When things don’t add up. By Jerry Leeman
Sitting here towing along thinking back 20 years ago fishing in the Gulf of Maine. We used to land a lot of white hake. An average trip was always around 15k to 30k of hake 5k of monk tails on average. These days you worry of catching too many and you try to stay within the realm of your allowable catch because fish cost money to catch. Yes even as crazy as that sounds boats quotas have been restricted from bad data collection to be so low, we have to purchase quota from other permits to maintain fishing. Then with these restrictions it puts a damper on markets. Imagine, markets that used to take in 200-500k of one specie a week then no longer are capable of taking in those fish because markets are not strong due to poor biomass data and allowable catches which have altered markets.
I’m towing through Wilkinson’s Basin here in the Gulf of Maine and I’m seeing more fish now than 20 years ago. 20 years ago I could stay right here and just fish the trip catching what we caught then landing. Now I can only make a handful of tows and have to move along away from these white hake and monks due to catch quota and fragile markets. If we land to many of one specie the price drops out and that’s the difference from making money and not. We pay a certain amount for fish to catch then depending on how many we land dictates whether you make that money back and enough to pay expenses and pay the crews. Everyone in the fleet is seeing more fish then we did 20 years ago.
When I started fishing, I remember hearing stories of crews fishing in the Gulf of Maine having fist fights over who would be allowed to bring home the very few haddock that were caught. These days there are haddock everywhere you go. Then not only is there more haddock in the Gulf of Maine then any time before, but we are restricting the catches again on species of haddock and white hake based on no real data collected from a model and methods that are not sound.
It’s taken me years to get decent at otter trawling to harvest fish from the sea. Now an individual who has spent time in a classroom is said to know more then we who spend our lives at sea. All I can say is they must of read a really good book to know what is in the sea especially when they’ve spent no time out here. During the pandemic of covid no research on biomass was conducted. Now prior to covid our government agencies said we had the greatest abundance of haddock ever in our life times. Then they walk it back with no data collected or time looking to an 84% reduction in allowable catch on haddock. This will make catching haddock in the Gulf of Maine worthless and restrict us from harvesting other species. You will have to buy quota to catch fish which will drop the price to the boats where the expenses and crew shares are not covered, forcing boats to either tie up or venture further out to sea compressing the fleet together into George’s banks areas.
Meanwhile, I don’t hear of Canada doing any cutbacks on their Gulf of Maine haddock quota. So, these fish freely swim across an imaginary line, and we are restricting 
the US fishermen for no good reasons at all. Only things I’ve come up with is other nations taking the US markets from the US fleet and wind turbines taking control over the bottom. Our government will kill the US fishing fleet that has been in the decline for years due to bad policies and regulations that make no sense. Things just don’t add up. Well, they do but it’s not for the US fishermen and the US consumers.
The public is being told the ocean is warming and the fish in our sea are being depleted, well from my 21 years at sea I can tell you whole heartedly that’s a lie. There are more fish now then when I started my career at sea. We have less boats and now we have a greying of the fleet, which means the age group is predominantly older with no new young blood to replace the aged fleet. We don’t allow new fishermen to obtain permits or quota to pursue a livelihood at sea. We no longer have training and government subsidies to help our fleet. Instead, we will strangle the fleet and restrict fishing activities for offshore development and others nations fisheries. This makes no sense at all we the US fishing fleet the most regulated and restricted fisheries in the world are being squeezed out but other nations with less restrictions and oversight are allowed to fish, how does that make any sense at all?
You, the US consumer are being peddled lies and told to eat tilapia and farm raised fish instead of wild caught from aquaculture farms. The tilapia is raised in fecal pools from other nations and the farm raised are fed antibiotics and food dye to color the meat while the natural healthy wild harvested food stocks are taken off your dinner plate by a bunch of bad data and manipulation from lobby groups and big business industrializing our oceans. The US consumer needs to wake up. What will happen to our nations food security when the men and women who harvest our oceans are no longer around?
We will rely on other nations to feed our nation making us weak and having to comply due to a real possibility of starvation. We will be weakened as a country and our people and its communities that are built around our fisheries will suffer for it. This suffering will work its way inland thru broken commerce and destroyed communities. Our oceans resources will become in jeopardy from our ocean being industrialized.
Our government hasn’t even done any long-term studies on biomass research through placing these turbines and thousands of mile of electrical cabling on our ocean’s floors. We could destroy our oceans resources that could feed our nation for generations to come. These actions are taking place in front of our noses but the powers that be are pushing it along anyways, because of campaign money and alliances with other nations and big money. We the people of the United States should not stand for this. We the men and women who harvest our oceans resources need to stand united and push back for the sake of our nation’s security and our resources and the livelihoods that have worked our oceans since the start of our nation. Many blessings to you all fish on my family and friends. Jerry Leeman
When I was a kid I spent every summer in Maine eating fish, lobster, crabs and clams never even thought about the fisherman who caught the seafood. Now it appears the government has put restrictions on them which is something that I a consumer never gave any thought to until reading this article. Well written article and now I have concerns for Maine fishermen. Louanne Mekeel
Thank you for reading this, Louanne, I’m certain Jerry will appreciate your kind remarks. I sent it to him, as he is at sea with limited communications.
The government is very stupid for not listening to the fishermen and people who work in the industry every day. The government does what they do for their own purpose.
Very well written. As I have said before, this country was built by fisherman and farmers and nobody seems to listen!!
Although we only commercially fish for tuna, we have also witnessed an uptick in other species while recreational fishing. We participate in dockside surveys willingly. The volunteers have disagreed with our fish counts and write down what they feel is right. As an example: We caught and released 75 Cod one trip and the volunteer claimed that no one would believe that, I’ll write down 25. We are one small recreational vessel, you big vessels are getting screwed.
The sad reality is that we are being constrained by bureaucrats at every level. Jerry is correct, the windmills are appearing at an alarming rate, and yet, because this is now in vogue, generations will pay the price. The voice of those making a living from the sea, has been silenced by the politicians who profess to represent our fishing industry, and so-called experts who have no real world experience. Sad state of affairs.
Our government only inspects two percent of the imported crap, finding over ten percent of that contaminated — while fifty to one hundred percent of American boats have government inspectors onboard to make sure that the American seafood consumers don’t get to eat more of their own wild and pure fish than the fishcrats and envirowhores want them to.
That’s what our People need to know.