National Fisherman

Paul Molyneaux

Editor

Paul Molyneaux is the Boats & Gear editor for National Fisherman.

Author Archive

Noyo Net Works in Fort Bragg, Calif., helps keep boats as far away as Alaska fishing, offering everything from salmon gurdies to trawl nets, crab pots and more. Paul Molyneaux photo.

Gearing up at Noyo Net Works

Chris Estes, owner operator of the Mr. Ellis, put a nasty hole in his boat when he hit the rock jetty in Bob Sikes Cut on his way home to Apalachicola on the night of June 25. Estes got his young crew off quickly and now has the boat ashore and under repa

Mr Ellis is down but not out

An April 2025 proclamation by President Trump opened the waters between 50 and 200 miles around Johnston, Wake, and Jarvis islands, and U.S. fishermen are hoping the waters around the other monuments will also soon be open. Eric Kingma photo.

Reopening the Pacific Monuments

Among the last from a greatly diminished fleet of local boats in Patonga, NSW, Austrailia, the Van Der Neut brothers, Joshua and Dane, continue fishing their 38-foot trawler, Lindy, with help from their father, Thomas. Neutical Media photo.

Consolidation isn’t conservation

Jeremy Brown uses Steiners on his 80-foot albacore troller, the Betty H. “I mostly use them to spot birds,” he says. “They have a wide field of vision and are good in low light. Photo by Jeremy Brown

Fishermen weigh their binocular options at sea

The cod end of a Danish seiner holds a ton of high-value flat fish after a three-hour set. Danish seining is a relatively low impact fishing technology in which the net is set in a square, surrounding flatfish on the seafloor before being hauled in rather

David Attenborough’s Ocean, a media super trawler

The Itasca leaving San Diego and bound for her home port of Honolulu after what owner Peter Webster calls “a shave and a haircut.” Webster spends around 300 days a year at sea, longlining tuna, often hundreds of miles from any land. Peter Webster photo.

Boat of the Month: Itasca

A skimmer net shrimp boat in Delacroix, La., sits idle at the dock with prices too low to pay for fuel. Shrimpers from Texas to the Carolinas hope legislation can prevent restaurants from selling imported shrimp as domestic product. Paul Molyneaux photo.

Southern states lay down the law on seafood labeling

Problems often occur on boats during maintenance. Leonard McLay put an intentional starboard list on his vessel, the Ashtella Raelynn, to work on the port side, but water flooded the hull, and the boat sank at the dock in Newport, Ore. Georgia Haight photo.

Troller sinks at the dock in Newport, Ore.

Former NMFS biologist Joe Smith’s encyclopedic book, Menhaden: A Biologist’s Thirty-Two-Year Journey with the Fish and Fishery, is rich with information and likely to become required reading for fishery science students. Palmetto Publishing image.

Menhaden: A Biologist’s Thirty-Two-Year Journey with the Fish and Fishery