May 30, 2013 — Nearly a month into a groundfishing year of crushing limitations — with cod landings off by 84 percent at Gloucester’s leading auction, and boat captains laying off family crew and selling homes to keep their boats afloat — Congressman John Tierney Wednesday expressed disappointment that the White House has “not done more” to help relieve the groundfishing industry disaster the administration acknowledged last September.
Tierney’s renewed push for aid comes with fishermen are taking desperate measures to avoid landing a year’s allocation of a single stock in a single tow, thereby forcing themselves off the water for the rest of the year, which just began May 1.
The allowable catch across the suite of most desired stocks were slashed by more than 50 percent.
Joe Orlando, captain of the mid-sized dragger Padre Pio and president of the 35-boat Gloucester trawl sector, was modifying his nets to keep them closer to the bottom as he shifts his fishing focus from the iconic cod and haddock to dabs — smallest of the flatfish, which burrow in the sand and mud of the Gulf of Maine.
He and the rest of the day boat fishermen preparing for the bittersweet opening June 1 of hundreds of nautical miles of water that was closed to fishing through May.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times