PROVINCETOWN — Throughout April, a few hardy fishermen have been departing from MacMillan Pier most mornings not to haul in a bounty of fish but instead to haul in lost fishing gear.
fishing
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
Striped Bass Are on the Way Early
Circle hooks will reduce released fish fatalities, but what about jigs that come with Js?
Spring in New England has come upon us in its usual manic fashion, vacillating between howling, cold, damp nor’easters and beautiful, warm, summer-like days. But the trend this spring has tended towards weather that’s warmer than usual, as evidenced by ocean water temperatures in the mid- to upper 40s — slightly above what we normally see in mid-April.
The same trend is holding true to our south, and this is important to fishermen up here, because that means a very real possibility of an early arrival of striped bass. The striped bass we catch migrate here from the Chesapeake Bay area, the Delaware Bay area, and the Hudson River. The fish go to brackish areas there to spawn. We do get “holdover bass,” which stay here all winter, but they are small, sexually immature fish.
The word from points south is that striped bass are way ahead of schedule. They are already catching them very well off of New Jersey and the south shore of Long Island. This would suggest they could be here by mid-May. The speed of the migration is purely temperature driven; as long as ocean water temperatures keep rising, they will keep coming north. A protracted cold snap, however, could slow the migration down a bit.
Rules for recreational catches are mostly the same this year. We are still allowed one fish per day in a slot size of 28 to 35 inches.
We still cannot use a gaff to bring a fish into the boat if we are unsure whether it is a keeper or not.
The notable change is there are no more exemptions to the 2020 rule putting an end to the use of J hooks when bait fishing for striped bass. Everyone has to use circle hooks now. The reasoning behind this is that circle hooks have a tendency to not go so deep into a fish’s gullet, which, theoretically, should cut down on released-fish mortality.
But this is where the rules make me scratch my head and say, “Huh?”
If you are fishing for any other species using a J hook and happen to inadvertently catch a striped bass of keeper size on it, you are not allowed to keep that bass.
And it gets worse. Because, conversely, if you are using a swimming plug, which typically has three treble J hooks on it, that’s OK to fish with. Even for catch-and-release striped bass not in the keeper slot size. Also, if you fish with a bucktail jig or a diamond jig you can use the traditional J hooks — they all come with them.
There is no question that swimming plugs with their three treble J hooks are responsible for many of the fatalities that occur when a non-keeper bass is caught and returned to the ocean. How can a fish with its mouth and gullet impaled by as many as nine hooks possibly survive?
The logic — or lack thereof — in these rules continues to astound me.
The commercial quota for striped bass will be the same as last year, at 735,000 pounds. But there is talk of expanding the length of the season with one more day per week open to commercial harvesting of striped bass. Nothing, as far as I have heard, is written in stone yet. Stay tuned.
LIVELIHOODS
If Young Fishermen Learn Their Way In, Then What?
New federal program aims to rejuvenate a ‘graying’ fleet
Along the American coastline, historic fishing communities — from the tip of Cape Cod to Alaska’s Bristol Bay — are plagued with a problem. This time, it’s not overfishing, complex regulations, or slow markets. Rather, it’s a culmination of years of these challenges, and it worsens with every tick of the clock. It’s called “the graying of the fleet.”
In response to mounting concern within an aging industry, the federal government recently passed the Young Fishermen’s Development Act (YFDA), signed into law on Jan. 5, 2021.
With an annual budget of $2 million, funded entirely by fees from fishing regulation violations, the YFDA will dole out grants to eligible fishing associations, universities, and tribal organizations for programs to help attract and support younger fishermen. There will also be a mentoring program to connect retiring fishermen with new ones.
The Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance has already launched a pilot training program that could be a glimpse of the future if some of that funding lands here.
“Our program targets that group of people that are interested in fishing but that don’t know how to enter the industry in a meaningful way,” said Stephanie Sykes, the program and outreach coordinator at the alliance. Sykes is also a lobbyist for the YFDA and a commercial fisherman.
Ken Baughman, a boat maker, software engineer, and new commercial fishermen, took part in the alliance program last March to learn about safety skills before his first summer fishing commercially.
“A lot of the time, boat safety comes across as just a checklist of things you need on your boat,” Baughman said. In the course, he said, he got insights on safety directly from people that have gotten in trouble, not companies advertising safety equipment.
Baughman, who grew up fishing in Falmouth, started selling his catch for the first time last summer. Though he didn’t have the season he wanted, his plan is to make a living by splitting his time between commercial fishing and boatmaking.
The seafood industry contributed $100 billion to the GDP and 1.7 million jobs to the U.S. economy in 2016. In Massachusetts, recreational and commercial fishing supported 97,000 jobs. Yet it’s an industry that’s getting more and more difficult for small players — small-boat fishermen — to enter.
That’s because “there are barriers to entry that are higher than in previous generations,” said Seth Rolbein, director of the Cape Cod Fisheries Trust.
From Sykes’s point of view, the main challenge is teaching young fishermen how to navigate commercial fishing’s complex business and regulatory environment. “You pretty much have to be a lawyer to understand some of the intense regulatory processes now,” she said.
“Fishermen can know all the ins and outs of how to fish,” said Pam Anderson, director of business and credit programs at the Community Development Partnership, but managing finances, selling fish to dealers, and handling compliance all require business skills that fishermen don’t learn on the water.
The barriers are more than educational. The price of a permit, boat, and essential gear means taking on hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And as fisheries become more tightly managed, fishing is a limited-access game.
Will Ligenza, captain of the F/V The Getaway, a 41-foot scallop boat out of Chatham, grew up handlining cod with his dad. He finally got his own business under way seven years ago, and, at 39 years old, he’s one of the younger fishermen in the business on Cape Cod. Ligenza has been following the legislation to encourage younger people to enter fishing and thinks it’s a good thing. “But,” he said, “my question is, will it come with fishing permits?”
Mike Rathgeber, longtime fisherman and contributor to the Independent, agreed. “Back in the ’70s, when I was commercially fishing,” he said, “if our costs went up, we’d fish more. That was the answer to everything — just fish more! That’s not an option anymore.”
Still, making ends meet as a fisherman is not impossible, according to Sykes, who is 26. “I’ll say this,” she said. “I fish full-time and I paid off all my student loans.”
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
North Winds Portend Cooling Waters
Wrapping up the season with hopes for the next one
There is no mistaking it: the fall season is upon us. Unrelenting winds from northerly quadrants have been buffeting us for days on end, and, as of this writing, the remnants of Hurricane Teddy were supposed to give us a substantial groundswell along with gale-force north winds of up to 40 miles per hour on Tuesday.
Commercial and recreational fishing boats have been tied the docks for a few days, so reports are nonexistent. The day before the winds started, some really nice striped bass catches took place in the rips at Race Point, and there were a lot of bluefish down back off the dune shacks.
Water temperatures are slowly declining and were mostly in the mid to high 50s, but I am afraid that after these north winds subside we’re going to be looking at temperatures in the high 40s to low 50s. This could be the catalyst that makes both striped bass and bluefish begin their southern migration. Bluefish head to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and striped bass go to Chesapeake Bay.
We won’t know, of course, what’s around and what has departed until we can get out there, which currently looks like Thursday at the earliest.
Tuna fishing very close to home was hot before the blow, as the deep waters off Beach Point and Long Point yielded some giants. This attracted commercial tuna fishermen from out of our area to Provincetown Marina to stay for a few days and try and get in on the action. Even a few of the Wicked Tuna heavy hitters showed up to the party.
Recapping the season, it was a much better year for bluefish, as a rather large body of small- to medium-size fish stayed in the bay for most of the summer, providing great light tackle action. Striped bass came in June and stayed for the entire summer, something they don’t typically do.
The most consistent hot spot for bass unquestionably was Race Point. Both surf casters and boaters were able to catch them, but the vast majority of these fish were shorts in the 25-to-27-inch range. This bodes well for the next few years. Flounder fishing was very good off Wellfleet for the entire summer, and it remains extremely underfished recreationally. Fluke were pretty much a no-show again, for the sixth consecutive year. Mackerel were in and out, but mostly in, which made bait fishing for stripers easy to accomplish. There was an astronomical number of pogies in the bay all summer long as well. Tuna fishing was pretty good for giants, both in the bay and up on Stellwagen Bank, but there do not seem to be a lot of smaller bluefins in our area.
This a bit worrying.
A few weeks ago I wrote about a few young local boys and men keeping the fishing tradition alive in Provincetown and showed a photograph of young Mason Santos with his first nice-sized bonito. Mason appears to be fast tracking his way up, because now he has helped his Uncle Jimmy land a giant tuna. Good job, Mason.
Well, for me it’s now time to put my boat “on the hard” and head north to my mountain home for the winter, with hope that next season we are not still dealing with Covid issues and the fish are here and biting. Until then, stay safe.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
A Noble Rite of Passage Lives On
Zach Salvador brings in his first giant bluefin
One of the biggest heartbreaks for me through the years living here every summer is watching this classic fishing village become less and less of that. Families who could no longer make a decent living fishing have had to pull up stakes and leave, one by one.
With the mass exodus of fishing families came the evaporation of deep-rooted traditions. Generations of seasoned salty men teaching the next generation their craft and passing down the skills of fishing and seamanship and the wisdom of the sea.
When I ran the Cee-Jay back in the 1990s, getting a mate to work on the boat for the summer was easy. There were many sons of commercial fishing captains and mates willing and able to do the work — and they came with a solid set of skills. Today it is extremely difficult to find a warm body who wants to be a mate, never mind a mate with fishing and boating skills.
I was always envious of the father-son teaching dynamic in the fishing world, as I came from a family of airline workers and didn’t get to experience that. I was the only one in my family who pined for the sea and fishing. Consequently, I had to learn the craft on my own from good-hearted but nonfamily mentors.
Which brings me to Zach Salvador.
Zach caught his first solo giant bluefin tuna last week. It was a beauty, too, and in a tight, thin market for bluefin, it got sold and shipped to Japan.
On the surface, this is no big deal. Guys and gals bring in giant bluefin tuna all the time here. It’s part of Provincetown’s charm.
But when you peel back the layers, you find something extraordinary.
Zach learned the craft of bluefin tuna fishing from his dad, Jon, who learned it from his dad, Edward. It is comforting to know the age-old tradition of passing down methods and tricks of catching fish from generation to generation is still happening in our little fishing town, albeit on a much smaller scale than it once was.
It warmed my heart to see this. Zach will never forget his first solo giant. One never does. I remember mine as if it happened yesterday. I remember every single detail about it, but mostly I remember a feeling of joy and pride unlike anything I had ever felt before at that stage in my life. I was walking on a cloud for days.
So, well done, Zach. The Salvadors are keeping this tradition alive, and for that I applaud them. The day may come when it no longer exists. But for now, this noble rite of passage still has a heartbeat in Provincetown. We ain’t done yet.
On the local fishing front, bluefish have returned to our waters since their disappearance after our summer nor’easter, but it hasn’t been as good as it was before. The fish aren’t as widespread as they were, and they have been finicky about biting.
Striped bass are still camped solidly from Herring Cove to the Race, but are also being very finicky about eating. Mackerel have pretty much departed the bay and are sporadically in the rips at the Race, so getting bait for bass fishing has been a bit challenging at times.
Flounder fishing remains very good, with the same few guys limiting out regularly. We caught a few keeper fluke on the Cee-Jay last week, and I would say it’s probably worth a try to drift with some sand eels and bucktails along the shoal waters of Herring Cove and Hatches Harbor.
Bonito are also being caught here and there in the bay by fishermen targeting bluefish and bass.
where's waldo?
Tempting Fate
Loads of stripers and bluefish — and one wacky human
Fishing heated up with the weather this past week. Striped bass have not gone into their summer doldrums and are feeding during the day in large concentrations all along Beach Point to the Cottages in 25 to 40 feet of water. They are also sporadically found off the Twin Hills on the back side of Long Point.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
A Surreal Fourth on the Waterfront
The good news is that the whales are back
This Fourth of July on the waterfront was certainly different than any other I have experienced in all my years here. The vibe was low-key, and it was very sad not to see the spectacular fireworks display the town puts on before the thousands of people who line both wharves as well as Fishermen’s Memorial Park between the wharves.
Sitting on my boat in the marina that night, it was surreal to hear how quiet it was and see the parking lots half empty. Let’s hope this is a one-year ordeal and we never have to see this again.
Timing is everything. The whale watch boats finally began to operate, at 50 percent capacity, on Monday, July 6, and right on cue the whales showed up in our local waters. Numerous humpbacks made an appearance along the stretch of water between Race Point and the Ranger Station, and a few finback whales were also seen cruising and feeding in the waters off Wood End Light to Race Point Light.
Fishing has greatly improved for striped bass and bluefish. Striped bass are filling in nicely in all the usual spots from off the Cottages at Beach Point to Wood End Light and on out to Race Point. There are also good numbers of bass down the backside beaches all the way to Long Nook in Truro. There is a significant number of fish in the 25- to 27-inch range, which of course makes them a “short” and so they must be thrown back. The high number of this particular size fish, which vary in age from five to seven years, suggests that the reproductive years of 2013 to 2015 were outstanding. This bodes well for the future of the species, as stocks of harvestable-size fish should steadily increase beginning next year.
When you catch one of these shorts, please remove the hook carefully and release it back into the water as quickly as possible. Also, remember that only circle hooks are allowed for bait fishing now, and gaffs are not to be used on any fish that appears to not be in the keeper slot size.
The stripers have been lying near the bottom, so bait fishing and deep wire line trolling have been the most effective methods to catch them, along with vertical jigging. Top water plugs have been mostly ineffective. This can, of course, change in an instant.
There is plenty of bait around for striper fishing. Mackerel are entrenched in our harbor from Long Point to the Horseshoe Cove, herring are thick on the deep-water side of the Race Point rip, and schools of pogies are seemingly everywhere. Look for huge dark circular patches on the water, which come from the pogies swimming in such tight formations.
Bluefish can’t decide if they want stick around or not. One day they are in thick, and the next nowhere to be found. These bluefish have been the smaller ones, in the two- to four-pound category, and are mostly found wherever striped bass are.
Pogies continue to attract giant bluefin tuna into our harbor and on out to Race Point, and a few have been caught and released by local fishermen. Lastly, flounder fishing off the Pamet in 40 feet of water remains good on days when you can get a slow drift going over the water. Small pieces of clam, mussels, and sea worms work best.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
Big Stripers Are Caught — and Thrown Back
New rules put 35-inch upper limit on striped bass keepers
Things are beginning to look a little more normal on the waterfront. More and more boats are starting to open up and operate. The Bay Lady began sailing tours, and both high-speed ferries, the Provincetown III and the Salacia, began service from Boston, albeit with much reduced passenger capacity.
Six-passenger charter fishing boats are all operating now, as well as the Cee-Jay party fishing boat. Meanwhile, we all await the next phase, hoping it will kick in on July 6. With the continuing downward trend statewide in virus infections, it is looking good for the whale watch boats to resume operations at a reduced capacity soon. That will put our waterfront at 100 percent operational.
It was sad to see a much-subdued Portuguese Festival and Blessing of the Fleet weekend, compared to the usual revelry. We hope next year we can get back to normal with this.
Fishing this week dramatically improved, as the bigger striped bass we have been waiting for finally arrived. A few really big fish were caught, including a 44-inch bass on the Lisa Z and a 46-inch monster bass hauled in on the Cee-Jay. The Beth Ann, Cape TipN, and Ginny G also reported fish in the high 30-inch category hitting their decks.
With the new recreational striped bass regulations in place, we can keep bass only in the range of 28 to 35 inches. That means all these big fish went right back in the ocean after a quick photo was snapped, much to the dismay of the customers who caught them.
Now, I understand the theory behind releasing big fish back into the water, as they produce a large number of eggs. But some of these bigger, older fish ovulate only every few years, so it seems to me the smaller, younger fish that make fewer eggs but ovulate more often would be more beneficial to maintaining sustainable numbers of fish.
Time will tell if the current plan is effective or not. What I can tell you is we have an abundance of 15- to 25-inch fish in our waters right now. These are two- to five-year-old fish, so it’s evident these were enormously successful breeding years.
The striped bass have moved into all the usual spots from Race Point to Beach Point. Trolling umbrella rigs and bunker spoons have been effective, but fishing live or dead mackerel has been the ticket for the most consistent catches. Swimming plugs have been oddly ineffective lately, as the fish seem to be on the bottom and reluctant to come up towards the surface to hit the plugs. Mackerel are virtually everywhere in our waters from the harbor out to Race Point. A few bluefish are also beginning to show up and be caught.
Flounder fishing off the Pamet remains good, and yet hardly anyone is targeting this action. With the tremendous number of pogies (menhaden) currently in our waters, and particularly in our harbor, it was just a matter of time before giant bluefin tuna found them, and this past week it happened. We had tuna in our harbor and one was even caught just off the Long Point bell buoy.
We were delighted to see a solitary humpback whale feeding on huge schools of pogies around Race Point all week, and just offshore of it were a pair of finback whales feeding on herring in the deeper water. We were also treated to a minke whale sighting in the shallow waters off the cottages at Beach Point the other day while bass fishing.
Still no sign of squid under the lights at night around both wharves in town, and it looks like year six of no fluke (summer flounder) is all but a foregone conclusion.
It was a quiet week for great white shark sightings, but I believe that is more a by-product of lightly populated beaches than anything else.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
While Waiting for Fish, We Count Sharks, Deer, and Coyotes
Not many stripers or blues, but the flounder are fat and fine
The Provincetown waterfront remains quiet, as commercial fishing boats go about their business of lobstering and scalloping, but the rest of the fleet is essentially tied to the dock waiting for phase three to loosen things up at the end of this month.
The shark detection buoys were deployed this week. These are the yellow, can-shaped, unmarked buoys you see in the water; they are not navigational in nature. There are three in our bayside locale. One is at Herring Cove, another at Race Point, and the third is off the Pamet River.
These buoys pick up a ping from sharks who have been tagged with transmitters and alert the appropriate authorities of their presence.
I have last year’s data from the buoys and the information is compelling. The Race Point buoy recorded 1,783 detections, of 43 different sharks, with an 8.5 average daily detection rate. The Herring Cove buoy recorded 371 detections, of 31 different sharks, with a 1.8 average daily detection rate. Coming in last, the Pamet buoy recorded 318 detections of 22 different sharks, with a 1.2 average daily detection rate.
Race Point is unquestionably the hot spot around us on this side.
With over a hundred sharks tagged, and more to come, tracking data should get more comprehensive.
We have not seen many whales around here at all. This week we finally got a look at a rather large finback whale feeding just off Race Point, but it seems the whales have been mostly on the north end of Stellwagen Bank.
Fishing has been disappointingly slow of late. There is a rather large body of mostly small striped bass camped on the south end of Billingsgate Shoals, but the stretch of water from Wood End to Race Point, known for outstanding June striper fishing, has been a dud to date. Fish are few and far between there, and most are short. Reports are that the big 40-inch-plus fish have left the waters of New Jersey in their northern migration, but have not shown up here yet. It is starting to get late. June has been our prime month for striped bass, and with the commercial season about to open up in 10 days, there is genuine concern among both recreational and commercial fishermen.
Bluefish have remained south of us in big numbers.
The flounder fishing off the Pamet in 40 to 50 feet of water, on the other hand, remains very good. I know of fishermen who have been limiting on big fat flounder consistently. It is well worth the time and effort to go after these very tasty fish.
Mackerel have been caught in the Horseshoe Cove and Long Point and occasionally in the inner harbor on the incoming tide.
Something you don’t see every day: a deer was seen swimming in the waters around Long Point. The guess here is coyotes were chasing it and the deer had no choice but to head to the water for safety. Deer are remarkably good swimmers. A few boaters saw it and herded it back to land.
For the deer’s sake, I hope the coyotes were not there waiting.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
What Not to Eat, or Be Eaten By
The seals and sharks return, and pufferfish appear
PROVINCETOWN — The hot news on the waterfront this week is that the seals are back, and so are the white sharks. A gray seal with a rather large shark bite washed up on an East End beach on Saturday.
Last week we started to see seals showing up at the usual places, such as Long Point and Horseshoe Cove, and now we have clear evidence of predation. Forewarned is forearmed. This is the new norm, and we should all be respectful of their environment to keep ourselves safe.
Many of us saw a strange sight in our inner harbor this week. Schools of pufferfish were swimming around the docks. Not typically seen in waters this far north, they were in schools of a dozen or so. Important: these fish are extremely toxic to consume.
Pufferfish contain tetrodotoxin, a substance that makes them potentially lethal. Tetrodotoxin is more poisonous than cyanide. There is enough toxin in one pufferfish to kill 30 adult humans. There is no known antidote to this toxin, either, so if you catch one, throw it back.
It is horseshoe crab mating season now in our waters, and coupled crabs can be seen all along our beaches doing what they do to propagate their species. Horseshoe crab blood is extremely valuable to medical science. The crabs’ copper-rich blue blood clots in the presence of bacterial endotoxins and is used in tests to detect the presence of contaminates in vaccines and infusions, and in other medical applications. It’s expensive: $15,000 a quart.
Fishing for striped bass has greatly improved this week, as keeper-size fish showed up from Wood End to Race Point. The inner harbor is also awash in smaller “schoolie”-size stripers. Live lining mackerel and casting swimming plugs and metal jigs are most effective.
Mackerel are very thick up in Horseshoe Cove as well as at Long Point. Water temperatures are still fairly cold for this late in the spring, so things have been slow to develop so far. But I am hearing reports of “best bluefishing in many years” coming from Long Island Sound tackle stores, so let’s hope we can say that as well in a few weeks.
There has been a fair amount of confusion about what’s being allowed on our waterfront this summer, thanks to the local news media. (“Virus fears prompt ‘no whale watch’ order,” was one of the misleading headlines, in the Cape Codder, last week.)
To be clear, the Dolphin Fleet can and will resume whale watch tours with the arrival of phase three, most likely on June 29. Six-passenger charter fishing boats, as well as party fishing boats, may operate in phase two, provided they adhere to social distancing guidelines and limit capacity to 10 passengers plus crew.
As for boat launch ramp regulations, they are open to vehicles and boats legally registered in Massachusetts. You must launch quickly, adhering to social distancing guidelines, with no loitering allowed. The Provincetown Marina is open for business with all gathering areas temporarily closed and a strict limit on how many people may occupy the restrooms and offices. Launch boats will also be limiting how many passengers they may pick up at once, and the fuel dock is open with one boat at a time allowed in to fuel up.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
With Fishing on Hold, a Bivalve Bonus Appears
In a spring like no other, sea clams are a welcome sight
Spring has been a very confused season so far. As I write this, snow is falling in the western hills of Massachusetts as well as my winter home in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Here on the Cape we have been pummeled by stiff southerly and southwesterly winds for days on end.
One of the quirks of high winds coming from that direction is, if it blows hard enough, waves and strong currents the wind creates deposit massive numbers of sea clams on the beach. Walking the beach, you can easily fill up a pail with these large bivalves, which make excellent baked stuffed clams. They’re also good for chowder and there are plenty of locals in town with great recipes. I love eating the two abductor muscles, located near the opening to either side of the clam, either raw or marinated.
It is important to make sure they are alive before you cook and consume them. Consuming a dead clam can make you very sick, and they are highly perishable. A simple tap on the shell will make them close up tight and confirm they are alive and well.
The question of the hour remains: how are we going to do the things we love to do out on the water safely in these times of social distancing?
As of this writing, the whale watch boats are on hold until at least May, and I will certainly not be running the Cee Jay on its normal schedule in early May. My best guess is we will have to lower the number of people we take out on our boats and mark spots at the railings to keep passengers at the suggested safe distance of six feet apart from each other.
I am not convinced, however, that this is a workable plan. The smaller six-person charter boats are even more challenged then the bigger whale watching and party fishing boats, as their space is significantly smaller in proportion to the number of passengers on board. Going to the beach is a little less restricting compared to being on a boat and probably easier to pull off under the current social distancing guidelines.
In preparation for the big spring run of striped bass at the Cape Cod Canal, towns have marked off parking spots six feet apart and are encouraging fishermen to fish only in front of their cars. Good luck with that! Either way, this is going to be a season on the waterfront unlike any other and is truly going to be a work in progress as we all try to figure out life in the new normal of Covid-19 World.
Meanwhile, the striped bass are continuing their migration north towards our waters with an earlier than usual arrival expected. There are no signs of bluefish south of us yet, which is unnerving, as we have gone five years without any consistent bluefish presence in our locale for reasons unknown.
It is important to know that the fishermen of our beleaguered commercial fleet, who already have enough headwinds to fight in their day-to-day lives, now do not have many markets to sell to, with some restaurants closed entirely and the rest open for take-out only. But necessity is the mother of invention. You can get beautiful fresh local seafood either delivered or put together for contactless pickup from Cape Tip Seafood in Truro and Holbrook Oyster in Wellfleet. Please give them a call and support them with your purchases. It could be the difference between staying solvent or going out of business for the fleet in these trying times. Thank you, and stay safe.
THE SCUTTLEBUTT
Early Start to a Season in Doubt
The view from the water of a changed world for fishermen
As we begin another season on the waterfront, it would be an understatement to say its start, if it ever happens, won’t look like any other previous season’s start. Our world has fundamentally changed for all of us, including those who work on the waterfront, as we try to grapple with the first significant global pandemic since 1918.
Before the pandemic, it was looking like an early start on the water, as our relatively mild winter kept ocean and bay water temperatures a little higher than normal. Herring runs started earlier, as well as plankton blooms. The striped bass migration out of Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson River kicked in sooner than normal as well, and fishermen have already begun to catch the first wave of schoolies from New Jersey all the way up to the Cape Cod Canal.
There have been some significant changes to the striped bass regulations for the upcoming season. For the recreational fisheries along the Massachusetts coast, the 28-inch minimum has been replaced with a slot limit: 28 inches minimum and under 35 inches maximum. The previous one-fish limit remains in force.
Circle hooks are allowed only when chunk-bait fishing for striped bass, and gaffs are prohibited on any fish not of slot-limit size. I understand why circle hooks are allowed only for bait fishing, as the mortality rate improves when removing a circle hook from an undersized fish as opposed to a treble hook. But, at the same time, swimming plugs with three treble hooks are still allowed, and I can assure readers that a fish with three swimming plug treble hooks in it has little chance of survival when returned to the water.
Recreational bluefish regulations have been modified as well. Effective May 1, recreational fishermen will be allowed to keep only three bluefish per day, but charter boat clients will be able to keep up to five. We previously had a bag limit of 10 fish per day. There is still no minimum size for bluefish keepers.
The commercial regulations for striped bass, as I understand it, are still in flux, but I am hearing that an 18-percent reduction in the quota is being talked about.
Some say striped bass numbers are once again perilously low, in part because of low catch reports both recreationally and commercially last season. Here’s the problem with that: government fish surveys are taken within the three-mile legal catch limit, and there was a very large body of striped bass camped for a while last year more than three miles from land, southeast of Martha’s Vineyard, and consequently these fish went uncounted. This is the unintended consequence of a process that is very much an inexact science.
Right whales are arriving as usual for their annual spring feed on the enormous amounts of plankton in our waters at this time of year. They can be seen from shore, Herring Cove to Race Point, and my buddies who do yacht deliveries tell me they are seeing many pods of humpback whales cruising from off the coast of Florida north towards Virginia, so they should be here soon as well.
With all these marine animals and mammals nicely falling into place for the start of another fishing and whale-watching season, there is an elephant in the room, which may or may not affect us in a way we have never seen before in our lifetimes. Social distancing might be a game changer for waterfront activities and is the issue I will address in depth in next week’s column.
Until then, stay home, be well, and let’s beat this monster once and for all.
CEPHALOPODS
The Long and Shortfin Year in Squid
With scientific squidbits from the decade that was
“They showed up early and left quickly,” said a Provincetown harbormaster.
“Shortfin squid are everywhere,” said Owen Nichols of the Center for Coastal Studies. “For longfin, the Nantucket Sound fishery was late and short this year.”
So there you have it, from two great sources: squid were everywhere and nowhere at the same time. They are slippery critters, for sure.
We have two species of squid in our fishery: longfin (Doryteuthis pealii, a.k.a. bone squid or loligo) and shortfin (Illex illecebrosus, a.k.a. Boston squid). It is usually the longfin that come inshore and that we catch under the lights at MacMillan Pier. The shortfin traditionally stay offshore but are known to make inshore appearances.
The commercially squid picture is complicated. “Big picture as far as the fisheries go: longfin is down and shortfin is up, in keeping with the last couple years,” Nichols said, adding, “Only half the longfin quota has been caught, while the shortfin fishery has exceeded its quota by a little bit and is shut down.” The effect of quotas may seem odd, but as a federal monitor described to me, when the populations are robust, squidders catch a lot, hit the quota early, and shut down the fishery, even though it’s healthy.
On a more local scale, the squid seemed harder to find at MacMillan this past summer — I saw many bored squidders sitting under the lights. Sure, the squid were there, but on the bottoms and holding tight, and not always where squidding was allowed.
It was rare to see a shoal of squid swim languorously by, as we have in summers past. Instead, they would attack the surface-swimming mackerel in a flash, with a glorious display of speed and prowess.
Just down the road in Wellfleet, there was a bona fide squid stranding in June. It was a one-day event and happened, notably, on the solstice. There were hundreds, possibly thousands, stranded on the shore at Indian Neck during the morning tide, and not again.
Why the solstice? Well, only Mother Nature knows, but it makes sense that a creature that has survived over six hundred million years and five great extinctions may also hold some secrets that connect it to nature’s cycle. And what cycle is bigger than the sun’s?
That same day, a Japanese group posted an Instagram of a mass stranding there, claiming it was related to mating behaviors. This jibes with two observations I made while squidding on the night of the solstice.
The squid we caught were all shortfin, an abnormality. They were full of seed and eggs. Most intriguing to me, we caught almost a bucket — as many as 100 squid — and there was not one incident of inking, an otherwise common event. Clearly, these squid were saving their energy for something more urgent.
That night I also witnessed one of the more amazing sights of my squidding life: Wellfleet fisherman Al Emmons landing five squid on one cast. Five! Three was his previous record.
Looking back over the decade, all that can be said is, “What a ride it was!” We saw the pier bubble with excitement, near fights, and major controversies around access. The first squid genome sequence was published, and scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution studied the way cephalopods (and only cephalopods) edit their own RNA molecules.
And then there’s the mysterious Kraken (giant squid). Though a few carcasses had washed up onshore, the first live one was filmed in 2012. And scientists showed that giant squid around the globe are all one species, unlike market squid, the species of which differ by location.
In the future, I expect great work from Brett Grasse and his group at Woods Hole, who are trying to determine how to raise our local squid in captivity. If anyone can do it, it’s Brett and his team.
ECONOMY
Fishing Is Still the Most Dangerous Job
Fishing Partnership’s insurance plan, the model for ‘Romneycare,’ has helped
Close brushes with death are common for Outer Cape fishermen.
Rick Marvin of Eastham, who fishes for lobster, bluefish, and crab, knows from experience that a routine move can quickly become dangerous on a fishing boat.
One day in early December 2017, Marvin was tossing lobster traps off the side of a boat when his boot became entangled in the rope attached to the trap he had just thrown overboard, which was rapidly sinking into the sea.
“Before I knew it, I was dragged off the boat, and all I saw was water,” Marvin said. There was no time to cut the rope, so “after I hit the water and went down some feet, I made one last desperate attempt to knock my boot off.”
It worked. As the boot was dragged into the depths, Marvin swam in his bulky clothing towards the surface and was then hauled onboard by the crew.
Although terrifying to imagine, Marvin’s experience is not uncommon. “I’ve heard a lot of horror stories” from other fishermen, he said.
A Risky Business
Fishing was the most dangerous profession in the U.S. in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That year fishermen experienced a rate of 99.8 fatalities per 100,000 full-time employees. Logging was the second most fatal profession, with 84.3 fatalities per 100,000 workers.
From 2000 to 2015, there were a total of 725 commercial fishing fatalities in the U.S., the majority of which resulted from unintentional falls overboard and vessel disasters from large waves or flooding. During this same period, 221 crew members, none of whom were wearing personal flotation devices (PFDs), drowned after falling overboard. In about half of those cases the fishermen were alone, with no one to witness their fall.
Fishing Partnership Support Services navigator Morgan Eldredge, who is based in Chatham, explained that working on the water is inherently riskier than working on land. “You don’t have quick access to emergency care when you’re in a vessel,” she said. “The Coast Guard isn’t right down the street like the ambulance is.”
Training Prevents Panic
“You’d be surprised at the number of fishermen who don’t know how to swim,” Eldredge said. “They say, ‘I work in the water. I don’t go in the water.’ ”
Although fishermen may not like to contemplate going overboard, Eldredge says she has seen a “huge change in the last six years” in local fishermen’s willingness to wear PFDs.
Eldredge believes this change arose in part from the Fishing Partnership’s safety training, which began in 2012. The program has been popular: in 2019, 77 Cape Cod fishermen participated. Younger fishermen have been especially eager to get the instruction, Eldredge said.
In safety training crew members learn how to respond to emergencies onboard. Over the course of two days, fishermen learn CPR and first aid, as well as how to deal with fires, falls overboard, and flooding.
Participants also have a chance to learn to use emergency equipment. From deploying life rafts to setting off a flare, “Most of them have never seen these things used in real life,” Eldredge said. “The last thing you want to do is to put that survival suit on and jump in the water for the first time in an emergency.”
Although larger boats can handle waves and bad weather better than smaller boats, Eldredge said the most important thing is training and taking proper precautions. The crews of all commercial fishing vessels that work in federal waters must perform monthly life-saving drills, which are logged and checked by the Coast Guard, she said.
Lobster fisherman Michael Milewski of Provincetown said that the safety training was “very helpful.” He has been fishing for the past six years with his brother, and they have both been pulled overboard a few times after getting entangled in gear.
Milewski has already put his safety training to use. He has twice been on a boat that sprung a leak, once before the training and once after. The first time, “I remember panicking,” he said. “A couple years later, I was able to stay calm, figure out the situation, and fix the problem from what we learned in training. The more you practice, the more prepared you are for the situation at hand, and you don’t panic.”
Securing Insurance
Because of the riskiness of the profession, securing reasonable health insurance was in the past a notoriously difficult challenge for fishermen. That’s another thing that has changed, and that change began here on the Cape.
The Fishing Partnership was founded in 1997 to address this issue. It created “an affordable health plan that covered a group of hard-to-reach, chronically uninsured, high-risk individuals and ran it successfully for nearly 15 years,” its website states.
Eldredge said that the Fishing Partnership’s way of using income to determine premiums became the model for “Romneycare” in Massachusetts — which itself was the inspiration for the Affordable Care Act, the program some still call “Obamacare.”
Insurance premiums no longer depend solely on the riskiness of a job, Eldredge said. “The cost of the plans depends on your zip code and age she said. Now fishermen are covered in the same way their neighbors are. “It doesn’t have to do with occupation,” Eldredge said.
With its original purpose resolved, the Fishing Partnership now acts as a resource to fishing families, providing advice on insurance decisions.
Eldredge said that signing up for insurance can be confusing because premiums are based on predicted income, which, for fishermen, varies depending on the season and environmental factors.
Milewski appreciates the Partnership’s work. “I always have a lot of questions about health insurance,” he said. “With nine months to make all the money for the year, I don’t have time after a 17-hour day to try to figure out why my health insurance isn’t working. It’s been a huge help.”
Challenges Remain
Although training has made fishing safer and affordable insurance is available to fishermen and their families, there are still major obstacles to improving health and safety off and onboard.
Locally, finding local health care providers is one important challenge that remains. “It’s another frustrating factor on the Outer Cape,” said Eldredge. “The more affordable plans don’t have as many providers in this area. People feel stuck.”
There is no avoiding the fact that fishing is hard physical work. It seems clear it should not be done alone. Eldredge said that fishermen who are pressed to cut costs, including crew members, can mean more fishermen setting off alone, a scenario that can easily turn an accident into a disaster.
Long days also put fishermen at higher risk of making the mistakes that lead to injuries. Eldredge points out that quotas and closures can put fishermen under pressure to work long hours when they can, and go out even in bad weather.
Milewski and his brother are a good example. Between their two boats, they fish 1,600 traps each week and work long days, staying on the water for 17 hours from sunrise to sunset to earn all they can during the nine months that the lobster fishery is open.
“Fatigue,” said Eldredge, is one of the biggest risk factors fishermen face.
Staff reporter Ryan Fitzgerald contributed to this story.
the year-rounder
Fishing Is Our Essence
Has Provincetown learned Mary Heaton Vorse’s lesson?
PROVINCETOWN — My late father-in-law was a wonderful man, with a simple palate, a real meat-and-potatoes kind of guy. Whenever any of his three daughters (each an accomplished and inventive cook) attempted to serve him something creative, something Asian-fusion or whatever, he would take a bite or two, look up quizzically, and ask, “What is the essence of this?” A fair question to ask about something you are about to ingest.
I have written about the pervasive air of happiness in Provincetown. But beyond that, what is its true essence? What is or was its real reason for being, and how does that feed into each of our connections to this town we love?
I will make a strong case for fishing.
Even the dimmest-witted or party-dulled tourist, walking out on the wharf, will spy a commercial fishing boat tied up alongside — maybe a bit rusty, piled with gear and tubs and equipment — and know that this is still a fishing town. Maybe he or she will see one or two real fishermen, mostly guys, in those tall rubber fishing boots, scruffy jeans — sometimes bloodstained or bearing a sheen of scales — and know that fishing happens here and lends its authenticity to the town.
The harbor is the center of our town and always has been. MacMillan Wharf is the epicenter now and was even more important in days gone by. What is difficult for us moderns to comprehend is that a hundred years ago Railroad Wharf was not an isolated structure projecting out beyond the neighboring shops, galleries, restaurants, and bars: it was a part of an uninterrupted mosaic of waterfront enterprises.
There were over 50 wharves at one time, from the East End to the West, some large and some small, lining the harbor. Each had sloops and ships, nets and gear, traps and other paraphernalia devoted to wresting a living from the sea back when Provincetown’s “one crop was fish,” to quote Mary Heaton Vorse’s Time and the Town, written in 1942.
Vorse wrote, “Provincetown is different from most resorts, which have been built for pleasure. Provincetown has become a resort through what it has to offer, and, underneath the summer rumpus, keeps its character, conditioned by the hard work of the sea which made it and sustains it.” She visited Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket and observed that “they ceased more and more to live a life of their own….” Nantucket, in particular, “does not earn her living any more, and summer people, off islanders, keep her alive.… A place, like a person, which does not earn its own living, lacks moral stamina….”
She saw these examples as a lesson to be learned by Provincetown. Was the lesson learned?
Yes and no.
I visited the harbormaster’s office recently and inquired about the state of commercial fishing in town. I was surprised to learn that roughly 55 vessels are registered as “tenants” (i.e., they pay a docking fee) at the wharf. These vessels are draggers, scallopers, charter boats, and those devoted to the pursuit of lobster, tuna, and shellfish. Other vessels may also come in to offload their catches as well. The place is busy, and relatively full.
It is more difficult to ascertain where the men who work these boats come from, but perhaps half are from Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet, and Eastham. (Here again the housing crisis raises its hoary head: people can’t afford to live near their boats.) The Provincetown Public Pier Corp.’s mission is to keep the essence of fishing alive in Provincetown, and that is no easy task — to provide and maintain the infrastructure and yet keep it affordable. It makes the place real.
Still, this ain’t the old days.
In the mid-1960s there were at least 50 or 60 draggers docked at MacMillan Wharf, so many that they had to be “rafted,” sometimes up to 10 deep. Each boat had a crew of at least five (all men, I think), and these men were all local, most of them supporting families (and our local economy). Each wharf had a fish house into which they offloaded fish, and a caravan of trucks — up to a dozen a day — could be seen heading to and from these buildings; they transported the fish directly to New York’s Fulton Fish Market and also to Baltimore and other cities.
What we have now is a fraction of that, but it is still enough to retain a tenuous hold on that essence that Vorse talked about: we are still a fishing town. Those handful of boats allow us to keep our character.
Vorse ends her book with two statements. The first is in error; the second is prescient.
“But the fishermen will still be going out and the weirs will still be bringing in their millions of pounds of fish.”
“The one certainty is that Provincetown is in history’s path as it always has been.”