Daily Archives: May 24, 2025
On the 4am boat with the last fishermen in Hastings
It’s 3:59 am on Tuesday and one half of the crew is not yet on Hastings beach. “No, I’m here,” says Neil Prebble, 63, or Uncle Albert as his friends call him because he’s the spit of the Only Fools and Horses character. “I’m not going to be early when it’s a 4am start, am I?” “All aboard then,” says Roland Kelly, 62, the Scottish skipper, and I climb a three-metre ladder to the deck of Gratitude. Tim, 67, is not coming to sea. He’s just here to operate the bulldozer that shoves the 10-metre tub down the beach and into the waves. He’ll be back in a few hours to winch us out again. With an alarming lurch and roll, the high tide catches the boat then we’re motoring off into the English Channel and total darkness. Kelly’s safety briefing is brief and to the point: “If something goes wrong, just get out of our f***ing way. We’re the fishermen. You’re not. Let us do our jobs.” Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 16:55
These Photos and Videos Reveal Why Maryland’s Blue Catfish Must Be Killed
Jay Fleming knows blue catfish eat just about anything. But it wasn’t until recently, when he visited a fish processing plant in Maryland and started slicing into their bellies, that he fully realized the volume and variety of their appetites. “They are eating shellfish, they’re eating clams, they’re eating crabs crawling on the bottom, they’re eating fish like perch, they’re eating fish at the top of the water column,” Fleming tells Outdoor Life. “They’re very opportunistic feeders and they’ve really found an abundant food source in these rivers of the Chesapeake Bay. And their populations have blown up — big time.” Fleming is a 37-year-old professional photographer from Annapolis who has been documenting the growing catfish problem in his beloved homewaters. Video, photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 12:50
Panama City fishing captain gets a month in prison for killing and poisoning multiple dolphins
A Panama City fishing captain was sentenced to prison for a month and ordered to pay $51,000 for poisoning and shooting bottlenose dolphins on multiple occasions. A release from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Florida said Zackery Brandon Barfield, 31, was charged with three counts of poisoning and shooting dolphins. Barfield was a charter and fishing captain who was getting increasingly frustrated that dolphins were eating red snapper off of his customers’ fishing lines. He shot and poisoned dolphins on multiple occasions between 2022 and 2023, according to the attorney’s office. Prosecutors said the captain put methomyl, a highly toxic pesticide that affects the nervous system, in his bait fish so he could poison the dolphins surfacing near his boat. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 10:10
Questions of transparency swirl around Vineyard Wind
Just a fraction of Vineyard Wind’s planned offshore wind turbines are in operation despite nearly three years of construction, and the company is staying silent on what is slowing production down and when it’ll actually finish the project. First reported by the State House News Service, Vineyard Wind 1, an offshore wind farm 15 miles south of the Island, only has four turbines providing power to the grid, which the Times confirmed with state officials. But that is one less than what was reported in February of 2024, and Vineyard Wind is well past a goal of being fully operational by mid-2024. Avangrid, the project’s parent company, made the prediction during a boat tour of the construction site in 2023. Now, it is uncertain when construction will finish. Craig Gilvarg, Vineyard Wind spokesperson, declined to comment after multiple attempts to reach him. more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:50
Homer ‘Blessing of the Fleet’ remembers, honors sacrifices of local mariners
Boats of all sizes and occupations on Tuesday gathered offshore the Spit, in the choppy, early evening sea breeze, at the annual Blessing of the Fleet. Two rows of chairs, a quiet nod to the mariners no longer with us, sat empty in front of the Seafarers Memorial as community members quietly gathered in somber reflection of lives lost to the sea over the past year. Pastor Jamie McBride of Glory View Church began the ceremony on Tuesday by saying that the blessing was a way to “tell our fishing community that we are here with you, that we are standing with you, praying with you, and believing that God is going to bless and protect what you guys go out and do every day.” more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 07:32
