Monthly Archives: December 2014

The Alaska Fisheries Report December 31, 2014

afr_logo_screen_sizeComing up this week, it looks like there’ll be lower harvest limits for Prince William Sound black cod; we hear about cchanges coming up for the groundfish and halibut observer program, and everything that’s old is new again – well, insofar as an ancient mollusk in the Arctic Ocean is concerned. All that and more, coming up on the Alaska Fisheries Report. Listen to the Report here 18:44

Elver fisherman starts serving 90-day jail term for evading $60,000 tax bill

deraps123014.JPGDanny Deraps, 43, who caught more than $700,000 worth of elvers in 2012, was found guilty of theft and three counts of tax evasion after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors last March. State officials have indicated that Deraps earned more than $700,000 from elver fishing in 2012 and nearly $70,000 more in lobster fishing income that same year. Bernstein declined to disclose Deraps’ income from elver and lobster fishing in 2010 or 2011. Read the rest here 16:37

Wanchese’s Daniels family in agreement on sale to Canadian Cooke Aquaculture – What about the US Quota?

Canada WancheseSources have questioned how Cooke, also family-owned and based in Blacks Harbor, New Brunswick, is going to structure buying some or all of Wanchese, seeing as non-Americans can only own 25% of US fishing quotas. The company owns 11 fishing vessels in the US, catching scallops, fish, and shrimp up and down the East Coast, as well as two operating for sea scallops in Argentina. One source said maybe Glenn Cooke, co-founder and CEO of Cooke, means to keep some of the Daniels family on to be the face of the US entity used to acquire other US quota assets. “Interesting and very tricky,” he said of this. Read the rest here 14:01

Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 55′ Shrimper/Dragger Fiberglass, Cummins, 540HP

6397_28Specifications, and information and 28 photos click here  To see all the boats in this series, Click here 12:16

Fisherman hopes community supported fisheries program takes off

Under the Ruthie B CSF, shareholders pay $50 for 10-pound shares. Community supported fisheries aren’t Blount’s invention. In Gloucester, the Cape Ann Fresh Catch program offers shareholders access to the fruits of the sea, with pickup locations throughout Greater Boston. Blount appears to be the only one in New Bedford offering a CSF, but he’s convinced it will catch on. Read the rest here 10:23

Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO): Tougher penalties still needed in the offshore: MP

While the number of foreign offshore fishing vessels dropping gear outside Canada’s 200-mile limit has declined significantly since the 1990s, what remains the same is the criticism of the penalties given to vessels that break the rules. Under the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), which manages the area, vessels cited for  have to be dealt with by their home countries — the NAFO contracting parties. Read the rest here 09:48

Big ocean waves give Dungeness Crab Christmas vacation

Like those heady days when salmon are coming in on joyful and full boats, crab season can enliven Noyo Harbor with motion, aromas and noise. And then take it all away, leaving the place silent and with only the faint aroma of the sea. That was the crabby up and downs of the past two weeks. Unlike the salmon, the gyrations of the crab population are not surprising or signs of doom. Biologists predict choppy cycles in crab numbers, even if they don’t entirely understand the causes of them. Read the rest here 09:27

Maine’s Top Fish Cop Col. Joseph Fessenden is retiring as chief of the Maine Marine Patrol

As chief of the Maine Department of Marine Resources law enforcement wing for 20 years, Fessenden developed a reputation as an evenhanded officer and then as a leader able to build trust within an industry filled with fiercely independent operators who are often skeptical of regulators. To many people in the industry he is simply “Joe” or sometimes “Colonel Joe.” Read the rest here 09:03

North Pacific Groundfish and Halibut Observer Program Sees Changes in 2015

Fishermen and NMFS representatives discussed the . The overall feeling at the meeting seemed to be discontent with a grain of salt. Many fishermen who attended voiced their frustration with the observer program in general. But, many also said that they understand what its purpose is. That sentiment is nothing new to Martin Lefled. Read the rest here 07:45

Fishing fleet still without a home after Eastport Breakwater collapse

Nearly a month after the catastrophic collapse of part of the Eastport Breakwater, the community is still figuring out its next steps — including finding a winter home for the roughly 40-vessel fishing fleet that docked there. Chris Gardner, director of the Eastport Port Authority, said Tuesday that the remaining portion of the breakwater appears to be relatively stable. The Port Authority, which manages the city-owned breakwater, hired an engineering firm to monitor the structure after the collapse of the 200-foot section into the inner harbor. Read the rest here 23:05

Mystery fish halts Cape May Harbor dredging

Marina owners and commercial fishing docks in the Port of Cape May are banding together to fight a winter-time ban on dredging designed to protect a fish that doesn’t seem to even exist here. “I’ve never seen a  here. I’ve tried. I went fishing for them three times and never caught one,” said Bob Lubberman, owner of a marina here at Schellenger’s Landing. Read the rest here 22:00

In the battle of almonds vs. salmon, everyone is a loser

It’s a day that ends with Y, so the world is met with yet another entry in the voluminous tome entitled 2014: Year of the War on Almonds. Today, the No. 1 Enemy of the Nut is none other than the noble but needy salmon! Read the rest here 17:07

StripedBassHole: The old GDT Blog, and Opening our Eyes to Global Issues

It’s interesting how blind we can become to the World around us. News in general be it written, Radio, Television, Internet, you name it. Has a great influence on us and the information is funneled by the direction of the owner of whichever form of Media you are drawn too. Now we can either be Sheep and absorb it and say well that’s the way it is or keep an open mind and seek out other sources. The truth being you’ll never know for sure unless you witness it and have a good understanding of other factors relevant to the event, even that’ll leave gray areas. So it all comes down to TRUST. Read the rest here 16:09

Tri Marine selling tuna seiner to Albacora amid ‘chronically oversupplied’ market

US-based tuna group Tri Marine International is in the process of selling one of two purse seiners close to being finished in a Spanish yard to Albacora Group, the owner of the largest fishing fleet in Europe. Both the vessels, Cape Ann and Cape Coral, which were launched at the Astilleros Armon Gijon shipyard on the northern coast of Spain in September, were set to operate from Pago Pago, American Samoa, where Tri Marine is inaugurating its long-awaited Samoa Tuna Processors cannery in January.  Read the rest here 15:20

You can’t make this stuff up! Woman who had sex with DOLPHIN during lab experiments speaks out for first time

During the swinging 60s,  was part of a Nasa-funded experiment on the US Virgin Islands to teach the intelligent sea creatures how to speak English. In 1963 she helped turn a house into a domestic dolphinarium by flooding it with knee-deep water, where researchers could study the animals from their home. It was there she met Peter, an adolescent dolphin she described as ‘sexually coming of age’. Read the rest here! 12:58

Shad season for Georgia Commercial Fishermen to open Jan. 1

Commercial fishermen can take to the water beginning at 6 a.m. Jan. 1 to take advantage of the opening day of shad season, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division. Shad season runs through midnight Tuesday, March 31. Fishermen need to be aware that, due to a recent regulation change, they now are required to possess a free letter of authorization in addition to their commercial fishing license to commercially fish for shad. Read the rest here 11:39

Canadian scientists find Fukushima fallout rising off West Coast

Radioactivity from Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors has turned up off the British Columbia coast and the level will likely peak in waters off North America in the next year or two, says a Canadian-led team that’s intercepted the nuclear plume. The radioactivity “does not represent a threat to human health or the environment,” but is detectable off Canada’s west coast and is climbing, a team led by oceanographer John Smith at reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read the rest here 11:02

Always Top Quality! Your Seafreeze Ltd. Preferred Price List for December 30, 2014

Seafreeze-LtdContact our sales team today @ 401 295 2585 or 800 732 273  Click here for the complete price list from Seafreeze Ltd. We are Direct to the Source-We are Fishermen-We are Seafreeze Ltd!  Visit our website!  10:33

Etched in Stone – Oceana and Greenpeace think Best Available Science circa 1990 shouldn’t change! Stellar Sea Lion

Hundreds of endangered Steller sea lions may die from loss of prey and habitat if the federal government allows more industrial fishing in the Aleutian Islands, environmentalists claim in court. Moreover, the groups say, the biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service in April 2014 was condemned by many of its own scientists as “fundamentally flawed” because it relied on incomplete and inadequate Steller sea lion telemetry and sighting data. Read the rest here 10:13

Fishing season for commercial red drum opens New Year’s Day in Mississippi

Commercial fishermen can welcome the new year with the opening of Red drum fishing season. On January 1, 2015 Red drum season opens for commercial fishermen at 12:01 a.m. with a commercial quota of  50,000 pounds. The Department of Marine Resources or (DMR) will close that season once that quota is met. commercial red drum season opens  Read the rest here 09:15

2 fishermen rescued after boat capsizes in icy water off Cutler

Two men were rescued Monday from a rocky ledge in the ocean after their urchin diving boat capsized off Cutler, according to the Maine Department of Marine Resources. The fishermen, Carroll Perry and James Johnson, both of Addison, were fishing not far from the mouth of Little Machias Bay around noon when a wave swamped Johnson’s 25-foot inboard boat, sending both men into the icy water, Read the rest here 07:50

The Indonesian Navy sinks 2 Thai trawlers

The Indonesian navy has sunk two Thai fishing vessels after a court ruled on Dec 23 that the boats were illegally fishing in Indonesian waters, the Jakarta Post reported yesterday. Navy special forces.  “As instructed by the president, the navy has shown its strong commitment to sinking vessels involved in illegal fishing,” Rear Admiral Widodo of the Indonesian navy was quoted as saying on Sunday.  Read the rest here 07:42

CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT – Salvage crews say sunken crab boat F/V Titan, ‘unrecoverable’

CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT — A fishing vessel that grounded on rocks around A-Jetty and sank near Cape Disappointment with thousands of pounds of Dungeness crab in its hold earlier this month is now considered “unrecoverable.” Last seen close to the tip of the jetty, the approximately 78-foot-long Titan is under 40 feet of water and likely to stay there until after the first of the year. Read the rest here 18:45

Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook MEDEVACS passenger from party boat near Sandy Hook, N.J. this morning

Coast Guard Station Sandy Hook medically evacuated a 51-year-old man from a vessel approximately eight-miles offshore east of Sandy Hook, N.J., this morning. Watchstanders at Sector New York received a call from F/V Ocean Eagle V at approximately 9:57 a.m., reporting that a passenger was experiencing pressure in their chest and shortness of breath. Read the rest here 13:45

Western Alaska Fisheries cannery in Kodiak Sale Price is $37-Million

   A few weeks ago when KMXT first told you of Trident Seafood’s purchase of the Western Alaska Fisheries cannery in Kodiak, CEO Joe Bundrant declined to reveal the sale price, saying as a privately-owned company, they preferred to keep such information private.  However, the company Trident purchased Western from, Japan-based Maruha Nichiro, is a publicly-traded company, and as such must report its financial dealings.  Read the rest here 11:54

NS: Cooke Aquaculture must pay back $9-million provincial loan, with interest

“The forgiveness of the loan to Cooke Aquaculture depends on the company’s ability to meet certain targets by the end of 2015, including 400 new FTEs and four new projects – farm operations in Shelburne and Digby, a new salmon hatchery in Digby, expanding a feed mill in Truro, establishing a fish processing facility in Shelburne,” wrote Economic and Rural Development and Tourism spokesperson Sarah Levy-MacLeod in an email to the Coast Guard. “We expect the company to fulfill the terms and conditions in the original agreement.” Read the rest here 11:44

2 Maine Scallop Areas Shut Down

The state is closing Pleasant Bay and Lower Englishman Bay. Both are located in Washington County. State officials say continued scallop fishing in the two areas could “damage sub-legal scallops that could be caught during subsequent fishing seasons.” The Pleasant Bay closure also includes the Harrington and Addison Rivers. Read the rest here 11:37

BP oil spill dispersants concern Nova Scotia Anti Drilling Group

“When you mix this stuff with the oil, you create a compound that is substantially more dangerous than even the dangerous dispersant on its own or even the dangerous oil on its own and this is the issue that we have,” says John Davis, a founder of the No Rigs Coalition. He says Shell has already put out bids to use Corexit if there is a spill at a well planned for the Shelburne Gully. Davis says he worries the chemical could end up on the Georges Bank, pointing out the Labrador Current would carry any material right to the fertile fishing grounds.  Read the rest here 09:20

Cook Inlet: As we welcome the new year, the fisheries debate continues

We’re going to usher out the old year just as we welcomed it — discussing the salmon management situation in Cook Inlet. A lot of the allocation discussions of salmon resources statewide revolve around the local economic impact of the respective industries — commercial verses sport. The commercial fishing industry has presented solid economic data for years showing their importance to Alaska’s economic base. Read the rest here 08:38

Three bodies found in freezer of suspected illegal fishing boat off Papua New Guinea

The suspected illegal fishing vessel was found on December 10 at Paona Island, a 45-minute boat ride from Fead Island, which is 200 kilometres north of Bougainville. Due to the remote location, authorities had only begun launching an investigation mission to the area. “Local reports coming from the area are that there are three dead bodies in the ship’s fridge with some fish they have caught,” said Franklin Lacey, Bougainville disaster coordinator, who is leading the investigation team, Read the rest here 15:00