Fish Tales

Dan Ward of Ward Aquafarms has been growing oysters since 2012 and has experimented with a variety of other things over the years, bay scallops and sugar kelp for instance, and most recently tautog.  
“I started oyster farming because that is what we can do, growing oysters and clams is viable,” Ward said. “I need to keep the lights on and once they are on, you can branch out.”
Ward was standing near two tanks of a few dozen rotini-size brown and black mottled fish in a back corner of a hatchery on the Pocasset River in Bourne. The hatchery, the second on the Cape, came online last year and was prompted by a need to grow more bay scallops; it came about by investing in a marina to help pay the bills.
Ward’s professional life has been a meld of practical and visionary, academic research and the business of fishing.

Leaning against his grey pickup truck on a windy day at Point Judith, Rhode Island, Josiah Dodge looked at fishing boats in the busy harbor.
“I started right on that dock on a boat called the Betsy,” Dodge said.
Thirty years ago, his captain was an older Russian guy nicknamed Sunbeams, mainly because he did too much acid and would trip out when the sun came up over the water. He thought 17-year-old Dodge, stocky, tattooed, a father to be, was several years older so he gave him a shot. Dodge didn’t let him down.
“They weren’t bashful about hard work down here,” Dodge smiled.

A gleaming white fishing boat, clearing Chatham Bar, makes a wide circle to come into the Fish Pier and a gangly, red-haired crew member with a full beard makes sure the vessel is secured before a team onshore spring into action.
While dozens of people on the observation deck above crane their heads to see, thousands of pounds of skate are loaded into a man-sized metal bucket operated by Sophia Weinstock that slowly climbs tracks to be tipped into an enormous vat of ice.

Michael Chute has been shellfishing his entire life and loves it, but when he got his first aquaculture farm it was a grind.
“I found a lot of ways to do it wrong,” Chute said.
He was fighting time and tide, constantly under pressure, feeling he was involved in a solitary pursuit. It wasn’t suiting him, “keeping your head down and not looking up,” said Chute, who has never met a stranger.

Last year on July 4, Captain Jesse Rose stopped at PJs Family Restaurant on Route 6 in Wellfleet, where he worked as a teenager.
“He gave us some minced clams for our chowder,” said owner Brian Reeves, who has known Rose for decades. “We were having such a hard time finding good product, we tasted it and were like, ‘Woah, that’s legit!’
“We dumped everything else,” Reeves said with a laugh. “His clams are way more tender, and definitely sweeter.”

Bradley Louw, a commercial fisherman for 15 years, was running on four hours of sleep in two days when he landed in Washington, D.C. during the week before the Memorial Day crush.
He had two days of 14 meetings scheduled with legislative offices and had bought a new shirt and tie, tag still on.
“It’s the only knot I don’t know how to tie,” the captain said with a laugh.

Everyone in Jamaica has a nickname, a familiar name. For Anthony Hill it’s “Jelly,” and has been ever since he was little.
The name carried to Cape Cod, where he met his wife Sarah Robin 20 years ago and the two carved a life first working in Provincetown then owning and running the Flying Fish Restaurant in Wellfleet, busting ass season by season, investing in community and property, living what some might call the American Dream, understanding that the dream is not simple, easy, or clichéd.
“All de while,” as they say in Jamaica, Jelly kept Jamaican roots and aspirations.

Steve Gennodie, owner of Chatham Pier Fish Market, was flying to Florida recently and saw an in-flight advertisement for scallops – from Japan.

“It’s a frozen, farm-raised product. It is just comical,” he said.

But Hokkaido Bay scallops sell for at least $3 less a pound than the ones buys fresh from Cape fishermen.  

When Japanese scallops are cooked it becomes clear local scallops are much better, but how do you get the average person to buy more expensive fish?