Daily Archives: May 21, 2020
Fishing boat catches fire and sinks in Narragansett Bay
The Northeast Sector of the United States Coast Guard says that a 40-foot fishing boat sank in the Narragansett Bay Thursday afternoon following a fire on the boat. The Coast Guard said they received a report of a boat fire around 11 a.m. Thursday about 2.5 miles southeast of Point Judith. The three people on board were safely rescued and brought to shore by a crew from STA Point Judith. They were then transferred over to local EMS, the coast guard says. >click to read< 20:57
For troubled Outer Banks commercial fishing industry, Coronavirus is one more blow. Louisiana, too.
At the state and federal level, increasing regulatory requirements and catch quotas, fueled in part by aggressive lobbying of elected officials by the well-funded recreational fishing industry, have caused even more commercial fishermen to leave the industry. And now COVID-19 strikes another blow to the solar plexus of an industry that, no pun intended, can barely keep its collective heads above water. And interviews with two local operations — of distinctly different sizes — help shed light on how the COVID crisis has affected the Outer Banks’ commercial fisheries. Mark Vrablic of the Willie R Etheridge Seafood Company, one of the last remaining large-scale seafood distributors in Wanchese, minced no words when he described the losses created by the worldwide pandemic. >click to read< 19:15
Shrimp industry in Louisiana hit hard by Coronavirus pandemic – Shrimp processors are shut down and the baskets that are usually filled are empty. Brown shrimp season started on Monday, and so far it hasn’t been good. “Absolutely terrible, last year I had 42 boats going out during brown shrimp season, this year I only have 9 boats,” said Craig Napoli, C&A Seafood. >click to read<
UPDATED – New Brunswick: ‘This is terrible’, Val-Comeau seafood processing plant goes up in flames
A seafood processing plant in northeastern New Brunswick has gone up in flames Thursday afternoon. A plume of thick black smoke could be seen coming from Les Pêcheries de Chez Nous facility in Val-Comeau, a small coastal community now part of the regional municipality of Tracadie. Emmaneul Moyen, a representative of the Maritime Fishermen’s Union, told Radio-Canada it’s devastating news. He said about 100 local fishermen sell their catch to the plant, which had been operating at full capacity. “We are probably talking about 250 workers,” he said. >click to read the updated story< 16:47
Female Blue Crab Population Up In Chesapeake Bay, Juvenile Numbers Low
Chesapeake Bay blue crab population appears to have a healthy number of spawning-age female crabs, according to the 2020 Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey. Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission aims to conserve more than 70 million adult female crabs annually to ensure enough young crabs can be produced to sustain the population, a task that has now been achieved for the sixth consecutive year. This year’s survey estimates 141 million adult female crabs were conserved, which is above the long-term average of 126 million. The total amount of blue crab in the Chesapeake Bay in 2020 was 405 million crabs,,, >click to read< 14:56
‘Seasickness covers you like a shawl’ — my week on a Cornish trawler learning to fish
Though I set my alarm for 5.45am for this, my first morning on the Filadelfia, I sleep right through and rouse to find it is 9am and I am alone in the cabin. I can still feel seasickness menacing somewhere about my person. And so, though I hate the way it muffles my senses, I take another pill before scrambling up the ladder to join the men upstairs. I enter the galley to multiple jeers of: “Nice lie in?” and: “Get your beauty sleep?” Since everyone is seated about the table, I gather I must have woken up just after the Fishwife Call, when whoever is on watch puts the kettle on, makes mugs of coffee and then heads down to wake up the snoozing crew for the next haul. >click to read< 10:16
From Sea to Shining Recipe – Home Chefs Step Up Retail to Replace a Bit of Restaurant Deficit
Just 25 hours after Nantucket scallops were dredged and loaded from Georges Bank, they glistened like treasure at Viking Village in Barnegat Light. Aboard the 97-foot Kathy Ann, Capt. Cory Karch, mate Todd DeVito and crew had brought back dinner by the boatload on a recent Sunday to be packed out at the dock. “There is good demand, and the demand is coming from the retail mostly,” reported dock General Manager Ernie Panacek. Dining at home has turned into a pastime. “People are realizing that they can cook their own, and seafood is very easy to prepare.” photo’s, >click to read< 08:21
