Worried Vineyard lobstermen are breathing a little easier this week following a meeting held last week with fisheries regulators in Rhode Island, where a proposed five-year moratorium on lobster fishing was placed on the shelf — at least for now.

Fly-fishing and casting instruction for all levels is being offered in a workshop on Saturday, May 15, from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club in Edgartown.

Learn the basics every fly-fisher needs, from knot-tying and fish-handling, to casting, techniques and tips, presented by John Kollett and Sandra Demel. You will be able to handle equipment and start saltwater fly-fishing right away.

The first blue mussels on the experimental offshore mussel farm in Vineyard waters will be harvested in the coming weeks. The mussels are large enough to go to market, according to Scott Lindell, an aquaculture specialist with the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory.

There are two small farms. One is north of Chilmark; the second is west of Noman’s Land. Two Island fishermen, Alec Gale of West Tisbury and Tim Broderick of Chilmark, are tending the farms with a 55-foot workboat, the Jane Lee, out of Menemsha.

Kids’ Fishing Jamboree

Bring the kids to the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters’ Kids’ Jamboree on Saturday, May 15 from 9 a.m. to noon.

Meet at the Edgartown School parking lot for free mini-seminars on casting, beach fishing, knot-tying, ice-fishing, fly-fishing, where to catch fish on the Vineyard and more. Please plan to stay with your kids. Hot dogs, chips and refreshments. The rain date is Sunday, May 16.

For details, call 508-693-3360.

Brian (Chip) Vanderhoop, 49, saved the livelihoods of a lot of fishermen as the U.S. Coast Guard boathouse burned. The Aquinnah harbor master and shellfish constable would prefer little notice; it is just out of character for him to talk much about himself or to pose for a photograph. Of his five Vanderhoop siblings, he is the quiet one.

Beginning this year, under a new federal law, recreational saltwater fishermen are required either to have a saltwater license or to have registered with their state. In Massachusetts, where a law requiring a license will take effect next year, fishermen are supposed to register.

But very few have.

The Vineyard has no fish weirs these days. The trapping technique, catching fish by way of corralling them against walls of branches, timber and spiles strewn with nets, is no longer used here.

On Wednesday afternoon, however, Jonathan James-Perry, 33, a storyteller and historian with the Aquinnah Cultural Center, gave a talk about the use of fish weirs by the Wampanoag Indians of this region. In a time when the ocean was bubbling with a lot more fish than are there now, a fish weir was an effective way to catch fish.

The recreational season is off and running and no one can appreciate it better now than Capt. Scott McDowell of Chilmark. His boat is in the water working perfectly after a mishap earlier this year.

A state legislator’s effort to make striped bass a recreational fish only is dead for now. The state’s Committee on Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture has sent the proposal back for further study.

House Bill 796, filed by Falmouth representative Matthew C. Patrick, would have closed striped bass fishing to all but recreational fishermen. The bill was filed a year ago.

Island fishermen gathered for a dinner meeting at the Home Port Restaurant last week. The guest speaker was Niaz Dorry, a director with the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, based in Windham, Me.

She compared the plight of the small-town commercial fisherman to that of the family farm, and as with small farming, she painted a picture of hope amid innovation.