For a gillnet fisherman, these are trying times — with worse yet to come.
Captain Don Smith, a 57-year-old transplanted Mainer whose family roots are in Nova Scotia and has fished commercially from Gloucester for more than 30 years, doesn't need to be prodded to speak to that.
Working for his friend and first cousin Richard Burgess, the owner of a fleet that has been pared from five boats to two, Smith leads a crew of three including himself on the 44-foot, fiberglass gillnetter Ryan Zachary, a nondescript former lobster boat without bunks or a bathroom.
"The ecosystem has changed a lot," Smith said Tuesday. "It's been two years since we saw a lot of cod on Stellwagen."
Smith is referring to the shallow sandy bottomed bank that begins just 12 or so nautical miles south of Gloucester; the port's fortuitous geology and geography have provided day boats — small trawlers and gillnetters — a convenient and invaluable opportunity to keep working, as limits on effort and landings have become more restrictive over the past generation.
Making life more difficult for the small boats are the big boats; these "trip" boats that traditionally worked offshore on the more distant Georges Bank. But the catch share trading system imposed by federal regulators in 2010 has liberated them to acquire quota from non-participants or day boats, and — no longer limited by daily catch limits —they have been induced to chase the pulses of cod onto Stellwagen, where they flaunt their scale and have their way.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times>>
Callifornia crabbing: Here's a fun video shot on the decks of the Majestik while catching Dungeness crab off the coast of northern California.
Over 500 lots of seafood processing equipment formerly owned by Adak Seafood will be sold at auction on Tuesday, June 18, starting at 10 a.m. Hawaiian-Aleutian Daylight Time at the Hilton Garden Inn in Anchorage Alaska.
The equipment is located in a recently updated 250,000 square foot state-of-the-art processing facility in Adak, Alaska. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Hilco Industrial, which conducts 75 machinery and equipment auctions in a wide range of industries annually, will conduct the auction.
Adak Seafood opened originally as Ada Fisheries in Anchorage in 1986. The facility, updated in 2005, is located on the island of Adak, the southernmost city in Alaska near the western end of the Aleutian Islands. The facility processed cod primarily, as well as halibut, blackcod, crab and pollock, Hilco says.
Alaska fisherman and commercial fisheries activist Kevin Adams was elected chairman at the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute board of directors meeting on May 9 in Anchorage.
The governor-appointed board consists of seven members: five seafood processors and two industry representatives actively engaged in commercial fishing. Adams was appointed to fill a harvester seat by Gov. Frank Murkowski in 2004.
With 38 years of fishing experience in Bristol Bay, Adams has long been an active member in the Alaska fishing industry, ASMI says. He has worked for both the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation and the Bering Sea Fisherman's Association, and represents Alaska fishermen on numerous boards.
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