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An anchoring principle of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, which has held fast for more than three decades, is this basic belief:
The more that fishermen are involved in ocean science, helping define questions, seeking out answers, the better that science becomes. And science that people on the water believe is credible is the crucial element we need to make our fisheries sustainable, our habitat protection successful.
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.
With draggers and lobster boats behind him at the Sandwich Marina, the popular Fishermen’s View restaurant and seafood market beside, State Representative Dylan Fernandes presented Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance with $500,000 to continue its work to support the industry.
“Fishing is deeply embedded in the history and identity of the Cape and Islands and supports thousands of jobs within the Blue Economy,” said Fernandes. “This funding helps sustain local commercial fishing and support fishing families across the region.”
Fernandes, D-Falmouth, said working in the House of Representatives he often sees the wooden “sacred cod” hanging over the chamber, hung in 1748, a continual reminder of how important the fishing industry is to Massachusetts.
To emphasis how important commercial fishing is to the economic health of the entire Cape, we attended the Cape Cod Commission’s “OneCape” summit, and offered a presentation entitled “Seven Degrees of Connection between the Cape and the commercial fisheries.” It was a play on “Six Degrees of Separation,” or “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” as you prefer, a little whimsy and personal touch meant with serious intent. The idea: Pick one boat, one captain, and explore how the Fishermen’s Alliance’s work connects the economic dots.
In any harbor, with any boat, this idea could apply. Since the summit was held at Wychmere Beach Club, next door to Wychmere Harbor in Harwich, we started there, with a photo of a boat familiar to many:
By Duncan Oliver
With striped bass being fairly plentiful in New England waters today, it’s hard to imagine that this hasn’t always been the case. Stripers have been mentioned since the earliest settlers. Called rockfish further to the south, they were sometimes known as linesiders to fishermen around here. Youngsters are known as schoolies.
Prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims, several explorers mentioned stripers, along with cod. Captain John Smith found them so plentiful in 1614 that he wrote, “I myself at the turning of the type have seen such multitudes pass out of a pounce [fish trap] that it seemed to me that one might go over their backs drishod [dry shod].”
The first mention of stripers at Plymouth Colony occurred in 1621.
Old-time commercial fishermen share many tales of fishing down in New Jersey or Florida, heading to Alaska to make money and coming home to buy a boat. Our personal favorites; coming from away to fish for a month or two, loving it so much they move to the Cape.
Small- boat fishermen from around here still land at other ports to make sure they have the most successful year possible, and captains from ports up and down the seaboard depend on this peninsula’s harbors. This port patchwork helps make the industry strong. This month’s photo gallery explores one important, nearby port that matters to Cape fishermen: Galilee on Point Judith, Rhode Island.
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