By Doreen Leggett
(One in an occasional series that explores the early days of the Fishermen’s Alliance, then Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association, through old newsletter clippings.)
The first printed “Hooked on Cod” newsletter published in November 1997, about six years after “the Hook” was started by Fred Bennett, Mark Leach, Bob and Tom Luce and many others.
All the newsletters opened with a letter from the director, the inaugural penned by Lori LeFevre, a former fisheries researcher who led the organization. She announced she was taking a job as a fisheries analyst with New England Fishery Management Council and Paul Parker, who would then lead the organization for more than a decade, would be the new director.
The November newsletter noted that local filmmaker Christopher Seufert just wrapped up his documentary on longlining for dogfish on Mike Anderson’s boat F/V Bad Dog (the tape has made the move to three different offices and can still be watched, provided you have a VCR).
There was a fishery management council update on “street sweeper gear,” described as a modified otter trawl that enhanced rock hopper gear (which, much to the frustration of hook fishermen, allowed draggers to tow across formerly inaccessible rocky areas which served as nurseries for groundfish).
Streetsweeper gear worked by putting what looked like brushes between the “cookies” that allow the nets to bounce over rough terrain. Street sweeper gear was more efficient and the worry was it would increase habitat degradation and catches, which could lead to a reduction in Days at Sea for everyone. The Hook Association was sending a letter advocating for a ban on the gear and asked others to do the same.
The Hook also sent a letter asking that scallopers not be allowed into areas closed to groundfishing because the dredge would harm the habitat needed to help stocks rebuild.
The newsletter mentioned Paul Parker was working with industry members to develop a dogfish longline exempted/experimental fishery. (That fishery was eventually permitted and became important for Chatham fishermen.)
Parker updated readers on the status of the association’s lawsuit, which was filed in June 1996, saying the fisheries regulation known as Amendment 7 violated the Magnuson Stevens Act because it didn’t protect habitat. The lawsuit also asked that hook fishing have its own separate quota and that some restrictions be placed on mobile gear. The lawsuit, Parker said, was the only thing keeping managers from turning the total allowable catch into a firm quota. If that happened, he wrote, hook fishermen would be pushed out of the fisheries. Parker was worried that if Individual Fishing Quotas became law, smaller businesses, such as the day boat fleet on the Cape, would be pushed out by corporate interests. The hook fishermen began fighting against ITQs at the council and in Washington, D.C.
Also in the November newsletter, the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association submitted a piece asking to hire three local fishermen’s wives to teach fishing families how to promote locally harvested fresh fish to increase price and market demand. Wives in the pilot program would develop recipes, products and demonstrate how to prepare the products.
Odds and ends in the newsletter: Hook fishermen wanted more responsible fishing by gillnetters, they wanted soaking the nets (when they were left overnight) to be counted as Days at Sea. Hook fishermen did give gillnetters credit for advocating their position well. (In 2013, gillnetters and other small-boat fishermen on the Cape joined what became the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.)
There also was mention of hydroids, which scientists were blaming on large draggers catching huge amounts of fish, and in the process stirring up a scary sea creature eating the remaining fish.
The next issue was January 1998, with a note that the publication would be printed every other month.
This issue delved into a meeting with MIT Sea Grant staff, when fishermen told researchers about habitat they historically fished as well as necessary protections and essential fish habitat.
Parker filled in members about closures and trip limits for Gulf of Maine cod and incentives to shift effort to Georges Bank at recent council meetings. Parker, and others, worried about the direct hit on fishermen in Provincetown but said everyone would be hurt as fishermen shut out of traditional grounds would move to others. In other fishery management council news, Parker said regulators were going to prohibit street sweeper gear because it caught too many fish too quickly.
In what was good news for the hook fishermen’s lawsuit, a habitat study on Georges Bank showed that undisturbed sites had higher numbers of organisms, biomass, species richness and species diversity. The association was using the study to keep Closed Area II off limits because opening it would jeopardize recovering groundfish and long-term habitat research. Photos showing the difference between undisturbed and disturbed areas were in the printed newsletter. (Closed Area II was later opened to scallopers at specific times of the year when the scallop resource reached a certain density.)
Member Fred Bennett (who still stops in the office) had a guest piece in which he began to lay the groundwork for a broader, constructive group. He wanted to get a group together every six months to, among other things, try and resolve individual confrontations and jointly issue statements on matters of import.
The newsletter also unveiled the new Fishing Partnership Health Plan, which said fishermen were eligible if 51 percent or more of their income comes from commercial fishing
Odds and ends: Parker asked that more fishermen agree to a voluntary 2 to 5 cents per gallon tax on their fuel bill to fund the lawsuit. Arne Carr, of Division of Marine Fisheries, had a piece about hook captains trying out larger hooks as a pilot and finding they did reduce the amount of undersized cod caught.
The newsletter also encouraged fishermen to attend the first strategic planning session of the young organization, which was scheduled for February at the Wayside Inn.