The Quitsa Strider II, an iconic fishing dragger that has long been synonymous with the working waterfront in Menemsha, has been sold to a New Bedford dealer. Matthew Mayhew and his father, Jonathan Mayhew, made their final run on the 72-foot dragger to New Bedford last Friday.
On Thursday night the Massachusetts marine fisheries advisory commission set the new commercial striped bass season to open on June 23 this year. Commissioners dropped the daily bag limit from 30 fish to 15 fish per fisherman. Rod and reel fishing permits are limited to two fish per day.
It’s 5 a.m., pitch black outside on a cool, clear October Friday morning. Tony H. Rezendes Jr. is cruising through the woods, first by truck on a track that barely qualifies as a road, then by foot on a rough path, to one of his favorite fishing spots.
Now that it is derby time, I have been thinking (and eating) fish. I like fish, but I don’t like to fish. As a child, I would drop a line off the Edgartown wharf or the Menemsha dock with my brother John and we would catch scup.
When he was a young boy, Peter Herrmann loved to fish off the Steamship wharf in Oak Bluffs. Before the first boat, and after the ferry stopped running for the winter, Mr. Herrmann and his friends would climb over the fence, fishing rods in hand.
I married my husband more than 60 years ago for better or for worse — but not for fishing. There have been better years and worse years, but not many fishing years for me.
The waves were screaming one fall morning south of the Vineyard when Capt. Jennifer Clarke landed a big one. Alone on her Boston Whaler, the 40-pounder had broken her rod.
When Alan Lovewell was a young child growing up on the Vineyard, his mother had worked out a summertime arrangement with a local fisherman. Teresa Yuan would exchange her well-respected egg rolls for some of Tom Turner’s weekly catch, creating what was probably young Alan’s first exposure to the concept of a cooperative fishery.
If you love eating fresh-caught fluke you should rush to the fish market and buy it today. Today is the last day commercial fishermen are permitted to land and sell fluke. After today the only options are to catch it yourself or befriend a recreational angler.
Fluke, also called summer flounder, is a Vineyard success story.