National Fisherman articles from October 2007

National Fisherman archives from October 2007

October 2007: this month's highlights.(The hail)
October 1, 2007... Every now and then a story comes along that just seems to sparkle. I would put this month's story on racing propellers in that category. Boats & Gear Editor Michael Crowley captures the zany world of lobstermen who pursue speed: on one...

The business of IFQs.(VIEWS from Alaska)
October 1, 2007... I would like to share what I learned in both choosing an IFQ broker and purchasing IFQs. First, fill out a Transfer Eligibility Certificate with NMFS. You cannot buy quota without the NMFS identification number assigned to you after you send in...

Say cheese.(Editor's log)
October 1, 2007... It's that time of year again, and so we hereby invite your submission for publication in the "Crew Shots 2008" section of our January issue. Last year your response was amazing. We got far more shots than we expected and did our best to...

Fishing back when.(NF classics)
October 1, 2007... Contingent only on a sponsor for her recommissioning and maintenance, the Baltimore-built Chesapeake schooner Eva S. Cullison will be accepted as a permanent installment at the Marine Museum in Mystic, Conn., saving her from languishing at the...

Menhaden makes waves long after shaping the course of American history.(Fo'c'sle library)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... The Most Important Fish in the Sea By H. Bruce Franklin Island Press, 2007 Hardcover, 272 pp., $25 www.islandpress.org There is no doubt that menhaden has played a critical role in the American commercial fishing industry, and indeed, the...

Famous for Italian-style sushi, a New York chef celebrates seafood.(Fo'c'sle library)
October 1, 2007... The Young Man and the Sea Recipes and Crispy Fish Tales from Esca By David Pasternack and Ed Levine Artisan Books, 2007 Hardcover, 272 pp., $35 www.artisanbooks.com My first impression of David Pasternack is that he sincerely loves fish...

Take stock of assessment meetings in person.(From Another Perspective)
October 1, 2007... Last month I attended four days of a stock assessment meeting at NMFS' Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole, Mass., on Cape Cod. I was doing this for the Monkfish Defense Fund, an industry group I've been affiliated with since its...

The aquaculture boat is in: will you ride the wave?(Dock talk)
October 1, 2007... I have been a reader of National Fisherman for almost 25 years, and have vicariously shared the ups and downs offish stocks and dock prices. What I have not shared is the blind abhorrence of aquaculture. Early in my career, as a fisheries...

Eternal vigilance is the price of safety.(Consequences)
October 1, 2007... When making repairs at sea, we often are primarily concerned with getting the job done quickly or correcting the situation before it causes additional problems or damage. However, vessel motion makes repairing equipment at sea significantly...

Sectors are the next battleground for groundfish.(From the town landing)
October 1, 2007... Now that the New England Fishery Management Council has pushed alternatives to days at sea off to a future amendment of the multispecies (groundfish) management plan, the energy in the fishing community is focused on sectors. Sectors, allowed...

When is a swordfish really a marlin?(Mail buoy)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... Somebody, goofed on the last page of my latest issue (Last Set, NF Sept. 07, p. 60).That billfish being hauled aboard is not a swordfish; it's a marlin and pictures like that give the industry a real black eye! Just think what the "sports"...

Council member rallies around stronger alliances.(Mail buoy)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... Recently I attended a South Atlantic Fishery Management Council meeting in Key West, Fla. The council, advisory panels, working groups and Scientific and Statistical Committee were very well represented, not to mention the commercial fishing...

Tuna fisherman is grateful for a well-seasoned captain.(Mail buoy)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... I was working on the swordfish longline vessel the Misty Dawn in the Gulf of Mexico with Capt. Rick Ross, First Mate Mike Mathias and Brian Suriano, my best friend. The bluefin tuna season had just gotten going real good, so we were fishing...

Cap'n Sane says.(Short story)
October 1, 2007... Well our summer folk are packing up t'leave us. We call 'em summer folk, not rusticators like some do. Years ago Shorty Gage couldn't pronounce the word n'called 'era "russlers" which made Beulah Banning, our historian, mad so's she banned...

Dredging is restricted, but pollution still runs rampant.(Mail buoy)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... As a longtime subscriber to your excellent magazine I am following the hydraulic dredging controversy rather closely. Way back in older times, I was maintenance foreman for Capt. Hank's Seafood in Easton, Md., Hanks invented the hydraulic...

Cook-off offers taste of new seafood Web site.(A letter from Bill Hogarth)
October 1, 2007... I recently participated in the fourth annual Great American Seafood Cook-Off in New Orleans. Chef James "Tim" Thomas from Georgia was proclaimed King of American Seafood at the two-day competition. Along with Harlan Pierce of the Louisiana...

Strange sightings.(In search of the simple life)(seeing a blacktail buck)
October 1, 2007... Heading out of Craig, Alaska, on our way to Cape Addington, glassy calm, a slight ocean swell under us but still sheltered by the islands (of which there are some 1,100 in the Alexander Archipelago dotting the coastline all the way to Dixon...

Research links salinity shift to East Coast's cod decline: scientist tracks rise in natural mortality to 1985, questions conditions for stock recovery.(ATLANTIC)
October 1, 2007... Environmental shifts in the northwest Atlantic may have set the stage for the Canada and New England groundfish collapses in the early 1990s, and could be a reason why those stocks have yet to recover even after years of fishing restrictions,...

Chinese mitten crab arrives in U.S. East Coast waters: officials fear erosion, habitat competition.(ATLANTIC)
October 1, 2007... Another Chinese crab has made a cameo on the U.S. East Coast--and U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials are not excited. The mitten crab has been spotted in the Mid-Atlantic and New York's Hudson River. Officials fear it will move rapidly up the...

Newfoundland welcomes the return of a capelin fishery: scientists, fishermen wonder if this reappearance and water temps signal cod's return.(NATION/WORLD)
October 1, 2007... Newfoundland fishermen have gotten some good news for a change this summer with the return of capelin and reports of substantial commercial harvesting for the first time in roughly 20 years. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Besides being a...

Dutch Harbor tops in '06, sets new landings record: southern ports rebound from dismal 2005.(NATION/WORLD)
October 1, 2007... Notching 911.3 million pounds of fish and shellfish in 2006, Alaska's Dutch Harbor-Unalaska remains the nation's top landings port for the 18th straight year and has set a new record for port landings to boot. NMFS' annual list of the...

Where we live: Montauk, N.Y.(HOME PORT)
October 1, 2007... THE TOWN A local bumper sticker calls it "The End." At the easternmost point of Long Island, the community of Montauk has a year-round population of about 4,000 people within the larger municipality of East Hampton --a playground for New...

N.C. opts for tourism over menhaden fishing tradition: ban on pogy boats postured as boost to king mackerel stocks and recreational fishing.(GULF/SOUTH ATLANTIC)
October 1, 2007... A ban on menhaden purse seining off Brunswick County, N.C., won legislative approval this summer, despite opposition front North Carolina fisheries managers. Proponents of the ban on pogy boats within three miles of the Brunswick County...

Night Strangers: Apalachicola, Fla.(BOAT of the MONTH)
October 1, 2007... Ronald D. Martina worked at a local saw mill in Apalachicola, Fla., during the 1970s, when worm-eaten cypress was very popular for paneling. "I was a foreman at the mill," Martina says. "We were getting pecky cypress out of the river and...

Gulf dead zone expands, hindering seafood species; scientists say farm runoff is primary cause.(GULF/SOUTH ATLANTIC)
October 1, 2007... The Gulf of Mexico's so-called dead zone--miles of oxygen-starved water in which sea life cannot survive --measured as one of the largest ever this summer, according to researchers, who reported dramatic effects on targeted seafood species. ...

Kachimaasax Tom and Ruth Hoblet False Pass, Alaska.(GALLEY WATCH: AT-SEA CUISINE)(salmon soup)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... While there has been a plethora of recipes for fresh salmon, many of them detract from the true flavor of the fish, if you ask Tom and Ruth Hoblet, a longtime fishing couple from False Pass, Alaska. For years, the Hoblets have gillnetted and...

John Corbin: Astoria, Ore.(SNAPSHOT: WHO WE ARE)(Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife board member)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... John Corbin, 49, began commercial fishing in 1978, almost as soon as his feet hit ground after serving in the Air Force. "I was home for about an hour before I took off shrimp fishing," says Corbin, who has worked in a variety of fisheries...

News from the regional management councils.(COUNCIL UPDATES)(fishery councils)
October 1, 2007... Western Pacific The Western Pacific Fishery Management Council this summer sponsored a conference to save the imperiled Pacific leatherback sea turtle from extinction. As many as 95 percent of these animals have vanished in the last 20...

Flood of Russian kings negates price gains expected with rationalization.(NORTH PACIFIC: KING CRAB)
October 1, 2007... Large volumes of imported king crab from Russia are flooding markets, negating ex-vessel benefits Alaska's king crab industry had hoped to gain under the rationalization process. While the U.S. crab industry continues efforts to pace the...

Dock prices, local landings are uneven as fishery attempts financial recovery.(GULF/SOUTH ATLANTIC: STONE CRAB)
October 1, 2007... Two years after hurricanes left the south Florida heart of stone crab country in shambles, the industry continues a difficult and slow recovery. Landings of 2.57 million pounds for the season that just ended increased 25 percent over the...

Shell-planting programs boost stocks as well as hopes for better recruitment.(NORTHEAST: OYSTERS)
October 1, 2007... An escalating recovery in Connecticut's oyster fishery has fishermen hoping their still-modest harvest could double by the end of 2007. In Delaware Bay this year, 550,000 bushels of clam shells have been laid down at a cost of $2 million...

As U.S. sushi appetite grows, divers hungry to add summer fishing days.(PACIFIC: URCHIN)
October 1, 2007... Although Japanese markets remain soft for California's urchin roe, domestic market appetites have increased--particularly during tourist season in summer. However, the dive fishery's fishing days schedule, set decades ago, is designed to...

Shucker's paradise: the limited-access scallop fishery rewards hand-crippling days at sea.(At sea)
October 1, 2007... The 78 1/2-foot Karen Elizabeth out of Point Judith, R.I., is scalloping on the eastern edge of the Nantucket Light ship access area. The weather is clear, and the sea is flat. With eight men on board, it's a full house. There are six...

Liveliest catch: an enterprising crabber offers tourists a gull's eye view.(Cover story)
October 1, 2007... Nine years in the wheelhouse of a Bering Sea crabber is a long time to think about a way to bring commercial fishing to life for the non-crabbing folk. The culmination of those thoughts--turning an honest-to-goodness, wave-battered, king...

Just what he always wanted: a Skagway, Alaska, fisherman realizes his dream of owning a Wegley boat.(Boats & Gear: Boatbuilding)
October 1, 2007... What do Detroit automakers and some longtime builders of commercial fishing boats have in common? Unfortunately for the automakers, not much. Detroit, chasing after misguided ideas of what might or might not sell, has managed to squander away...

That's a switch! Multiplex power systems can streamline the job of wiring your boat.(Boats & Gear: New technology)
October 1, 2007... Let's say you're a fisherman and are finishing off a 46-foot fiberglass kit boat and are ready to install the electrical system when you learn you can drastically reduce the installation hours by decreasing the number of cables by more than 60...

Wheeled up: racing lobstermen look to black art and science to solve their prop problems.(Boats & Gear: Speed steamin')
October 1, 2007... It happens very fast -- in 20 or 30 seconds, maybe 2 minutes at the most. A flag drops, followed by the deep roar of diesels under load and the high-pitch whine of turbos spooling as throttles are smashed down and props claw at the water....

Calif. crabber gets Maine boat; oak keel laid for lobster boat.(NORTHEAST)
October 1, 2007... In Steuben, Maine, RP Boat Shop has completed a number of boats for commercial fishermen, including some in Canada and California as well as Maine. The boat going to California is a Willis Beal--designed 40-footer that will be a crabber....

Oyster boats dredge with jets; steel, foam and cement get fix.(WEST)
October 1, 2007... Stewart Everest admits it took a bit of coaxing to get the owners of the oyster boats he's been building comfortable with the idea of using water jet propulsion. But once they realized the jets allowed the boats to dredge in 3 feet of water and...

NOAA adds to research fleet; 23-foot crab skiff is repaired.(SOUTH)
October 1, 2007... In June, VT Halter Marine of Moss Point, Miss., held a combined keel-laying ceremony for two NOAA fishery research boats. The Bell M. Shimada follows three other fisheries survey boats built to the same design, and the Ferdinand R. Hassler...

Tagged for safety: Raymarine product sets off alarm when you hit the water.(Product roundup)
October 1, 2007... If you go overboard, what are your chances of surviving? If it's in the northern latitudes, at night, and the boat is steaming away from you, your chances are not good. If you go overboard in warmer water, hypothermia will take a little longer...

Sensing the future: Marport software makes trawl sensors multifunctional.(Product roundup)
October 1, 2007... Almost three years ago, Marport, a company that develops and manufactures underwater acoustic products, became interested in work the U.S. military was doing as a result of communication difficulties on Sept. 11, 2001. It's called software...

Weems & Plath's latest navigation tool, the Roadrule, identifies the most common U.S. aids to navigation, rules of the road, and maneuvering and warning signals.(At a glance)
October 1, 2007... WEEMS & PLATH's latest navigation tool, the ROADRULE, identifies the most common U.S. aids to navigation, rules of the road, and maneuvering and warning signals. The Roadrule shows what buoys look like with corresponding chart symbols, and...

Powrtran makes operating in shallow water with an outboard much easier with the PT10SS Powr Tilt.(At a glance)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... POWRTRAN makes operating in shallow water with an outboard much easier with the PT10SS POWR TILT. Just push a button and the outboard is angled away from the bottom at a 72-degree angle. It is operated with an electro-mechanical linear...

Thermo Boat offers its Poly Flex engine mounts as an alternative to Yanmar's customized engine mounts that have to be replaced every two years.(At a glance)
October 1, 2007... THERMO BOAT offers its POLY FLEX engine mounts as an alternative to Yanmar's customized engine mounts that have to be replaced every two years. Poly Flex says its mounts never have to be replaced and have the same dimensions as Yanmar's. They...

Jeppesen Marine has released its latest PC navigation programs, C-Map Max and NT+ in PCV.10.(At a glance)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... JEPPESEN MARINE has released its latest PC navigation programs, C-MAP MAX and NT+ in PCV.10. Version 10 includes Max bathymetric and contour charts. C-Map Max version 10 offers all the C-Map Max charting capabilities, including flashing aids to...

Slideways.(At a glance)(processing equipment manufacturer)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... SLIDEWAYS manufactures non-metallic bearings and wear components for processing equipment that can stand up to the detergents, bleaches and steam used to sanitize equipment. Star wheels, scrapers, sprockets, bearings, chain guides and the like...

Krill Systems' new Krill Black Box PC is designed to run Krill's boat monitoring software.(At a glance)
October 1, 2007... KRILL SYSTEMS' new KRILL BLACK BOX PC is designed to run Krill's boat monitoring software. The Krill Black Box PC is a low-powered system that uses one-third less power than standard computers. It's a solid-state design that runs monitoring...

Bulletin board.(fish and seafood festivals and conferences)(Brief article)(Calendar)
October 1, 2007... NOV. 15-17 Pacific Marine Expo Qwest Field Event Center, Seattle * www.pacificmarineexpo.com Pacific Marine Expo has you covered from bow to stern with more than 450 exhibitors showcasing the latest technology in engines,...

Associated Fisheries of Maine.(ON THE MOVE)
October 1, 2007... At their annual meeting this summer, the ASSOCIATED FISHERIES OF MAINE recognized Tom Valleau, president of the Pordand Fish Exchange, Hank Soule, manager of the fish exchange, and state Rep. Anne Haskell (D-Portland) for their "extraordinary...

This summer, Alaska Quality Seafood was proud to have Gov. Sarah Palin present its Best Practices and Innovations in Seafood Award to Kwikpak Fisheries, of Emmonak.(COMPANY NEWS)
October 1, 2007... This summer, ALASKA QUALITY SEAFOOD was proud to have Gov. Sarah Palin present its Best Practices and Innovations in Seafood Award to KWIKPAK FISHERIES, of Emmonak. Kwikpak is a community-owned, remote, open-skiff gillnet fishery. In 2006,...

Millennium Marine USA.(COMPANY NEWS)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... MILLENNIUM MARINE USA boat manufacturing facility opened recently in Edenton, N.C., on Albermarle Sound. Owner Cory Guimond decided to expand his New Brunswick-based business across the border to improve service to his target market area on the...

Tennessee may close lake to commercial catfish fleet: fishermen request proof of contamination.(Around the coasts)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Tennessee wildlife officials are close to taking a final action that would bar commercial fishing on a popular reservoir lake in the Knoxville area. But the handful of men who still make a living harvesting the waters of Watts Bar Lake say...

Pacific right whale survey could support oil drilling: fishermen, environmentalists, whaling commission oppose prospect of Bering Sea leases.(ALASKA AND PACIFIC)
October 1, 2007... On July 31, NOAA's research vessel the Oscar Dyson departed from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, to begin a multiyear study of endangered Pacific right whales in the Bering Sea. Researchers will be gathering basic biological information about the...

Japanese seafood merger threatens prices in Alaska; Gov. Palin applies for antitrust investigation.(ALASKA AND PACIFIC)
October 1, 2007... Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has asked federal agencies to probe the socioeconomic effects of a merger between two of Japan's largest seafood companies. Maruha Group and Nichiro Corp. have significant holdings in Alaska, and the merger stands to...

Apalachicola Bay, Fla.(Last set)
October 1, 2007... Oyster tongers here, who battle hurricanes. harvest closures, financial uncertainty and other obstacles, are a resourceful bunch. A crankshaft from a cast-off six-cylinder engine anchors this oyster skiff, at rest on St. George Island in July...