Daily Archives: November 24, 2024

Past lobster season opener hits and misses in southwestern Nova Scotia

The majority of time if the scheduled opening day of the lobster season in southwestern Nova Scotia doesn’t go according to plan, it’s because the weather and safety concerns have forced a postponement. The lobster season is always slated to open the last Monday of November. Strong winds are preventing that once again from happening on Monday, Nov. 25 for the start of the 2024-25 season. Tuesday, Nov. 26, has been identified as the more favourable option with industry weather calls happening the morning of Monday, Nov. 25 in LFAs 34 and 33 to confirm the season opening. While weather is always the culprit for a season opening delay, through time there have been other issues that have also had impacts on season starts. Here’s a look back at past season openers. Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:57

Commercial Fisherman/Vietnam Veteran Ronald Raymond Rust of Kenai, Alaska, has passed away

He spent his younger years living in Fairbanks. Ron and his wife Kathy moved their family to Kenai in 1981, where he lived until his passing on October 14, 2024 with his son Daniel at his side. Ron was a decorated Vietnam Veteran with an E-5 ranking in the Army. Ron was a commercial fisherman in the Cook Inlet for 59 years. His boys grew up fishing with him on his boat the “FV TIGER”. Ron also drove a school bus for over 10 years, while doing so he participated in many bus rodeos where he took championship awards for several of those years. He was an avid dart thrower. Rons greatest pleasure in his last years was to drive to the canneries and visit with his fisherman friends. and share pictures and generally sharing stories about the past with them.  more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:25

Newfoundland and Labrador recorded its highest lobster landings ever this past season

And so, this past spring, when I was hearing so much about the abundance of lobsters in our waters, I wanted to find out what was going on.  I called around to several harvesters in various parts of the province to find out about their catch rates. The thing is, when lobsters are plentiful, lobster fishermen can be a tight-lipped bunch.  I knew after a few phone calls, it would be hard to get anyone to go on camera for a Land & Sea show to brag about their bounty. And that was confirmed for me by Fortune Bay fisherman Alfred Fitzpatrick, who fishes out of Garnish on the Burin Peninsula. “Fellows will tell you they poached a moose before they tell you they caught a lobster. If you hauled 200 pots and you got 10 lobsters, and your brother asked you, you’d say, ‘Boy, I got five,'” explained Fitzpatrick. Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:14

“Everything helps”: Local shrimpers happy for foreign shrimp tariffs

The U.S. International Trade Commission has found that the U.S. Seafood industry has been suffering due to foreign frozen warmwater shrimp. “It’s going to take time it’s not going to be a quick fix,” Miss Caylee Seafood Co-Owner, David Bryan said. Bryan has been shrimping for nearly his entire life but says the shrimping industry in South Mobile County is getting dangerously scarce. “Some days you break even and some days you make a little money and some days you have exceptional days,” Bryan said. The battle of cost between foreign shrimp and domestic shrimp has made it harder for shrimpers to pay their bills to keep business going. Video, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:10