Truck Delivers Trout

Recreational freshwater fishing got a boost on the Vineyard on Tuesday when state officials delivered more than 1,100 healthy, hearty trout, all of them over a foot in length, to four Island ponds.

Using a special hauling truck that holds a lot of bubbling water, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife delivered 600 rainbow trout, 300 brook trout and 200 brown trout. They also delivered 40 tiger trout measuring more than 14 inches in length.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Recreational anglers are seeing the best fishing for early summer. Water temperatures remain on the cool side, so stripers and bluefish are still within reach for shoreside angling. Doug Asselin at Dick’s Bait and Tackle Shop, a store in Oak Bluffs, said bluefish were caught during the day at the beach at Right Fork in Katama. This creates a little bit of a challenge, since the swimming season has started.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

August can be a tough month for catching striped bass. It isn’t that the fish have gone south or disappeared, but they are certainly into their warm water August state of mind.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Memorial Day weekend on the waterfront comes early this year and the fish seem to know it. Bluefish, striped bass and all the right fish already are here and even more fish are arriving.

The prevailing word on the waterfront is that the best is yet to come. The seasonal migration below the surface that began well over a month ago is still underway.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The ninth annual fluke derby run by the Veterans of Foreign War Post in Oak Bluffs 9261 may be Saturday, July 12 and Sunday, July 13, just over a week away, but anglers are already out there harvesting the fish. July is fluke season for most anglers.

While there has been plenty of attention in the last month on striped bass and bluefish swimming around the Island, the fluke (summer flounder) fishery is alive and well in Menemsha and in parts east and west.

This has not been a good blue crab season on the Vineyard. The Edgartown Great Pond is doing poorly compared with last year and there are lackluster reports from the Island’s other coastal ponds.

But that is the story with blue crabs. Some years the fishing is great and some years it is bad. Feast or famine and nothing much between.

Blue crabs and the state of the fishery, which is largely unregulated, is the subject of a public hearing in Tisbury next month.

A former commissioner of marine resources in the state of Maine recently told a gathering of Island fishermen that there is plenty they can do to regain control of the troubled fisheries in Massachusetts.

Robin Alden spoke at the Chilmark Public Library earlier this month about how fishermen need to come together on the local level and step forward as a concerned group.

“Even in a small community like this, I think it can work,” she said, though she added: “You are not going to win overnight.”

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Black sea bass is one of the Vineyard’s best-kept secrets when it comes to good eating. The fish can’t be bought in the store, but if you know a sport boat fisherman, there is a chance you can get it if you politely ask.

Black sea bass are swimming around the Vineyard in fair abundance.

This weekend, the Oak Bluffs Veterans of Foreign War Post 9261 is hosting its ninth annual fluke tournament. The post is adding a small form of recognition to the black sea bass and to the anglers who catch big ones.

Striper Wars author Dick Russell talks about efforts to save a troubled fishery, on Wednesday, August 27, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.

When populations of striped bass began plummeting in the early 1980s, author and fisherman Dick Russell was there to lead an Atlantic coast conservation campaign that resulted in one of the most remarkable wildlife comebacks in the history of fisheries.

The Menemsha Fisheries Development Fund presents Securing a Future for Coastal Fishing Communities: Ideas from Eastern Maine on Wednesday, May 7, at 5:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.

Robin Alden, executive director of the Penobscot East Resource Center and former Maine commissioner of marine resources, and Ted Ames, life-long commercial fisherman, scientist and 2005 winner of a MacArthur Fellows Program award, will share their work.