Monthly Archives: October 2015
Fisherman’s family getting huge support
Motueka’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!
STONE 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
The 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
Contact 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
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
Lobster Trap Head Knitter
Friendship Trap Company is seeking experienced lobster trap head knitters. If you have experience and are looking for extra income, please call or drop by to fill out an application. We offer competitive pay! Category: Full-Time Phone: 207-354-2545 Email: [email protected] Posted: Oct 20, 2015 here 20:45
Lobster boat sinks in Jonesport
JONESPORT, Maine — U.S. Coast Guard officials are investigating why a 35-foot lobster boat sunk overnight Monday near the Jonesport Bridge. The owner, whose name was unavailable, planned to salvage the boat, the Riley Anna, later in the day Tuesday, McCann said. Because the owner reported the incident, the Coast Guard did not have to perform a search and rescue. However, the Coast Guard reported the situation to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection Read the rest here 20:04
Sunscreen is proven toxic to coral reefs
Lathering up with sunscreen may prevent sunburn and protect against cancer, but it is also killing coral reefs around the world. That’s the conclusion of a team of international scientists, which includes University of Central Florida professor and diving enthusiast John Fauth. The researchers found that oxybenzone, a common UV-filtering compound, is in high concentrations in the waters around the more popular coral reefs in Hawaii, and the Caribbean. The chemical not only kills the coral, it causes DNA damage in adults and deforms the DNA in coral in the larval,,, Read the rest here 19:40
Alaska 2015 salmon values = $414 million; PWS tops all regions
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) has compiled preliminary figures for the 2015 commercial salmon harvest and harvest value. The total 2015 statewide commercial salmon harvest was 263.5 million fish, and was comprised of 474,000 Chinook salmon, 15.2 million chum salmon, 3.6 million coho salmon, 190.5 million pink salmon, and 54 million sockeye salmon. Overall, this represents the second largest salmon harvest on record, and was exceeded only by the record harvests of 2013. Read the rest here 15:32
Video – Louisiana anglers want control of red-snapper fishery, survey shows
This year for the first time, NOAA Fisheries separated the recreational charter fleet from private-boat anglers, offering federally licensed guides a 44-day red snapper season. That move seemed to be popular with survey respondents. Among private-boat anglers, 53 percent said the groups should be managed separately, either by the state or the feds. Sector separation was even more popular with federally permitted guides, with 65 percent saying they support it. Read the rest here 12:23
Simrad unveils new trawl tech – Simrad PX TrawlEye and Simrad TV80 software platform
Launched at Danfish this October, the new Simrad PX TrawlEye and Simrad TV80 software platform are designed to deliver a clear, detailed picture of the net and condition of either a bottom or pelagic trawl. Through the unique use of a composite echo sounder transducer enabling advanced Linear Frequency Modulation (LFM), also called CHIRP, the PX TrawlEye provides a crisp and detailed presentation of catch entering the trawl, the status of the gear, as well as the bottom conditions. The sensor is placed on the headrope of a bottom trawl,,, Read the rest here 12:00
Study: Less than 3 percent of eels survive Ontario dams
The study, published by the American Fisheries Society in one of their symposium series, Managing the Impact of Human Activities on Fish Habitat: the Governance, Practices and Science in June 2015, looked at eels in the upper St. Lawrence River, Ottawa River and Lake Ontario watersheds in eastern Ontario. It examined the cumulative effects of hydroelectric dams on the eels and projected that only 2.8 out of every 100 eels would survive passing through them as they traveled through the Mississippi and Ottawa Rivers to the Upper St. Lawrence River. Read the rest here 10:56
Increasing Imports = Vanishing nets: Area shrimpers sail on despite rising costs
No one would have predicted the demise of the Lowcountry’s most iconic industry just a few decades ago. Back then, the Gay’s dock would fill up with trawlers forming a city of lights each morning before dawn. “There would be dozens of shrimp boats all lined up, all lit up getting ready to work,” Gay said. “Now if you see two or three shrimp boats together it’s really something to see.” The problem, Gay said, isn’t that there are fewer shrimp off the SC coast. And it isn’t that demand for shrimp is down. Rather, foreign shrimpers have moved in to meet the demand, flooding the market with their shrimp and driving down prices. Most shrimp eaten in America today come from farms in Asia rather than trawlers off the coast hired by the Gays and other local families. Read the rest here 09:27:47
Catching Jonah: Could an overlooked crab break Maine’s lobster dependence?
Tina Gray of Deer Isle recalls when picking and selling crabmeat was a prevalent cottage industry along the Maine coast. She and other lobstermen’s wives routinely picked and packaged crab meat at their kitchen sinks, she said, but many got out of the trade years ago when new federal rules for seafood processing went into place. Gray, who’s going on 33 years picking crab meat for a living, remains one of just a few in her area who keep up with the work. She bills herself as “ The Crab Lady.” Read the rest here 08:22
Liberals sweep P.E.I.’s four ridings, toppling fisheries minister
The Liberals strengthened their hold on Prince Edward Island in Monday’s federal election, sweeping the province’s four seats and claiming a high-profile member of Stephen Harper’s cabinet. Fisheries Minister Gail Shea lost her riding of Egmont to Liberal Bobby Morrissey. Personally popular, Shea won the traditional Liberal stronghold by a slim margin in 2008 and by more than 4,000 votes in 2011. But as the 11-week campaign progressed she increasingly battled the anti-Harper sentiment that ran strong across the Island,,, Read the rest here 07:57
Greenpeace claims on coral refuted by NOAA’s more accurate technology
The study was conducted to help inform the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) of the state of coral in the Pribilof Canyon in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska and whether it was threatened by pollock fishing in the area, before they made their decision earlier this month to continue to allow fishing there. “[During NOAA’s] camera study, we scattered camera drops everywhere along the slope, we weren’t [focused on] any location, to map where corals are found. We sent cameras down 250 times [in one month], compared to the Greenpeace study, [which sent] 30,” Sigler said. Read the rest here 14:46
Brother searched for missing fishermen after mayday call
The brother of a fisherman presumed drowned off the Canterbury coast was one of the first to respond to the mayday call. , had been fishing from a different Ocean Fisheries trawler in the same spot only hours before the mayday call. Paul Bennett decided to stay put for the night, while Bryce Bennett and his crew left about midnight to go to a different spot to start fishing again at daybreak, family friend Lex Bloomfield said. When Bryce Bennett learned of the mayday call, “he started steaming back as fast as he could”, Read the rest here 13:06
UPDATED: Search for missing fishermen continues today
Five divers are on their way to scour the water for crew members of a fishing vessel that went missing near Canterbury in a storm yesterday. A boat was located on the seabed last night but three crew from the FV Jubilee, who sent out a distress call during “brutal” weather about 4.30am yesterday, have still not been found. Canterbury police said five members of the Wellington-based police dive squad would help with the recovery phase of the operation today. Inspector Craig McKay said a commercial fishing vessel located an “item of interest” near the FV Jubilee’s last known position,,, Read the rest here 11:12
Brother searched for missing fishermen after mayday call – Read the rest here 12:47
The real Fisherman’s Wharf: An addiction to the sea
Sandquist, a commercial fisherman, sips his whiskey and beer and looks out the window. He just returned from a trip to Monterey after the commercial anchovy fishing season closed. His stress level is noticeably lower, but his mind has still been on fishing — thinking about which crew member picked up the fish scraps the other morning for the upcoming crab season. His fishing obsession started when he was young. He would set bait traps with cat food he bought at a local pet store and sell them for a quarter apiece to the bait shop. Video, Read the rest here 09:47
Alaska’s fishing fatalities are dropping, no matter how you mix the numbers
The deadliest catch is getting a lot less deadly. Last week, the reported to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council that for the first time in known history, no one died on the job while commercial fishing in Alaska during the last federal fiscal year, which ended Sept. 31. “This is the first year, going back as far as we have records, that we didn’t have what I’ll characterize as an operational-related death,” said Coast Guard Capt. Phillip Thorne, chief of enforcement for the Coast Guard in Alaska. That claim comes with a few caveats,,, Read the rest here 08:25
3MMI – El Nino Strikes Again: California Squid Fishery Dries Up
Published on Oct 19, 2015, 3-Minute Market Insight: Pacific Loligo Squid have been dramatically impacted by the warm water effects of El Nino. The Loligo fishery started strong, but as the squid began to move to cooler and deeper waters, many fishermen were out of luck. Watch the Tradex 3-Minute Market Insight here 07:48Coast Guard Cutter Albacore assists disabled fishing vessel off Monomoy
Watchstanders at Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England notified the 1st Coast Guard District Command Center late Thursday afternoon stating a 41-foot commercial fishing vessel, Angel Fish, was disabled with three people aboard. Angel Fish was reported to be disabled due to a main diesel engine failure. Unable to hail any vessels in the area to assist, the Coast Guard Cutter Albacore was diverted from patrol to help. Read the rest here 21:01
Fleet separation, trade deal big election issues for Cape Breton fishermen
The fishery is one of the largest sectors in the Cape Breton economy, and while there are several issues of concern to fishermen in the federal election, none of them has made a big splash during the campaign. No one is sure why that is, but lobster fisherman Kevin Squires of Big Bras d’Or, president of Local 6 of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, said those issues should be getting more attention. “Look around Cape Breton,” Squires said Sunday. “Look at our employment history and our employment prospects and look at what part of our economy,,, Read the rest here 18:31
Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance Weekly Update, OCT 19, 2015
The Rhode Island Fishermen’s Alliance is dedicated to its mission of continuing to help create sustainable fisheries without putting licensed fishermen out of business.” Read the update here To read all the updates, click here 12:50
