March 26, 2020 — As Americans rush to stock their pantries due to shelter-in-place orders in numerous states and cities, U.S. grocers are realizing record seafood sales.
Grocery retailers and delivery companies are also on a major hiring spree, as demand for food and non-food items such as toilet paper outpace supply. Total U.S. sales of consumer packaged goods soared 44 percent for the week ending 14 March, compared to the same week last year, according to new Nielsen data.
February 19, 2020 — Small-mesh commercial fishermen in the whiting and other fisheries may be eligible to receive — at no cost — new net technology that has shown promise in significantly reducing bycatch of yellowtail, winter and windowpane flounder.
The project, organized by the Long Island-based Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program and funded by NOAA Fisheries, will provide 25 approved fishermen with vouchers that would cover the full $800 cost of a bycatch reduction technology called a large mesh belly panel.
“It’s a concept first tested in 2004 to assist fishermen with concerns and issues to do with bycatch,” said Tara McClintock, a Cornell Cooperative Extension fishery specialist. “We wanted to expand on that work in the small-mesh multispecies fishery.”
McClintock said the panels, which are made of 80-centimeter mesh with 6-millimeter poly-webbing, can be inserted into traditional four-seam, bottom-trawl nets. They replace the original net’s first bottom belly to create larger openings to mitigate bycatch.
She said CCE has performed multiple studies on the innovative net gear aboard industry vessels since 2010, with consistently positive results.
February 19, 2020 — By his own account, Anthony DiLernia is a guy who can make friends with any angler. For 45 years he’s run a fishing charter boat out of New York Harbor, and he’s served as a member of the Mid-Atlantic Fishing Council on and off for almost as long.
But get DiLernia on the subject of Paralichthys dentatus, aka summer flounder, aka fluke, and his voice gets territorial in a harbor kind of a way. What steams him are the wide variances in the amount the fish the federal government permits each state to catch. The uneven allocations are the reason that Southern fishermen routinely travel hundreds of miles to the waters off Long Island to trawl for fluke that local fishermen are forbidden to catch.
These state quotas, which are meant to prevent a species from being fished out of existence, are based on patterns of where the fish were brought in to docks in the 1980s. Back then summer flounder were clustered off Cape Hatteras, which explains, in part, how Virginia and North Carolina together get more than 50% of the annual quota, whereas New York gets only a little more than 7%.
But anyone who spends any time with a net knows warming waters have been pushing fluke steadily north. “You know all those critters who used to live down South? Guess what? They’ve moved to the Bronx,” DiLernia said.
“Our guys will be fishing right along their guys 80 miles off Long Island,” he said with indignation rising in his voice. “We catch more than a couple hundred pounds, and we have to throw the rest back—which is a total waste. Meanwhile, they are filling their freezer and driving back to North Carolina. With diesel fuel. What do you think that does to the environment?”
February 5, 2020 — A new series of events called “What’s the Catch?” seeks to build consumer awareness of Maine’s underutilized fish species.
Greater consumption of species like monkfish, redfish, flounder and hake could help fishermen who primarily depend on the lobster fishery to diversify their income. And that’s an important consideration if today’s robust lobster stocks ever decline, Ben Martens, executive director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, told Mainebiz.
The association is collaborating with Luke’s Lobster on the series, which features a different fish species at four monthly events and highlights fishermen and the working waterfront.
Hosted the second Wednesday of each month from January through April, the series is part social event and part educational.
The January event featured monkfish. The next event, featuring redfish, is scheduled for Feb. 12, from 6-8 p.m., at Luke’s Lobster on the Portland Pier. The March 11 event features flounder, and the April 8 event will focus on hake.
February 4, 2020 — Nine seafood items have received special exclusions from tariffs placed by the United States on goods imported from China.
The items – which must be individually frozen or frozen in blocks to qualify, depending on the harmonized tariff system (HTS) classification code – include Alaskan sole, Alaskan plaice, flounder, sole, slipper lobster, king crab, snow crab, Dungeness crab, and meat from crabs other than king, snow, Dungeness, and swimming crab.
December 18, 2019 — The following was released by Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council:
The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council met December 9-12, 2019 in Annapolis, Maryland. During this meeting, the Council:
Read the full December 2019 Council Meeting Report for details on these discussions and decisions. Briefing materials, presentations, motions, and webinar recordings are available here.
* Items denoted with an asterisk (*) were undertaken during joint meetings with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and Bluefish Management Board.
November 7, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
The 2019 twin-trawling experiment aboard the F/V Karen Elizabeth in late September tested scientific survey net performance at different “spreads”—or how widely the net is open.The differences in capturing fish at different water depths that can be attributed to that spread.They found subtle differences between the two options.
In a twin-trawl study, one vessel tows two trawl nets as closely together as possible through the same body of fish at the same time. This makes the two samples comparable. In this study, one net had a constant opening while the other tested various openings.
Both nets were otherwise the same, and are the survey nets and rockhopper sweeps used on the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow twice-yearly bottom-trawl survey since 2009. “Sweeps” are the gears attached along the bottom of trawl net openings that help target different types of species on different types of bottoms. Rockhoppers are big rubber disks that help a trawl net more easily tow over rocky bottom.
The four fish targeted in the study were flatfish:
Gulf of Maine witch flounder and American plaice found in deeper waters.
Southern New England winter flounder and windowpane flounder found in shallower waters.
Fishermen and researchers want to know more about Bigelow net underspread (being open less widely than desired) in shallower water. They are also interested in net overspread (or being open more widely than desired) in deeper water, and how different spread affected flatfish catch.
October 17, 2019 — A proposed coastal fishing regulation designed to protect species is drawing sharp differences of opinion from some of those affected.
Some think the measure is necessary to prevent continued loss of important fish species.
Others think the measure won’t work as intended and could prove catastrophic for coastal fishing industries.
Tom Roller is a professional fishing guide in Beaufort who brings his clients to sounds, bays, inlets and creeks to cast for red drum, speckled sea trout, bluefish and Spanish mackerel.
But his bread and butter, he said, is Southern flounder.
“They are extremely important to my business, but we don’t catch Southerns like we used to because they aren’t here anymore,” he said. “They are an example of how to overfish something and not do anything.”
The recreational Southern flounder fishery is closed for the rest of the year since the catch exceeded its target defined by the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan.
Commercial landings of Southern flounder, according to the N.C. Wildlife Federation, have declined 88 percent over the past two decades. A landing is the amount of fish harvested at sea and brought to land.
October 2, 2019 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:
The NOAA Office of Law Enforcement is offering a reward of up to $20,000 in exchange for information leading to the successful prosecution of individuals suspected of being involved in significant unreported or misreported landings of summer flounder (fluke) in New York and New Jersey.
NOAA officials seek information from anyone who may have details of these incidents.
Anyone with information is asked to please call OLE’s Northeast Division at 908-339-1148, or the NOAA Enforcement Hotline at 1-800-853-1964.
Tips may be anonymous, however anyone providing information must leave their name and contact information to be eligible for the reward.
August 30, 2019 — The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission says that recreational and commercial southern flounder fishing will close on September 4.
The decision for the season’s close was made in a meeting last week where the commission adopted the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan Amendment 2 by the Division of Marine Fisheries.
The director of the Division of Marine Fisheries has flexibility to change the dates of commercial and recreational seasons as long as they meet harvest reductions.