Category Archives: Pacific
Boats begin offloading crab
After a month-and-a-half delay, Oregon’s commercial Dungeness crab season is underway along at least part of the coast, and crab boats have been busy, already hauling significant catches back to port to be offloaded at the docks. Tim Novotny is the executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, an industry-funded agency established by the Oregon Legislature in 1977 to serve as an advocate for the crabbing industry. When Novotny was asked for his initial thoughts on this year’s season, he said, “It’s been a ball of yarn,” adding that it’s pretty much the opposite of last year. Photos, >click to read< 07:57
Oregon: First Dungeness crab catch of the season
Commercial crabbing season has officially begun in Eugene, as the first shipment of Dungeness crab arrived at the Fisherman’s Market Tuesday night. “This is as late as its ever opened. There was a few years back when it opened on the 15th as well, but it’s much later than normal,” said Ryan Rogers, owner of Fisherman’s Market in Eugene. The reason for the delay? Concerns over the quality of crab in other parts of the west coast. Rogers says, “It’s always crab season somewhere for us. I’ll drive to Blane, Washington, to Bodega Bay to get crab.” Video, >click to read< 10:41
Days of gillnetting on lower Columbia River may be numbered
Senate Bill 5297 would remove nontribal mainstem gillnet use in the Columbia River downstream of Bonneville Dam to off-channel locations beginning in 2025. Tribal gillnetting in the Bonneville, The Dalles and John Day reservoirs would be unaffected by the bill. “It’s amazing to me that our state would be so incredibly inconsiderate in proposing such a thing,” said longtime gillnetter Irene Martin of Skamokawa. Martin argued that the legislation would jettison the Columbia River Interstate Compact, a bistate agreement between Washington and Oregon that manages commercial fishing on the lower Columbia River. >click to read< 12:44
Sea lions, seals might be hampering WA salmon recovery. What can be done?
State officials are now exploring whether to kill sea lions and seals in the Salish Sea and outer coast in a desperate effort to save salmon species from extinction. A new report commissioned by the state Legislature and completed by the Washington Academy of the Sciences says seals and sea lions are likely impeding salmon recovery, and the full impacts of predation on salmon may not be fully understood without lethal intervention. Three mammals specifically have skyrocketed. From 1975 to 2015, the harbor seal population in the Salish Sea exploded from about 6,000 to around 50,000. And California sea lions rose from 50,000 to somewhere around 300,000 on the West Coast of the U.S., according to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission. Populations of Steller’s sea lions living around Washington, Oregon and California steadily rose from an estimated 15,000 in 1982 to more than 43,000 in 2019. >click to read< 09:14
Sitka Assembly considers helping Southeast trollers in legal fight that could shut down the fishery
The Seattle-based environmental group Wild Fish Conservancy wants to stop the Southeast troll fisheries, which they say harm an endangered population of orcas. And in December, a federal judge in Washington issued a report that puts the fisheries at risk of closure. The Alaska Trollers Association is a defendant in the 2020 suit against the National Marine Fisheries Service. Sitka fisherman Matt Donohoe is the president of the Trollers Association. He says they object to the report and expect their legal expenses to increase. “Anyone claiming that Southern Resident killer whales are starving because Alaska trollers were taking food from the mouths of their babies would be laughed out of court. That’s what we thought,” >click to read< 11:48
Fishing boats depart for Alaska – Local crabbers begin dropping pots for season opener
A number of the larger commercial fishing boats that call Newport’s Yaquina Bay their home headed out this week for the annual trek to Alaska’s Bering Sea. It can take eight to 10 days for them to make the journey up north, depending on the weather. Boats from Newport will be docking either at Dutch Harbor or Kodiak, where they will be based while fishing for pollack and cod, a fishery that generally lasts for several months. The Port of Newport’s International Terminal was hopping with activity this week as boat owners and their crews made final preparations. In addition to the Alaskan fleet getting ready to head north, local commercial crabbers were busy loading their gear in preparation for the opening of the season this Sunday, Jan. 15. >click to read< 08:40
Restrictions lifted on beleaguered North Bay Dungeness crab fleet
The restrictions were imposed earlier this season to reduce the risk of marine animals becoming entangled in gear. Beginning this weekend, commercial crabbers south of Mendocino County can deploy 100% of their allotted crab pots, instead of operating at 50% reduction, as they have for the past two weeks. Extreme weather and rough seas proved an impediment this season, however, as have prices, which so far have kept the commercial fleet north of Sonoma County tied up at dock. Dick Ogg, vice president of the Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Marketing Association, was busy Thursday with his crew prepping gear on a rare clear day so they could try to fish this weekend. >click to read< 07:31
Commercial Dungeness crab season opens January 15
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife announced Friday that the commercial Dungeness crab fishery season opens from Cape Falcon to Cape Arago January 15. The season opens February 1 from Cape Falcon north to Washington State; in accordance with the Tri-State Protocol. ODFW says that the crabs are ready for harvest after passing all administered tests. Crab meat fill now meets criteria in all areas of Oregon, and biotoxins are below alert levels in all crab tested from Cape Arago north. However, domoic acid testing of crab will continue from Cape Arago south to the California border as test results Thursday showed elevated levels of domoic acid in the area. >click to read< For more information about crabbing season you can visit ODFW’s website. 09:21
Oregon Crabbers demand opening of season
Small-vessel crabbers demand that state regulators commence Oregon’s Dungeness crab fishery, condemning the thrice-delayed season as a scheme by big operators to depress dock prices and control the $90 million market. A Jan. 3 letter by the “consortium” of crab fishers addressed to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife blasted the “deeply misguided and extraordinarily harmful” decision by the agency last month to postpone the opening until at least Sunday, Jan. 15, due to concerns over meat quality and presence of domoic acid in some of Oregon’s 12 crab-fishing zones. “This group has strong incentives to prioritize a fast, high-volume harvest and reaps an enormous benefit from reduced competition that results from a delayed start,” the letter charged, explaining how prices plummet 50-75 percent following the primary holiday markets. >click to read< 16:42
Regulated revenue: New rules, delayed season cut into local crabbers earning potential
Local crabbers and fishermen struggle to make ends meet due to stormy weather, a delayed fishing season, and a new state mandate. On Dec. 26, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced that fisheries stretching roughly from Bodega Bay to Point Conception would finally open on Dec. 31, but now under one condition, crabbers and fishers are required to limit the use of crab traps and gear they throw in the water by 50 percent. Longtime Morro Bay crabber Jeff French said the new rules set by the Department of Fish and Wildlife put crabbers and fishers at a disadvantage. “Our costs are going to be basically the same, except that now we’re expected to make a living on half of our normal gear allotment and we have to pay for tags or licenses every other year for our traps,” >click to read< 12:12
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 76′ Steel Dragger/Federal Permits, Detroit 12-V-71
To review specifications, information, and 28 photos’, >click here<, To see all the boats in this series >click here< 13:09
Dungeness crab season closure has ‘cut off a key economic lifeline to small coastal fishing communities’
A group of Oregon Dungeness crab fishers comprising nearly 10% of the state’s permitted commercial fleet sent an open letter this morning to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife strongly criticizing the Department’s failure to open the Dungeness crab season along approximately half of Oregon’s coast in areas where crab have exceeded meat quality thresholds for several weeks. As the delayed opening enters its second month, the fishers’ letter describes in detail how the Department’s refusal to open the season has cut off a key economic lifeline to small fishing communities up and down the Oregon coast. The letter also takes sharp aim at the Oregon Dungeness Crab Advisory Committee, which the fishers describe as an “echo chamber” made up of special interests including major processors that benefit from lower prices that predominate after the end of the peak-demand holiday season, at the expense of mom-and-pop businesses and Oregon consumers. >click to read< 17:24
California crab season finally opens but storm keeps fisherman in port
Commercial crab season opened in California on Saturday, but in Monterey, fishermen were keeping their vessels in port because of the storm. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” said Gaspar Catanzaro with Monterey Fish Co. The commercial season opener has been delayed three times this year but officially opened at midnight on New Year’s Eve. The opening coincided with a winter storm bringing rain and high winds to the coast. To meet the holiday demand for crab, Monterey Fish Co. has been bringing in crab from Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Video, >click to read< 10:04
Untangling catch shares with Lee van der Voo – Catch shares have changed fisheries and fishing communities across the U.S.
I recently saw some great reporting by the New Bedford Light and ProPublica about how the billionaire Dutch family that owns Blue Harvest Fisheries has emerged as a force in groundfish fishing off the coast of Massachusetts. These are very wealthy, powerful equity groups and corporations that are acquiring access to the fisheries and passing the cost of owning them and fishing them onto fishermen. There’s been profound disenfranchisement of people who used to have a more personal stake in fishing and seafood. Everyone from indigenous communities in Southwest Alaska whose history with halibut goes back to the beginning of time to small-boat, family operations around the United States everywhere have been losing access. Whole communities have fallen apart over that. >click to read< 08:15
That whooshing sound is windmills shredding tax dollars
Nothing more horrifying than a chirpy Energy Secretary tweet first thing in the morning. Especially when it contains the trifecta of bad news for taxpayers from one of the denser members of the Biden administration’s stable of lackluster cabinet mannequins: 1) Green energy, 2) Unions, 3) Federal incentives aka tax dollars. They finally held much-anticipated wind lease auctions on parts of the pristine California coast and the sharks are already circling in anticipation. It’s going to be a while yet, though. Morro Bay is really quite a beautiful place. I’m wondering what that “substantial new waterfront infrastructure” all entails. Maybe the greenies won’t be so thrilled with it when the bulldozers come in? >click to read< 10:33
Storm seas hampers Dungeness crab harvest for North Bay consumers
The latest hitch in the thrice-delayed crab season for the North Bay is the weather forecast, with encroaching storms making the Saturday season opener miserable if not outright hazardous for the crab fleet. “We have a collision of two masses,” meteorologist Rick Canepa said. Bodega Bay crab fisherman Dick Ogg labeled the forecast “treacherous.” The series of storms could make the “first reasonable” day to go to sea and lay crab pots to Jan. 3, Ogg said. As for heading out Saturday, “Some guys will try. It’s possible. God bless ‘em,” Ogg said. “But even if they get the crab, it may not reach the market until (January) second.” Sal Svedise, general manager of Santa Rosa Seafood, agreed. >click to read< 18:05
Doug Dixon, Pacific Fishermen Shipyard, Receives King Neptune Award
To recognize his life-long contribution to the North Pacific Fishing Industry and his countless hours of community service, the Norwegian Commercial Club (NCC) presented John Douglas Dixon, Pacific Fishermen Shipyard, with its highest honor, the King Neptune Award, during the 70th Annual Fishermen’s Night in December. In 1977, when the king crab biomass and value rose dramatically, Dixon headed north to MARCO Shipyard to Seattle to design and build crab boats. He was able to guide fishermen on what they wanted in their new boats. Mr. Dixon worked with Norwegian-American fishing pioneers of the day, including highliners and their vessels like the F/V NORTHWESTERN of Deadliest Catch fame, together with sales of the multitude of different types of hydraulic machinery MARCO invented. >click to read< 13:04
Crab season opens with frustration in San Mateo County – late start and half pots
Commercial crab fishing out of Half Moon Bay will open at midnight on New Year’s Eve following several delays over concerns about humpback whales in the area but a late start on top of other restrictions have cut into profits for frustrated local fishers. Local fishermen like Brittany Binkley, who fishes out of Pillar Point Harbor with her husband Adam Johnson, are worried the combination of the late start and half pots will make it difficult to turn a profit. Daniel Thoresen, who also fishes out of Pillar Point, said he is frustrated because he and his crew are not sure how much the crab will sell for and the delayed season pushed the fishermen deeper into winter. >click to read< 08:33
Dungies beyond crabbers’ grasp
The delay in starting the crab season, now stretching into its first month,,, “People have no idea how much money Dungeness crab bring into Newport,” said Casey Cooper, a third-generation fisherman who was rigging the steel-hulled Leslie Lee with crab pots at Newport’s International Terminal. “From car dealers to grocery stores, everybody’s waiting for this huge annual infusion of cash.” Businessman Dean Fleck of England Marine supplies the crab fleet with rope, buoys, crab pots and other fishing gear. He said the delay is being felt up and down the waterfront, where hundreds of workers from deckhands to processors are idled. He claimed each dollar generated by crab fishing is “brand new” to the local economy, with the potential to rebound seven times. >click to read< 15:41
Personal Locator Beacons improve the chance of rescue at sea
A PLB is a personal electronic device that transmits a survivor’s location on or in the water to the Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking system during an emergency. It’s designed to be carried in a person’s life vest (or elsewhere on their body) and manually activated when the wearer is in distress. PLBs continuously update a survivor’s location. New Year’s Eve is a time of celebration and remembrance. Three years ago, on December 31, 2019, as the new year was being rung in across the lower 48 states, a tragedy was playing out in icy Alaskan waters. F/V Scandies Rose, with seven crew members aboard, capsized and sank before reaching safety. >click to read< Then, there is survivor John Aldridge, a crewmember of the 44-foot lobster 
vessel Anna Mary was last seen aboard the boat during his watch relief at 9 p.m., Tuesday, while the vessel was underway off Montauk, N.Y. How many times have you read of or heard of a fisherman going overboard, only to watch an unsuccessful chain of events involving fruitless search and rescue operations to see them become possible recovery operations, and predictably, abandoned after a period of time, dictated by estimates of rate of survival and sea conditions? Way too many.
Crab season to begin Saturday but price talks could delay start
Crabbers are still negotiating with fish processors over the price per pound of crab, and by the first week of January, they might have a deal, said Harrison Ibach, president of the Humboldt Fishermen’s Marketing Association. He added that he could not speculate on what the price would be, but that it would likely not be as high as last season’s $4.75 per pound. “It’s a very soft seafood market at the moment. I guess you could say it’s probably due to economic conditions, the cost of living is extremely high,” Ibach said. “There’s not been a lot of consumption of domestic seafood or seafood in general.” >click to read< 11:26
Rough Sea Conditions Hamper Efforts to Salvage Fishing Boat at Santa Cruz Island
Efforts to salvage a commercial fishing boat that ran aground on Santa Cruz Island earlier this month have been halted by stormy weather, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Speranza Marie, carrying 16,000 pounds of squid and some 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, hit the shoreline near Chinese Harbor at about 2 a.m. on Dec. 15. Six crew members were on board, and all were rescued without injury by another fishing boat. Efforts have been underway since then to salvage the vessel, which is owned by Ocean Angel VI LLC. >click to read< 07:57
Fishing boat catches fire at Newport dock
The Newport Fire Department was dispatched to a marine fire at 7:16 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 22, aboard the fishing vessel Nordic Valor, which was tied up at Port Dock 3 on Yaquina Bay. A deckhand checking on the boat opened the door to the cabin and smoke poured out, according to a press release issued by the fire department. When firefighters arrived on scene, they found the vessel filled with smoke and heat. The fire started in the galley area of the vessel and was burning in hidden voids between the inner walls and the outer hull. The F/V Nordic Valor was tied up just across from the Chelsea Rose, an historic fishing vessel that now functions solely as a floating fish market. >click to read< 12:00
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 52″x18″ Steel Dragger, 3406 Cat, with Permits
To review specifications, information, and 15 photos’, >click here<, To see all the boats in this series >click here< 11:00
Commercial Dungeness Crab Fishery Now Open Statewide
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) will open the commercial Dungeness crab fishery statewide on Dec. 31, 2022. Fishing Zones 3-6 (all areas south of the Sonoma/Mendocino county Line) will open under a 50 percent trap reduction on Dec. 31, 2022 at 12:01 a.m., with a 64-hour gear setting period beginning on Dec. 28, 2022 at 8:01 a.m. This trap reduction will help reduce risk of entanglement as humpback whales continue to migrate to winter breeding grounds. Commercial Dungeness crab vessels operating in Fishing Zones 3-6 must understand and comply with the restrictions by reviewing the CDFW Declaration. >click to read< 07:20
California Jobs Boom Anticipated Following Offshore Wind Auction
The efforts are, however, creating clashes with fishing fleets fretful not only of losing hunting grounds, but of broader impacts on their quarry from the new approach to renewables generation. “We’re going to throw billions of dollars into something that we don’t really know what the impact is going to be,” said Dick Ogg, a commercial fisherman of crab, albacore, black cod and rockfish. He’s based out of Bodega Bay but chases salmon from the state’s North Coast south to Morro Bay, which is another quiet part of California where an infrastructure boom is planned to get electricity from offshore wind turbines to land-based power customers. “We’d like to see a project that is smaller.” Fishing fleets nationally are angry about what they say is a lack of consultation with them by wind developers and by the federal government, with hundreds of lobstermen in Maine attending protests about plans there. Tribes, too, say their members are being ignored. >click to read< 11:13
Alaskan snow crabs are canaries for worsening fishing woes
The Bering Sea crab industry was booming when Chuck Hosmer became captain of the F/V Baranof in 1980. At the time, crew members could take home up to $90,000 in a single season. But his sons Adam and Andrew, who grew up fishing on Whidbey Island and followed their father’s footsteps into seafood, may never see the industry return to what it once was. Alaskan crabbing is not for the faint of heart. In the past, the payout was worth the risk. “No one thought snow crab would disappear. Nobody. Even a year ago, we never would have expected a canceled season for snow crab,” said Adam Hosmer, one of the Baranof’s first mates. “They used to just be a dime a dozen. If you ask any of the old-timers, they used to be everywhere. Everywhere.” Photos, >click to read< 11:04
Local crab fishermen face challenges with late start to season
The commercial crabbing industry has been hit especially hard this year. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife delayed the season three times already because of humpback whales in the area. It’s been a long wait for local crabbers desperate for some much-needed revenue. Every crab pot is checked and readjusted as Captain Matt Juanes does some early preparation for opening day. Multiple delays mean no income since salmon season ended months ago. “We’re dying on the vine. If it’s not salmon, it’s crab. We’re hit from all sides,” said fisherman Brand Little, the captain and owner of salmon and crabbing boat the Pale Horse. Video,>click to read< 11:58
Fishery disaster aid and nearly $500 million worth of Alaska projects included in omnibus budget bill
Aid to Alaska fishermen, companies and communities was included in the year-end omnibus appropriations package that won final passage on Friday. The $300 million in aid funding follows official disaster declarations issued last week by U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo for Alaska salmon and crab fishery failures dating back to 2020, as well as some salmon failures in Washington state dating back to 2019. The $300 million in total disaster aid “is a great start for much-needed money to help fishermen and communities pay their bills,” Jamie Goen, executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, said in a statement. >click to read< 10:01
Fishermen ready for start of crab season amid price, start date uncertainty
“I’ve been crab fishing since I graduated from high school in 2007,” said Robert Mirante. “This is my fifth season running a boat as an owner-operator.” Robert comes from a family of fishermen; his father fished for decades, and he and all his brothers run their own boats. “That’s what we do for a living,” Robert said. Uncertainty about the start date of this year’s season, pushed back later by low crab numbers just this past Thursday, affects the entire community, said Perry Graham, captain of the Amberlynn. “It’s always stressful — it is — not knowing. It’d be nice to have your set days to know when to work,” Graham said. “You’re rushing, rushing, rushing to get ready and then you might sit there for a month or two.” Photos, >click to read< 19:00
