Tag Archives: F/V Midnight Sun
The northern stargazer: A fish that lives under the sand and packs a punch
A friend of mine, Tom Testaverde, who is captain of the fishing vessel F/V Midnight Sun, recently sent me a photo of a fish he caught in his net while fishing for squid near Rhode Island. I honestly had no idea what it was, but I got out my trusty “Fishes of the Gulf of Maine” by Bigelow and Schroeder and began a search for this odd-looking fish. First, I could see that it was slimy and did not have scales. It also had huge pectoral fins that looked more like paddle-shaped feet. You couldn’t ignore the huge, wide mouth that tipped up with what appeared to be an underbite and tiny eyes. This is not a fish I had ever seen before, and I wish he had brought it in so we could have had a closer look. >click to read< 09:04
New Hampshire: Skull of extinct Atlantic walrus on display at Explore the Ocean World Oceanarium
Tom Testaverde was fishing his stern trawler, the fishing vessel, F/V Midnight Sun, in about 50 fathoms (300 feet) of water along Race Point off Provincetown, Massachusetts, in the Gulf of Maine. He hauled in the “bag” of fish, concentrating on the catch and the species as the bag opened and spilled onto the deck, when he saw what looked like a middle finger sticking out of the mesh between the fish.,, The skull resided in his garage for many years, but is now on loan to the Oceanarium. Seeing the tusks in person is a real treat and one I love to share with visitors.,,, Many thanks to Tom and the crew of the Midnight Sun for the generous loan of this great piece of natural history. >click to read< 12:22
Something fishy in the quotas?
The clatter reverberated in the refrigerated cold as workers offloaded fish and wheeled full bins into a storage area on Fisherman’s Wharf. The catch was sorted, weighed, labeled, and eventually loaded onto large trucks headed for New York. It was a big haul, but not a big payday for Tom Testaverde Jr., captain of the Midnight Sun. “Our season’s been good. We caught a lot of fish, but the prices have been killing us all year,” Testaverde said. He pointed to imports that drive prices down, and regulations that limit what kinds of fish he can catch. Those federal limits on some species — particularly groundfish such as cod and flounder — are at odds with what commercial fishermen say they are seeing in the ocean. click here to read the story 14:34
