Boat building joins industry's past and present
Sean Leach is a second-generation fisherman who hesitates before saying how many boats his family has owned in the last 30 years. At least 8, he surmises. “We keep saying this will be the last one,” he said. Leach, 32, was standing in Cape Island Boats in Orleans, the strong, almost sweet, smell of fiberglass filling the air and a gleaming white, wide boat mostly filling the cavernous space...
Small as a flea, oysters go looking for calcium, and find A.R.C.’s cultch
In a greenhouse off a long, sandy road in Dennis, concrete pools are filled every spring to offer millions and millions of oysters a swim. Before the budding bivalves took the plunge this year, about 4,000 mesh bags of mostly sea clam shells, originally from a processing facility in New Bedford, were placed inside two of the empty pools at A.R.C Hatchery...
Pappalardo looks to future on fishery management council
“One Fish, Two Fish … John’s Wish, You Fish!” That bumper sticker, with two codfish bracketing the words ‘Pappalardo for Council,’ was created almost 20 years ago. A lot has changed since then. But Pappalardo’s wish hasn’t. “Protecting a tradition, a resource and a way of life was central to why I wanted a seat on the council,” Pappalardo...
Holy Mackerel: Historic catches helped make the Cape
Picture this: Dozens upon dozens of boats moving in and out of Cape Cod harbors, all under sail, employing thousands of men, all with the same mission: Catch mackerel. So it was in the mid-1800s, when mackerel was king and Cape Cod fishermen led not just the state but the nation in bringing them home. Indeed it’s fair to say that mackerel, more than codfishing or whaling, created what was probably the most prosperous era in Cape Cod history...
PHOTO GALLERY: Capturing the look and feel of a historic fishery
A century and a half ago, in 1871, Congress created the U.S. Commission on Fish and Fisheries. The reason, even 150 years later, sounds familiar: Study declining fisheries and recommend solutions to reverse this trend. A famous fish scientist at the time, George Brown “G.B.” Goode, became one of the early commissioners and put together a team of more than 20 scientists, with a similar number of supporting clerical employees, to compile a massive, multi-volume work that investigated just about every fishery known to the nation, detailing the fish themselves, the effort and means to catch them, the ecology in which they lived, and how the fishermen lived and worked...
Haddock chowder will roll out a new brand: “Small Boats, Big Taste”
Last month in this space, I mentioned that the team here at the Fishermen's Alliance has been thinking hard about ways we can help keep the local fishing fleet on the water, and help others hurt by the economic fallout raining down as we try to beat back a deadly virus. And I promised to get back to you with specifics to accomplish those goals. Now I’m ready to sum up a major initiative we’re rolling out with a couple of words that might make you laugh, to think that such big ambitions could get expressed in such a seemingly simple idea: Haddock chowder...
Newcomer keeps century-old quahogging tradition alive
Not too long ago the Orleans harbormaster, a bit worried, asked a longtime fisherman to keep watch on a young guy who had started bullraking in Cape Cod Bay with no more experience than watching a few videos on YouTube. “In two days I made about $28,” said Chris Viprino, the young guy in question, on a recent overcast day at Rock Harbor. “I spent a winter doing it...
Q&A with Dan McKiernan
A lot of water passes under a personal bridge in 34 years, which is how long Dan McKiernan has been working in and around the Massachusetts fishing industry. His recent appointment as director of the state’s Division of Marine Fisheries is a culmination of that career journey – which also means the tens of thousands of hours he has spent commuting from Sandwich to Boston over the years will continue, at least when some semblance of normalcy returns and the pandemic fades...
Bluefin tuna are in good shape, but do people know?
In April, in the throes of COVID, Red’s Best CEO Jared Auerbach started thinking about the upcoming Atlantic bluefin tuna season. He found some great news that he expected to be trumpeted by media outlets everywhere, but he couldn’t find so much as a mention. “The fishery got upgraded and no one is speaking the message that it is a healthy fish stock,” he said...
Quahogs made Rock Harbor
Captain Tom Smith grew up in Orleans and remembers going down to Rock Harbor to see the fishing boats when he was a kid. “There has always been a little quahog fleet in there,” Smith recalls. Most associate the tidal harbor the town shares with Eastham with the trees that mark its channel, and the popular charter boat fleet. But the quahog industry predates and has been as constant as the tides...
PHOTO GALLERY: Rock Harbor at Work
Rock Harbor is one pretty place. Sure people rave about the sunsets, which are phenomenal. And they wonder about the funny trees, often sprouting incongruous street signs, which mark the channel. The clam trees, as they are called, are installed every year and are part of the charm of the small port shared by Orleans and Eastham. But the trees, which old-time quahoggers used to put clams under, don’t explain the allure of the place...
