Vineyard commercial fishermen scored a key win in the struggle keep them from being squeezed out of the groundfish industry yesterday when the New England Fishery Management Council voted to adopt the sector system, granting the Vineyard its own sector.
The vote came after three days of meeting in Portland, Me. The meeting was attended by a small group of Vineyard fishing activists.
An uninvited guest named Bill was the talk of the waterfront on Wednesday afternoon.
No, this was not former President Bill Clinton, for he is welcome.
The concern was Hurricane Bill, spinning in the Atlantic as a category four hurricane, more than a thousand miles away. While forecasters appear confident the storm will stay safely at sea through the coming weekend, the storm’s significant size and power still are of concern to local mariners with big or little boats.
The Vineyard’s four popular freshwater ponds were stocked with more than 1,100 trout on Wednesday. Officials from the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife came over with a special truck filled with bubbling water, loaded with rainbow, brown and tiger trout.
Steven Hurley, fisheries manager for the state, said the fish were delivered to Duarte’s Pond, Old Mill Pond and Uncle Seth’s Pond in West Tisbury, and Upper Lagoon Pond which is shared by the towns of Tisbury and Oak Bluffs.
Ravaging of the river herring population by midwater trawlers and an absence of round-the-clock environmental police protection were the hot topics at a meeting between Cape and Islands Rep. Tim Madden and members of the newly formed Martha’s Vineyard Dukes County Fishermen’s Association Friday.
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.
FOUR FISH: The Future of the Last Wild Food. By Paul Greenberg. Penguin Press, New York, N.Y. July 2010. 304 pages. $25.95, hardcover.
The title is too narrow. Don’t think for a moment this is a book only about salmon, cod, bass and tuna. The book goes beyond the history and plight of four fish, to our hunger for fresh fish of all kinds. For anyone who wonders where the swordfish went, how we emerged from the collapse of the whale fishery, or simply which fish is safe to order at the restaurant, Four Fish offers much.
Striped bass and fluke are a prime item this weekend in fish markets and in restaurants. And that will be it for the season. Due to the fact that state quotas have been met, the commercial striped bass season will close on Monday, August 23, and the commercial fluke season will close on Wednesday, August 25. The state estimates the 1.12 million-pound quota for striped bass and 846,667-pound quota for fluke have been met. Fish markets will likely have fish for a few days after the fishery closes.
One evening when author Paul Greenberg was 10 years old his father dropped him off at Menemsha. That night he would pull six glistening iridescent squeteague from the waters around the jetty.
“I thought I was going to be rich beyond my wildest dreams,” Mr. Greenberg said in an interview at the same spot on Wednesday.
Everett Poole of Poole’s Fish Market sat Mr. Greenberg down and told him he would take the fish off his hands for 65 cents a pound. It was the first fish he ever sold.
With the start of the 65th annual Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby just days away, fishermen are concerned about the health of the centerpiece fish, striped bass, in these waters and along the coast.
There is perhaps not a fish more watched by commercial and recreational fishermen, not to mention scientists, than the striped bass. The fish is the swimming equivalent of the American eagle.
