Daily Archives: September 12, 2020

Mike Rowe of “Dirty Jobs” pens heartfelt note after Lowcountry shrimp boat captain’s death

On Friday morning, Lowcountry shrimp boat Captain Wayne Magwood passed away after being hit by a car on Coleman Blvd. in Mount Pleasant. Magwood, the captain of The Winds of Fortune, once appeared on the hit TV show called Dirty Jobs with host Mike Rowe in Season 2 of the show. “Deadliest Catch was not yet a thing, and most Captains of any respectable fishing vessel would never allow a camera crew aboard. But Captain Magwood was game. He loved his boat, loved his home, and loved his job – all of which was made obvious to me on the day we spent together,” Rowe said.,,, The Winds of Fortune – I met Captain Wayne Magwood in 2005, back when he welcomed me aboard The Winds of Fortune, a shrimp boat that plied the waters off Shem Creek in South Carolina. We were shooting the second season of Dirty Jobs, and I wanted to do a story on the shrimp industry. >click to read< 18:00

‘Nothing good in this reform’ – Controversial fishing reforms in NSW – More debt, less certainty

A long-awaited report has found the New South Wales Government’s sweeping fishing industry reforms, which were supposed to solve major structural problems, have plunged fishermen into debt and business insecurity. The number of commercial fishermen dropped from a high of 3,500 in the 1980s to 1,100 prior to the reforms, and 300 have left since. In 2016, the NSW Government tried to address the overallocation of fishing licences during the 1990s and early 2000s, to prevent overfishing, and restore the sector to profit. The Business Adjustment Package (BAP) was designed to     help inactive or older fishermen retire their licences. >click to read< 12:54

A page with a lot of posts on the NSW Government Fishery Reforms, such as Catch Shares New South Wales Style – Half the Small Boat Fishermen will disappear, June 14, 2016 >click to read<

Irish Fishing industry faces perfect storm of no-deal Brexit and Covid challenge

Patrick Murphy’s stark summing-up of the current state of the Irish fishing industry is not breaking news to those involved. But it will come as a surprise to many people in West Cork that fishing accounts for such a huge chunk of the local economy. When you think about the businesses that supply the hundreds of vessels operating off the south coast, it quickly becomes obvious why the industry must be protected here. Even medium-sized trawlers will use thousands of euro of diesel every year, and a modest operator will take on board about €500 or €600 worth of groceries to feed a small crew for a week. >click to read< 11:28

Seafood Trade Relief Program: USDA tweaks farm assistance program to fund fishermen hurt by U.S. China trade war

Jeremy Leighton is a dive fisherman based in Ketchikan. But it’s not just geoduck fishermen. Frances Leach heads up United Fishermen of Alaska, a fishing industry group. “China seems to be one of the biggest markets for a lot of our seafood products in Alaska. And not just buying them for consumption, but also processing. We send a lot of seafood over to China to be processed,” Leach said. Now, Leighton and thousands of other U.S. fishermen could be eligible for a new program designed to help fishermen hurt by the tariff on seafood. It’s an Agriculture Department initiative called the Seafood Trade Relief Program. U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan said it’s a new twist on an old trade war strategy. “There have been long standing U.S. Department of Agriculture programs that provide relief to farmers, when their products exported are hit with retaliatory tariffs,” Sullivan said. >click to read< 10:21

Longtime shrimper Wayne Magwood identified as pedestrian killed in Mount Pleasant crash

A longtime shrimp boat captain who recently retired from his trade was killed when a dump truck overturned Friday morning in Mount Pleasant, authorities have confirmed. Edwin “Wayne” Magwood, 67, of Mount Pleasant, died at 10:13 a.m. at Coleman Boulevard and Mill Street of blunt force injuries suffered in the crash, according to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office. Magwood was a pedestrian, the Coroner’s Office said. >click to read< 08:14

Longtime shrimper and vessel retire from Shem Creek – Winds are blowing in a new direction for a historic shrimping vessel that has been a fixture on Shem Creek for more than 30 years. The Winds of Fortune, a staple of Shem Creek’s maritime history, has sold. Wayne Magwood, longtime shrimper and captain, originally purchased the vessel in 1987 and hauled it to the Lowcountry from Alabama. Three decades later, it’s now departing from its dock after being scooped up by a seafood distributor from Holden Beach, N.C. >click to read<