Daily Archives: October 21, 2015

Feds charge father, son with Alaska halibut fishing conspiracy

alaska-halibut__frontCharles Petticrew Sr. has been charged with a single count of conspiracy for falsifying individual fishing quota (IFQ) records for more than three years, according to federal charges filed Tuesday in Juneau. Petticrew and his family worked together “to submit false locations for the statistical areas where halibut were caught on federal IFQ forms, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Longline Fishery Logbook entries and halibut tickets,” the charges say. In all, Petticrew and his son allegedly faked records relating to about 4,000 pounds of halibut,,, Read the rest here 21:32

Fisherman’s family getting huge support

the FV JubileeMotueka’s tight-knit fishing community is feeling the pain of losing two of their own. Terry Donald Booth, 55, and skipper Paul Russell Bennett, 35, along with Jared Reese Husband, 47, are missing after the Ocean Fisheries trawler, the FV Jubilee, sank on Sunday morning.  Booth, of Ruby Bay, and Bennett, from Motueka, have long been part of the Motueka fishing community. Chris Innes said Booth’s wife, Michelle, was “doing it pretty hard”. “Quite honestly the phones haven’t stopped and a lot of people have been dropping in with food.” said Bennett’s father Graeme. Sadly,  Read the rest here 17:23

Shell approval for oil drilling off Nova Scotia raises alarms in fishing industry

The approval from the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board to allow Shell Canada to drill two oil wells on the edge of the Scotian Shelf is raising alarm bells among some in the fishing industry. “Four of those leases are directly in the major fishing banks of the Scotian Shelf,” said Davis, the former head of an anti-drilling group called the No Rigs Coalition. “Two are contiguous to the moratorium area of Georges Bank, two are to the northeast of Georges Bank and one takes in the southern part or heel of Browns Bank. The Scotian Shelf industry is under assault from the oil and gas industry.” Read the rest here 15:02

Dredging restrictions on winter flounder habitat to be lifted because they don’t live there!

NOAA ScientistSTONE HARBOR – The big announcement at a dredging forum sponsored by the Cape May County Chamber of Commerce Monday, Oct. 19, was that restrictions on dredging related to winter flounder are going to be lifted locally.  LoBiondo said the announcement came as the result of a renewed commitment on the part of state and federal governments with work with local officials. LoBiondo said it was the work of a local task force that convinced the NMFS that the winter flounder don’t live here.  Read the rest here 13:32

What are the fish telling us: the story of the world’s largest wild salmon fishery

Imported LayersThe myth (it was a myth) goes that when Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas in 1492, he and his crew couldn’t sleep because of the perpetual whack of sea turtles bumping against the hull of their ship. Now, 500 years later, nearly every species of sea turtle is listed as endangered. In fact, so many plants and animals have become endangered or extinct in recent years, that researchers and environmentalists have started referring to it as the sixth mass extinction. Read the rest here 12:38

Always Top Quality! Your Seafreeze Ltd. Preferred Price List for October 21, 2015

relentlessContact 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! 12:12

Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 90′ Raised Foc’sle Scalloper – 850HP, CAT D398 Diesel

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Specifications, information and 17 photo’s  click here To see all the boats in this series, Click here 11:47

Study: Dolphin catch rate declines off South Carolina

The American Fishing Tackle Co. released an update on a study in South Carolina that it supports. However, commercial fishermen met their dolphinfish quota for the first time, leading Clark to believe it might have been location, not lack of abundance, that contributed to the drop. “The fact that these commercial vessels had unusually good catches of dolphin this year indicates there was an increased abundance of dolphin on the eastern side of the stream,” Clark argued. Read the rest here 10:56

Shell Canada gets green light to drill for oil off Nova Scotia coast – timeline to cap a blowout is still between 12 and 13 days

The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board has authorized a Shell Canada Ltd. drilling plan in the Shelburne Basin that allows the company between 12 and 13 days to contain subsea blowouts, but one environmental group is concerned the capping stack won’t be housed here. The timeframe is shorter than the original 21-day plan, but still falls short of the U.S. requirement of 24 hours for drilling in the waters off Alaska. Shell Canada would also have to deploy a second capping stack as a contingency plan.,, Read the rest here 09:53

Salmon fishing returns to Fukushima after 5-year absence

Traditional salmon “combination net fishing” returned to the Kidogawa river here for the first time in five years as fishermen hauled in about 120 of the cold-water fish. With the evacuation order for Naraha lifted in September, members of the local fisheries cooperative association gathered around 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 18 to drive salmon from the upper reaches of the Kidogawa with a net toward another one set up downstream. It was the first time the fishing operations took place since,,, Read the rest here 09:21

NTSB Provides New Details from El Faro Investigation

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday issued an update on its continuing investigation into the sinking of the El Faro cargo ship in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas. Unlike the NTSB’s first report on El Faro investigation, which provided little to no new information on the accident, this new update offers a wealth of new information on a number of key areas in the investigation, including the safety and maintenance of the vessel, the ship’s propulsion, the ill-fated voyage and weather forecast, the last communication from the ship,,, Read the rest here 08:41

New commercial fishing rules take effect

U.S. Coast Guard planes and ships are circling the Pacific right now, enforcing brand new rules for commercial fishing. The West Coast’s fisheries are some of the most dangerous in the country, but the number one cause of death isn’t falling overboard. “About 65% of the time, of all the fatalities that happened, the vessel would actually sink,” Dan Hardin said. Hardin overseas commercial fishing vessel safety for the Coast Guard’s Northwest region. Unprepared vessels can end up capsizing, which doesn’t just endanger human life. Read the rest here 08:04