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Jake Angelo launched his boat from Prince’s Cove Marina, slowly going down Marstons Mills River toward Three Bays, a place where he has spent much of his 29 years. He remembered stories as a kid: there was so much eelgrass that props would be mired in it. And so many eels in the trap you couldn’t jam another one in. For Angelo, a commercial fisherman and shellfisherman, that’s not his experience...

Close to 15 years ago, after researcher Owen Nichols’ first season working with a fishing family, he came up with what he thought was an impressive chart that drew direct connections between wind direction, water temperature and the presence of squid. He remembers being excited it to share it with Ernie Eldredge, of Chatham Fish Weirs Enterprises, whose fish weirs he was using to study squid...

Everyone interested in commercial fishing’s role and impact for Massachusetts, particularly if working through solid numbers is a fun wonky exercise, will find a new report released by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries a satisfying, enlightening document. “Port by Port: Profiles and Analysis of the Massachusetts Commercial Fishery” link bears down on an industry often overlooked when people think about the state’s economy...

Knowing the history of a place is a gift, we find we better understand it and better appreciate it. All too often history is lost and we find ourselves unmoored from the past and we think that doesn’t bode well for the future. Jim Gould, who passed away this March at 96, was able to capture much of Barnstable’s history in an engaging way. We are sharing one of his pieces from his blog here and want to mention that the other day we floated by Warren Cove, where oysterman George Hamblin built his oyster shack...

Small Boats, Big Taste. You have heard about our haddock chowder; now is your chance to try it, share it, and keep this great work going. Our haddock chowder program began taking shape around this time last year and we are quickly approaching 750,000 servings dispensed, almost all of them delivered to food banks and pantries. Our goals were to keep fishermen on the water as COVID struck, and help people facing food insecurity first across Cape Cod, Massachusetts, then in almost every New England state and all the way to Delaware and Washington D...

We were on our way to my first New England Fishery Management Council meeting, so must have been 1996, maybe 1997. Portland, Maine. A handful of Chatham fishermen and me were making the trek to see what we could do to keep codfishing alive in the face of amazing pressure, mainly from large boats pounding the bottom and taking out the stocks. A pit stop was in order, so we pulled into a rest area in New Hampshire...

Mike Dunbar was standing by his work truck and well-loved boat, looking at the cadet-gray waters of Lewis Bay, about to head out to fill a surprise, and very welcome, order of thousands of oysters. “This is my office,” he said, grinning at the thought and the idea of harvesting as many oysters as he wanted after a year of harvesting next to nothing, except for deliveries destined for food pantries...

Bluefin tuna and striped bass crash through the waves. Seabirds wheel overhead and plunge into the water. Gape-mouthed whales rise from below. Schools of cod and dogfish hide below the surface. While the convergence of such diverse sea life might seem accidental, those in the know thank a small, slender fish called a sand eel for the bonanza...

Alex Hay of Wellfleet Shellfish Company was on screen, shucking meaty surf clams for linguiça-infused stuffies, when an audience member following along at home raised a virtual hand. Jenn Allard of Mainsail Events and Marketing, who had pulled together the Meet the Fleet Zoom for the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, encouraged the question as one camera filmed Hay’s cutting board and the other focused on his face...

Fred Bennett remembers the moment well and although he doesn’t regret it, he does say he alienated some people. And he destroyed a flower pot. It was the mid-1990s, in a conference center in Hyannis, at one of many state and federal hearings centered on reducing fishing effort. Big cuts were on the table and hook fishermen like Bennett didn’t want to be lumped in with bigger dragger boats using so-called “rock hopper gear...

Our headquarters, the Captain Nathan Harding House on Main Street, has been much quieter than we would like because of COVID restrictions. We miss being there, meeting people there, having events there and celebrating a historic building the community came together to restore. So we thought we would take the opportunity, it being our 30th anniversary as well, to virtually visit and tell the story of the house that became our third office, and forever home, in 2010...

So many of us put in so much hard work to enact protections for herring in our waters, understanding that these small forage fish are crucial to a healthy ecosystem but have been nearly wiped out by one style of fishery working in devastating, massive ways. We won that fight, and now the federal government has in place thoughtful, constructive measures designed to bring herring back both offshore and to our rivers and streams that should teem at this very moment of every year...