Daily Archives: November 28, 2018
Clam controversy – There is much at stake, like a lot of jobs.
In June, at the Intershell dock on Commercial Street, owners Monte and Yibing Gao Rome launched their new 55-foot surf clam boat, F/V Bing Bing, amid the hoopla and happiness associated with a new Gloucester boat going into the water. But on Tuesday, Intershell and the other major surf clammers along the Northeast will find out if they still have a surf clam fishery to call home in the lucrative and historically rich Great South Channel of the Nantucket Shoals. The New England Fishery Management Council, in a trailing action to its Omnibus 2 Essential Fish Habitat Amendment, will decide if a large swath of the current surf clam fishery, 10 to 20 miles east and southeast of Nantucket, will remain open to surf clamming or possibly be closed as part of a protectionist move to designate the full area as an essential fish habitat. >click to read<22:45
New Bedford Fishing Boat Captain Sentenced
The former captain of a New Bedford fishing boat owned by Carlos Rafael, a/k/a “The Codfather,” was sentenced today in federal court in Boston for interfering with a U.S Coast Guard (USCG) inspection of a fishing boat off the Massachusetts coast. Thomas D. Simpson, 57, of South Portland, Maine, was sentenced in U.S. District Court to two years of probation, with the first four months to be served in home confinement with electronic monitoring, and ordered to pay a $15,000 fine. In August 2018, Simpson pleaded guilty to one count of destruction or removal of property subject to seizure and inspection. Simpson was the captain of the fishing vessel Bulldog,,, >click to read<18:04
Lobster season off southwest Nova Scotia postponed again due to bad weather
The federal Fisheries Department confirmed today that industry representatives from Lobster Fishing Area 33, which extends from Halifax to the southwestern tip of the province, have decided to open their season on Saturday at 7 a.m. About 700 fishing boats are expected to dump their traps that day, unless the weather again turns foul. In Lobster Fishing Area 34, which includes 970 boats that work the waters off the province’s western edge, fishermen and federal officials decided today to put off their final decision until a conference call is held Thursday morning. >click to read<17:31
Hatchery salmon help Alaska avert fishery disaster
Around mid-August this year, the fishing season in Southeast Alaska looked grim. Some areas had posted the lowest pink salmon landings since the 1970s, and the total pink catch would end up at just around 70 percent of the paltry 23 million fish forecast. For comparison, the 18 million pinks caught in 2016 prompted a disaster declaration from the federal government. But at the end of August, something unexpected happen. Hatchery chum salmon from the National Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association (NSRAA) remote release site at Crawfish Inlet, 40 miles south of Sitka, returned in unprecedented numbers, providing a massive shot in the arm for the industry. >click to read<16:38
Athearn Marine Agency Boat of the Week: 79′ Master Marine Steel Stern Trawler, CAT 3508, Federal and State permits
Specifications, information and 12 photos >click here< John Deere – 65 KW Genset, Detriot 2-71 – 20 K Genset, This vessel has good towing power as the 59 1/2″ x 63″ propeller turns 400 RPM inside the 60″ nozzle. To see all the boats in this series, >click here<14:25
Friendship Lobsterman Pleads No Contest to Arson
The Friendship lobsterman whose feud with another fisherman led him and his sternmen to torch the other man’s Waldoboro boathouse has pleaded no contest to arson more than six years after the fire. James R. Simmons, 43, entered the plea at the Lincoln County Courthouse in Wiscasset on Tuesday, Nov. 27. A second charge of arson was dismissed. He will be sentenced in January. >click to read<12:56
California seeks plan to protect whales and Dungeness crab fishery
Whales are a big deal, literally, as the most majestic, largest animals swimming off our shore. What the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has done in the past several years with our partners to prevent whale entanglements in fishing gear is a big deal, too.,, That is why our department is taking actions to protect the whales and our prized crab fishery. The department is working to create a conservation plan that will analyze the effects of crab fishing on whales, identify steps to minimize the risk of whale entanglements in the crab fishing gear, secure funding to implement the plan, and submit it to the federal government for needed approval. >click to read<12:14
America’s Finest – Waiver for fishing vessel makes it through Congress
A waiver for the $75 million ship America’s Finest is headed to the president for a signature following approval from both chambers of Congress. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a waiver Tuesday that will allow the fishing vessel to be used in U.S. waters when it approved the Frank LoBiondo Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2018, according to a news release from U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen’s office. The ship was built by Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes. >click to read<10:49
Money Talks – Vineyard Wind given more time to meet fishermen’s concerns
At the request of Vineyard Wind, the Coastal Resources Management Council agreed to postpone a decision until the end of January on whether to grant what’s known as a “consistency certification” to the 800-megawatt offshore wind farm proposed in 118 square miles between Block Island and Martha’s Vineyard. The delay will give the company more time to discuss a compensation package with fishermen and potential tweaks to the wind farm’s layout, said CEO Lars Pedersen. “It requires more time to find the right solutions,” he said. “We recognize that it is a challenging situation.” But representatives of the fishing industry argued against the stay. “We’ve tried — 14 months, countless hours, countless days not at sea — and it just seems like they’re stalling,” said Newport fisherman Todd Sutton. >click to read<10:19
Letter: Fishermen need federal help
It is time to wake up. I read in Fishery Nation about protesters and fishermen opposed to a hotel on the waterfront in Portland, Maine. It seems their city fathers are having a difficult time turning those developers down due to less commercial fishing in their town. I can understand it is hard for them to turn down hotels and other businesses. We in Gloucester face the same. Our fisherman can be displaced and new developments can perhaps provide more tax dollars to the city, but at our fisherman’s expense. >click to read<09:23
Salmon surge: Habitat improvements paying off on one California river
Near record numbers of chinook salmon are surging up the Mokelumne River, marking the second large spawning year in a row and signaling to fisheries biologists that habitat improvements in recent years are paying off for fish and the people who eat the pinkish delicacies.,,,It is expected to be the best two-year run on the river since records started being kept in 1940, a significant accomplishment given how dismal salmon returns have been over the past three years in virtually every other waterway in California, including the Sacramento River, which last year saw its lowest returns in eight years. >click to read<08:58
