Daily Archives: October 3, 2016
Capt. Keith Williams: New head of DEEP’s EnCon Marine Division
As the newly appointed head of the Marine Division of the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s EnCon Police, Williams, 44, is in charge of keeping up with a wide array of regulations that change with the seasons across a large area of the state. “I’m a huge field guy,” said Williams. “I like to be involved in what the guys are doing.” Along with making sure recreational fishermen and boaters are following the laws for fishing seasons, no-wake zones and licensing, the Marine Division also conducts periodic checks of wholesale and retail seafood dealers to make sure the fish being sold meet state regulations,, and do periodic checks of the state’s commercial fishermen, based mainly in Stonington and New London. “I’ll check when they’re offloading, doing surprise checks at the dock,” he said. “We’ll go to the docks in Stonington frequently just to keep them honest, and let them know we’re out there.” Read the story here 19:33
Maine fisheries experts head to Japan to learn scallop practices, buy machinery
Expanding on earlier visits to Japan, 10 aquaculture and fisheries experts from Maine are headed for Aomori Prefecture in the northern part of Japan’s main island of Honshu to learn successful techniques to grow scallops and to buy machinery to help harvest them. “Sea scallops are among the most lucrative commercial marine species caught in the United States,” Hugh Cowperthwaite, fisheries project director at Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI), of Portland and the trip leader, told Mainebiz as he was preparing to leave for Aomori last Friday. Over the Oct. 1-15 visit, Maine’s scallop experts will meet with the Aomori Prefecture Fisheries Research Institute to learn about the oceanographic effects of releasing scallop larvae as well as learn to use a spat harvester. They’ll also observe scallop and marine processing facilities and see cage cleaning at the Shimokita Product Market, plus visit various fisheries cooperative associations to get aquaculture equipment training. Read the story here, and watch the video 18:27
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting in Galloway, NJ, Oct 4-6, 2016 – Listen Live!
The public is invited to attend the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s October meeting to be held at the Stockton Seaview Hotel, 401 South New York Road, Galloway, NJ. Read the Council Meeting Agenda, For online access to the meeting, enter as a guest Click here 17:20
Falklands squid catch dives from 350,000t to 2,000t, Argentina at 20-year low
Juan Redini, president of the chamber of jiggers of Argentina, presented some shocking figures on squid catches in his country and also the Falkland Islands, during the cephalopod conference on the Monday before Conxemar. Argentina’s catches of squid for 2016 are just over 50,000 metric tons (see blue bars below) in 2016, with catches in the Falklands at around 2,000t (see red bars). In 2015, catches from Argentina’s vessels were around 110,000t, with the Falklands catching over 350,000t. This “massive trend downwards” has caused prices to rocket. According to a slide (see below) from Redini, prices were around $1,000/t in 2015, but have nearly doubled in 2016, with the massive drop in volumes. Read the rest here 16:33
New Lobster Boat Under Construction in North Carolina
Custom Steel Boats, Inc. of Merritt, N.C., in collaboration with Ted & Todd’s Marine of Beaufort, N.C., announced a new construction project. Custom Steel Boats is building a 70-foot steel hull lobster boat, Two Dukes, for Captain Eric, Inc of Seaville, N.J. The vessel will be used in the waters off of New Jersey as well as North Carolina to catch lobster. The vessel was designed by DeJong and Lebet in Jacksonville, Fla. to meet the needs of the customer. Two more images, Read the rest here 16:16
3-Minute Market Insight – What Happened to the Fraser River Sockeye Salmon? We ask DFO, Scientist and Fishermen
For this special 300th episode we dug deep to find answers for the question in the back of everyone’s mind – where has all the Fraser River Sockeye salmon gone? In the final in-season assessment of the Fraser River, the Pacific Salmon Commission reported parts of the Fraser at 2.5 degrees higher than average for this time of year, as well as 15 percent lower water discharge. We spoke with Angela Bates, the Area Director for Fraser and BC Interior at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver, to investigate recent spawning trends. We Asked: The lowest return on record since 1893 is expected this year – what are the factors? Click here to watch the video or click here to read the transcript. Congratulations to Tradex for their 300th episode! 15:18
Ruling forces discussions on breaching Snake River dams to save salmon
A federal judge is forcing discussion of a radical step to save endangered salmon: taking out four dams on the Lower Snake River. The public will get a chance to weigh in at meetings throughout the Northwest starting next month. “Scientists tell us that removing the four Lower Snake dams is the single most important action we could take to restore salmon in the entire Columbia-Snake river basin,” said Sam Mace of Save Our Wild Salmon. The four dams produce about 5 percent of the Northwest’s hydroelectric power. They allow barges to ship goods between Lewiston and Portland. But they also hamper salmon migration to some of the best remaining fish habitat. Read the story here 13:07
Port Clyde lobster boat intentionally sunk for the third time since August
A lobster boat was intentionally sunk over the weekend for the third time in a little more than a month. Maine Marine Patrol Sgt. Matthew Talbot said Monday he has never seen one boat being targeted so many times. The third sinking of the Liberty, which is owned by Tony Hooper of St. George, was reported at 4 a.m. Saturday. The boat was initially sunk on Aug. 17. In that instance, the vessel went to the bottom of the harbor, causing considerable damage to its engine and electronics. The vessel was hauled out of the water and repaired. Then, shortly after being put back into service, it was cut loose from its mooring and had its hoses cut, causing it to start sinking again on Sept. 28. The boat grounded on shore and was swamped with water up to the railings, Talbot said. Read the story here 12:14
Bipartisan Congressional Push for Summer Flounder Assessment
In a bipartisan letter submitted to Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Eileen Sobeck on Thursday, members of the 
stressed the importance of scheduling a benchmark assessment for summer flounder in 2017. Citing the socioeconomic value of the commercial and recreational summer flounder fishery and the looming quota reductions proposed for 2017 and 2018 due in part to a lack of data, Rep. Tom MacArthur and 4 other representatives indicate that any delay in the assessment of summer flounder “would be a major mistake and threaten the health of the summer flounder population as well as the economy of the communities the fishery supports.” Read the story here 11:56
Shocked fishermen discover male human genitals inside a large yellowfin tuna caught in Tampa Bay
Jerry Masterson, 33, caught the large yellowfin tuna 
weighing in at over 80 pounds in Tampa Bay, Florida. The horror discovery was made when Mr Masterson started gutting the fish while onboard the boat. “We were convinced we were just going to have one of those days when the fish don’t bite, when I felt a big tug on my line.” Mr Masterson was at first thrilled to land the massive tuna, but was soon disgusted at what he found. He said: “I had just made a cut behind the fish’s head and through its belly, running the knife down along its spine. “My first reaction was one of disgust, because there was a terrible smell of decomposing meat coming from the fish’s stomach. “Inside the fish’s stomach was an awful sight. There was no mistaking that I was looking at a man’s penis and testicles.” Read the rest here 09:22
Fisherman to join shark fight as contractors to deploy drumlines
The Baird government will have to employ contractors, likely to be fishermen
to carry out its plan to deploy 100 “smart” drumlines as it grapples with preventing more shark attacks. Resisting calls for shark nets to be installed in NSW north coast waters that have suffered a spate of attacks in the past 18 months, the government instead announced an extra 85 smart drumlines will be installed, particularly around Ballina. South Cross University marine biologist Danny Bucher said he was concerned about how commercial fishermen would handle the sharks. “The tradition of how to handle a fish, for a fisherman, is quite different to how you handle a fish as a scientist. For me to actually catch a fish for research purposes, I have to do a 14-page ethics-committee approval. It’s quite a different matter for a fisherman,” Dr Bucher said. “Those fisherman would have to be trained.” (lol) Read the story here 09:04
An interesting post on Cod – ‘Are they still fishing this?’ by Edward Stern
Are they still fishing this?’ replied Dr. George Rose in an email earlier this year. I had written to Rose asking about cod length at first spawning, or the typical size of cod when they are sexually mature. Growth of this species, Gadus morhua, is regulated within a general range by where the fish lives. For a number or reasons, cod around Newfoundland are typically larger than cod in the Baltic. Rose is well aware of these differences. Despite the understood differences in cod growth, Rose balked at the most recent assessment data on eastern Baltic cod which indicates that 50% of the cod are sexually mature enough to spawn at 20-centimetres in length. ‘20 cm maturity is way less than anything ever observed over this way. Although I do not know all the details the [eastern Baltic] stock appears to be in hard shape. Are they still fishing this?’ Fast forward to just a few months ago when the International Council for Exploration of the Seas (ICES) released their formal advice for the Baltic cod stocks in 2017. Read the article here 07:33
