The commercial striped bass season began this week with a whimper. The fishermen are out hunting for this highly prized fish, but their landings are off.
Striped bass are local and one of the few species that are plentiful and available at fish markets and restaurants to sell. Bluefish comes a close second as a local fish and are landed daily.
The initial success of the Island’s offshore blue mussel aquaculture efforts could lead to real new jobs on the Vineyard, at a time when costs are up for fishermen but seafood prices are not keeping pace.
The 34th annual trout tournament sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club will be held rain or shine at Duarte’s Pond off Lambert’s Cove Road from 5 to 10 a.m. Saturday, May 10. More information is available by calling Bob De Lisle at 508-627-3019.
Island waters are filled with bluefish, especially now. Striped bass fishing is sketchy and the bonito are only now arriving, but for Vineyard and Nantucket commercial and recreational anglers, there is one certainty: the bluefish are here.
Capt. Tom Mleczko of Nantucket reports bluefishing is good this summer for him, as good as it was last year. He fishes in a 29-foot Hawk called Priscilla J.
Pending legislation to make striped bass a game fish in Massachusetts was further delayed this week when a public hearing was postponed at the request of backers of the bill.
The hearing by the joint Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture was due to be held on Tuesday on Beacon Hill, but has now been rescheduled for January.
Cape and Islands Sen. Robert O’Leary and Rep. Timothy Madden both sit on the committee.
Local fishermen landed more than 100,000 pounds of fluke this summer at Menemsha. The landings by 10 small draggers and about five handline fishermen represents one-seventh of all the landings made in the state. The state quota for fluke was 702,614 pounds.
The report on local landings came out of a state fisheries public hearing held in Tisbury on Monday afternoon.
The Island’s big fishing event for youngsters, the Martha’s Vineyard Trout Tournament, is into its 35th year. Each year hundreds of our young Island fisherman vie for the many prizes and gifts that are made available to the winners of the various fishing categories. This year, it’s May 9, and as always it’s at Duarte’s Pond.
Island recreational anglers can now land fluke without breaking the law. The recreational season for fluke opened on Wednesday and the word along the shore is encouraging. Commercial fishermen have been dragging for fluke for weeks with positive results.
This is the first summer recreational fishermen were restricted from catching fluke at the start of the fishing season. They are pretty salty about it, but commercial fishermen have been dealing with openings and closings for decades.
The question of what is a harvestable sized bay scallop will be the subject of a public hearing next week on the Cape. The state Division of Marine Fisheries is hosting the hearing at 3 p.m. on Jan. 6 to gather input, following emergency action they took last fall to quiet a dispute between fishermen and regulators.
The hearing will take place at the Barnstable Senior Center, 825 Falmouth Road, Route 28 in Hyannis.
Barry Clifford plans to be back in Vineyard waters. The celebrated underwater explorer, who has spent decades uncovering shipwrecks almost forgotten and who got started here on the Vineyard, has his eyes on a wreck four miles east of Cape Pogue.
His firm Vast Explorer Inc. filed papers in U.S. District Court in Boston seeking exclusive rights to salvage the Semiramis, a 120-foot, three-masted ship, one of the first of the China traders. Mr. Clifford said he wants to start diving on the wreck later this fall.
