commissions (Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Pacific) are cast by each of the states’ senior marine fisheries administrator. Why a potential conflict? Because, as the attached table demonstrates, the various state fisheries programs receive a major part of their funding each year from Wallop-Breaux. >click to read< By Nils Stolpe, FishnetUSA 19:12
3 people rescued from shrimp boat fire off Ft. Myers Beach
The Coast Guard rescued three people, Thursday, after a 63-foot shrimping boat caught fire in San Carlos Bay near Ft. Myers Beach. A Coast Guard Station Ft. Myers Beach 29-foot Response Boat-small boat crew arrived on scene, transferred the survivors without injuries, and established a safety zone around the vessel. >click to read< 16:27
Higher Snow Crab Quota in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence in 2022
Due to Canada’s robust science and sustainable fishery management practices, the snow crab stock in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence is healthy and is showing signs of continued health. For these reasons, the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, the Honourable Joyce Murray, is pleased to announce that this year’s total allowable catch (TAC) for the Snow crab fishery in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence will be 32,519 tonnes, up from 24,261 tonnes in 2021. >click to read< 15:01
Northern NSW floods trigger mass fish kill with hundreds of thousands lining riverbanks, beaches
Fishermen have lost homes to the floods, nets and traps have been swept away, and now their livelihood is washing up dead on riverbanks and beaches along the New South Wales North Coast. Day by day the industry is counting the cost, financial and emotional, as the flooding disaster turns into an ecological one. “We’ve got juvenile fish, we’ve got big fish, we’ve got all the major species. So we’ve got sea mullet, bream, flathead, whiting, and then all the small fish, we’ve got toadfish, all sorts of things,” The majority of suppliers to the Ballina Fishermen’s Co-operative rely on the river, whether they fish out of it or at sea. >click to read< 13:30
