Tag Archives: commercial longline fisherman
Wiki-fishing: How Alaska’s smaller boats compete with vast trawlers
Stephen Rhoads, a commercial longline fisherman in Alaska’s verdant south-east panhandle, fishes by two rules. One is: stay married. Mr Rhoads has seen countless marriages of fellow fishermen sink under the weight of so many days at sea. The second rule is: use fewer hooks.,, A war between small family fishing operations and Seattle-based companies pushed Alaska to statehood in 1959. The state’s $6 billion commercial fishing industry still suffers from a David-and-Goliath complex . Over the years, Alaskan halibut fishermen have faced big reductions in their harvest limits while factory trawlers dump millions of pounds of dead halibut overboard as by-catch. Read the article here 16:42