Daily Archives: August 10, 2018
Marshallberg man builds new shrimp boat
Down East native Zack Davis hopes his recent boatbuilding project will help keep the tradition alive in the area. A teacher at East Carteret High School, Mr. Davis recently built a shrimping boat with some help from friends, family and students. “It’s named the Addie and Dallas,” Mr. Davis said about the boat, which is 56 feet long and 18 feet wide. “That’s after my daughter and little boy.” Although Mr. Davis describes the boat as mid-sized, he said he used a relatively new method of boat construction called cold molding. “It’s really a new style,” Mr. Davis said. >click to read<18:51
Senate Bill 1309 – There’s a compelling case for more transparency in California fisheries.
Figuring out who owns the right to fish commercially on the Pacific Coast is typically easy: In fisheries managed by the states of Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, as well as the federal government, all you have to do is ask. California is an outlier. Here, the names of individuals and companies that own the right to fish in state-managed fisheries are confidential.,,, Through my investigation I found the wording of the confidentiality provision hadn’t been changed since 1933, even though at that time, there were no fishing rights to own. Times have changed, but the law hasn’t. Now commercial fishing rights, or limited-entry permits as they’re known in the industry, are worth more than $100 million and bought and sold on an open market. Consumers – as well as fishermen – don’t have the right to know who owns what in state-managed fisheries. >click to read<16:26
Framed?
Already struggling financially and facing unhappy neighbors in Alaska’s Kachemak Bay, the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association (CIAA) now finds itself being drawn into a public-relations mess with four board members charged in an explosive case of illegal fishing. And one of the men charged believes CIAA efforts to grow more salmon is at the heart of the issue.“This is all about politics,” commercial seiner Mark Roth said Thursday. Fishermen regularly fish too close to open-closed lines, stray across and get ticketed. As Mark noted, those cases almost never make the news. ,, For the 64-year-old Mark, sons Paul, 35, and Robert, 39, and friend Eric Winslow, a 61-year-old Alaska fishermen whose home is in Florida, it was different. They this week made the news in a big way,,, >click to read<14:46
Double murderer’s cocaine case likely headed for trial
A man sentenced to life in prison in December for killing a Florida Keys couple in the fall of 2015 has so far rejected a plea offer for a cocaine trafficking conspiracy charge connected to the same case. If Jeremy Macauley, 35, doesn’t take the plea deal prosecutors offered him in May, the drug case will go to trial next month, and the names of others possibly involved in bringing more than a dozen kilos of cocaine to shore the summer before the murders will likely be discussed during testimony. Macauley was a charter boat mate on a fishing vessel docked at Whale Harbor Marina in Windley Key at the time of the slayings. Detectives and prosecutors say the cocaine was found offshore by Macauley and his charter boat captain boss, Rick Rodriguez >click to read<
Lobster boats race at Winter Harbor this Saturday, on Sunday at Pemaquid Harbor
Whether summer is at its peak or is beginning to wind down may be open to debate, but there’s no question that the Maine lobster boat racing season is entering its final phase. On July 29, racing returned to Harpswell for the first time in five years and drew a fleet of nearly 50 boats to the seventh event on the Maine Lobster Boat Racing Association calendar. This Saturday, weather cooperating, a substantially larger number of entries is expected for the eighth event on the calendar — the 53rd annual Winter Harbor Lobster Boat Races, held in conjunction with the Winter Harbor Lobster Festival. On Sunday, racing is scheduled for Pemaquid Harbor where the 32nd Merritt Brackett Lobster Boat Races will be a feature of the annual Old Bristol Days celebration. >click to read<11:19
Kristjan Loftsson’s company is the last one in the world still hunting fin whales. His credo: “If it’s sustainable, you hunt.”
Mr. Loftsson, 75, is the world’s last commercial hunter of fin whales. He has been denounced by environmental groups and his boats have been sunk by radical activists, but his business is legal here because Iceland doesn’t recognize the international moratorium on commercial whaling. Mr. Loftsson likes to say that whale blood runs in his veins. For Mr. Loftsson and his supporters, whaling is no different than agriculture or fisheries. “If it’s sustainable, you hunt,” he said. >click to read<10:48
They’re big, they’re fat and thankfully there are finally a whole lot of ‘em!
It’s early, but the Fraser River sockeye salmon run is looking strong for fishermen in U.S. waters. The season started earlier this week for commercial fishermen, with salmon coming in large numbers through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and heading toward Canadian waters. There are a lot of the fish, and they are fat, said Riley Starks, of Lummi Island Wild. The company does reefnet fishing near Lummi Island. On Monday the crew had its best one-day catch ever, he said. >click to read<09:00
