Capt. Wayne Iacono and a number of other Menemsha lobstermen are having a better autumn this year because of the help of a local draggerman, Capt. Craig Coutinho of the fishing boat Viking.
“If it wasn’t for Craig we’d all be in trouble,” Captain Iacono said.
Rick Karney, director of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, returned last week from an international conference on invasive sea squirts, where he and one of his staff were both speakers and participants.
There has been plenty of discussion on the Vineyard about invasive foreign plants in the Island landscape; offshore, the ocean bottom and the water column are also in a state of change. New plants and animals are taking up residence in coastal waters that may have a long-term impact.
Important changes came last week in the effort to bring cod back to New England waters.
The New England Fishery Management Council at its meeting in Plymouth established a protective zone for juvenile cod in the Great South Channel.
While it will take up to three years to come up with protective rules for that area, the decision sets aside a portion of open ocean where it is known that undersized fish need to be protected.
Thirty years ago, the invention of the electronic fish finder helped fishermen out in their boats find fish. Today’s great device, the computer hooked up to the Internet, helps the rest of us find fishermen who know where to find the fish.
The culture of the Internet has helped charter fishing captains just as it has helped a lot of other businesses.
As the farmer brings in the last vegetables, in autumn the lobsterman’s season is starting to slow down.
Capt. Paul MacDonald of the lobsterboat Shearwater was putting some of his yellow-wire pots away at the dock at Menemsha Tuesday afternoon. “It was a good season, though I had to work hard to make the same amount of money as last year,” the captain said.
There is good and bad news in the stories he and others shared about his past summer.
The best of the fin fishing season is far from over, but already attention shifts to the start of the bay scallop season. Oct. 1 was traditionally the start for the recreational season. Not so anymore, except in Edgartown.
There are two things fishermen like to complain about: the lack of fish and the weather. There has certainly been plenty of complaining going on inside and outside the derby weigh station at the foot of Main street in Edgartown.
The fish are out there but they are not available to all anglers.
Students at the Tisbury School this week had the opportunity to hear the poetry of a fisherman.
Dave Densmore, of Kodiak, Alas., and Astoria, Ore., was a featured speaker for fifth and sixth graders. He came as a guest in the middle of a whirlwind tour on the East Coast.
On Wednesday evening Mr. Densmore was a featured speaker at a forum on fishing at the Chilmark Public Library.
The state reopened coastal ponds to shellfishing on Saturday, following a closure due to heavy rains which ended early last week. The state Division of Marine Fisheries had issued the closure to more than 30 Massachusetts towns on Sept. 29, based on the expectation that water quality in coastal ponds would diminish after three days of heavy rains.
Shellfish managers were typically concerned that road runoff would fill the ponds with excessive bacteria.
Recreational fishing doesn’t end with the derby. Although tomorrow night brings closure to the 63rd annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby, don’t put the fishing rod away. The word is out, there is still plenty of fishing left in this season. The water is still warm and fall migration of big schools of stripers have yet to appear.
