Top News

from National Fisherman — Fall 2022

by National Fisherman

Classifi eds

East Coast

Lobster price drops add pressure on strained industry

Prices fall to near half od 2021 peaks

Fresh catch from the Maine lobster boat Ivy Jean Portland.

By Chris Chase

fter over a year of historically A high prices that netted the lobster industry national attention – and articles questioning whether consumers could stomach $34.00 for a lobster roll – the wharf price for the species has reportedly dropped all the way back down to “normal” levels and even beyond.

The price lobstermen were getting at the dock in 2021 was historically high, with fishermen in Maine getting roughly $8.00 per pound and Canadian lobstermen in Newfoundland getting as much as $10.14 per pound, according to the Fish Food and Allied Workers Union.

Now, fishermen in Maine are reporting they are getting as little as half the price of what they received last year – and in some cases even less than that. Despite the precipitous drop, that price is still within the norm: Fishermen in Maine, according to statistics compiled by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, got on average $4.05 per pound for the entire year in 2018, which comes out to around $4.78 when adjusted for inflation.

The difference this time is that input costs have gone up across the board. Prices for ultra low sulfur diesel vary from port to port, but areas like Dysart’s Great Harbor Marina in Southwest Harbor, Maine are reporting prices as high as $6.05 per gallon. That’s almost double the $3.30 it cost per gallon in July 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In addition to high fuel costs, bait continues to be an issue. The herring fishery, historically a large source of bait, continues to have low quota.

The pricing pressures are compounded by the ongoing struggle over right whale regulations. New NOAA regulations changed the requirements for fishermen and instituted a ban area, but a new court ruling found that even that hasn’t gone far enough to bring the fishery into compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

All the factors combined have led to a difficult year for fishermen, Bruce Fernald, a lobsterman out of Isleford, Maine, told SeafoodSource.

Whereas last year was a “fisherman’s dream,” this year has had challenge after challenge, and the right whale court cases are “hanging over us like a sword,” he said.

Fernald has been fishing for 49 years, and said he wants to continue fishing, but the current climate surrounding the industry is making things difficult.

In the end, the lobster industry in the U.S. state of Maine is largely decentralized, making each situation different from fisherman to fisherman. The Maine Lobster Marketing Collaborative told SeafoodSource that lobstermen acknowledge the price is largely out of their control.

“The price for Maine lobster is dependent on a host of factors that are outside lobstermen’s control."

Alaska

New sockeye record for Bristol Bay could even break forecast

July returns up 43 percent

By Kate Troll and Kirk Moore

he Bristol Bay 2022 sockeye run T surpassed the previous record set in 2021, with an estimated 69.7 million fish returns by mid-July.

With the season just winding down as NF went to print, the total appeared on track to break past the 75 million forecast by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

At the end of July the run was reported at 76.5 million salmon with a harvest of 58.3 million sockeye. By Aug. 6, 59.7 million were reported landed, according to a tracking report by McKinley

Research Group for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

The roaring season lent renewed urgency to activists’ campaign lobbying the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to strengthen Clean Water Act protections for wetlands around the proposed Pebble Mine.

Allied groups continue to circulate an online comment letter that people can send to the EPA from https://bit.ly/ EPAProtections2022. The United Tribes of Bristol Bay is waging an online campaign as well at www.utbb.org/get-involved .

Meanwhile, another coordinated effort aims block construction of a road to the Pebble Mine site by purchasing conservation easements on 44,170 acres.

The Pedro Bay Rivers project is a partnership between the Pedro Bay Corporation, the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust and The Conservation Fund.

The project aims to place three conservation easements on lands owned by the Pedro Bay Corporation, restricting development and ensuring the watersheds of the Pile River, Iliamna River and Knutson Creek continue to support the extraordinary returns of sockeye salmon year after year.

The project needs to raise $20 million by the end of 2022. More information and how to donate can be found at www.conservationfund.org/projects/pedro-bay-rivers-project-alaska.

Mid-Atlantic

ASMFC stock assessment says menhaden not overfished

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By Kirk Moore

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new menhaden stock assessment update for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission found the resource is not overfished nor experiencing overfishing.

The commission’s Aug. 3 acceptance of the report came as critics of Omega Protein’s reduction fishery fleet based at Reedville, Va., put more political pressure on state officials to restrict fishing in Chesapeake Bay. Nets spilling menhaden that washed up on beaches was one source of the latest rancor. But the ASMFC actions at its meeting in Alexandria, Va., dealt with the larger, longstanding debate over the recreational fishing sector’s belief that menhaden purse seiners are removing too much forage fish that feed striped bass and other species.

“Significantly, this assessment was completed using new ecological reference points, standards that account for the needs of predator species when determining menhaden's sustainable status,” according to a statement from the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, an industry group. “The ASMFC's ecosystem-based reference points were developed over years, with support from industry, recreational fishermen, and environmental groups, to move away from managing species in isolation and consider the needs of predator species and the ecosystem as a whole,” the coalition says. The stock assessment update comes after a coalition of 22 recreational fishing and marine industry groups sent a June 14 letter to Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin asking “that you move menhaden reduction fishing out of the Chesapeake Bay until science demonstrates that high volume reduction fishing for menhaden can be allowed without negatively affecting the broader Bay ecosystem.” “The detrimental impact of menhaden reduction fishing on the ecosystem is so pronounced that it is prohibited in every state along the East Coast except Virginia. However, each year, over 100 million pounds of menhaden are being removed from the Chesapeake Bay and ‘reduced’ to fish meal and oil for pet food and salmon feed by a foreignowned company – Cooke Inc.,” the sportfishing advocates wrote. The campaign is promoted by the American Sportfishing Association with a petition to Youngkin to end the commercial menhaden purse seine fishery, contending it hurts the bay ecosystem. The ASMFC stock assessment update came as a boost for the commercial fishermen.

A school of menhaden. NOAA

WILD ABUNDANCE

SURVIVING A RECORD-BREAKING SALMON SEASON IN BRISTOL BAY

By Nora Skeele

A

s I looked out at the storm from the safety of my captain’s couch, I could hear my phone buzzing. My dad’s texts came through all at once.

Have you seen the sh predictions for the Nushagak District?

You’re gonna be shing in the right place this season!

Looks like nasty weather for an opening day!

Have you been reading about what’s going on right now in Bristol Bay?!

He was following Dillingham radio station KDLG’s news reports, seeing ambitious sh predictions for the river district where I would spend the 2021 season. After two weeks of nonstop pre-season boat tweaking and net repair, we felt prepared. Ready or not, it was almost time to untie from the dock and head out into the bay. The season was here!

As a kid growing up thousands of miles away in Southeast Alaska’s small town of Sitka, everything I heard about Bristol Bay seemed in relation to Pebble Mine: the region’s epic wild salmon runs; the risk of their demise.

I’d seen protests against the proposed copper, gold, and molybdenum mine in the news, No Pebble Mine stickers on our friends’ cars and water bottles. I’d heard my parents’ impassioned concerns while we were hookand-line shing for coho salmon o the coast of the Tongass National Forest.

Twenty- ve years later, I was amazed to actually be in Bristol Bay, about to experience those legendary runs for myself. As much as I had been intimidated by the Bristol Bay driftnet shery, I’d long felt drawn to it.

Upon meeting my captain, Katherine Carscallen, a third-generation Nushagak River sherman, I was surprised to see we were the same age (early 30’s) and size, standing at 5’ 4.” I soon found out through handing her tools in the engine room, as well as overhearing

Crew member Jesse ‘Oly’ Oliver holds a sockeye, with crew member Ashley Miller behind.

A Bristol Bay fishing vessel in rough seas. The sockeye fishery is pursued in waters notorious for strong river currents, powerful tides and no protected anchorages.

her lengthy conference calls with the United Tribes of Bristol Bay, that she had the type of extreme competence and community engagement you only find in rural Alaskan fisher-people.

Other advocates standing shoulder to shoulder against the contentious mine are sportsmen and women, tourists, anglers, hunters, lawyers, environmental organizations and commercial fishermen. People from a wide range of political and socio-economic backgrounds have come together to fight Pebble Mine, drawn by a shared mission of protecting the salmon and wildlife habitat. This collective opposition against the proposed mine has strengthened and connected communities, issuing a rallying cry to support the land, air, and water we love and depend on.

OPENING DAY BRISTOL BAY, JUNE 21, 2021

When our 32-foot bowpicker nosed out of the harbor, I felt the force of a powerful wind buffeting my rain gear.

As we neared our destination, the wind on our stern was blowing hard, 25 to 30 knots. Soon we found ourselves surfing down the face of eleven-foot waves, brown with river-silt. I glanced at my crew members — Ashley Miller, a 26-year old Dillingham local, and Jesse ‘Oly’ Oliver, a sturdy farmer and social worker from Vermont.

They both looked shocked and somber, gripping the rails. I thought to myself, “Are we really going to fish in this shit?”

Growing up commercial fishing with my family in Southeast Alaska, we never knowingly went fishing in a gale-force storm, even if it meant missing out on a hot bite. But things in Bristol Bay, inland of the Bering Sea, are different. There are no protected anchorages to tuck into like there are in Southeast. The bare tundra terrain and strong river currents colliding with

Nora Skeele massive tides make for exposed coastline and very little protection from the natural world. People are tougher; fishing is more competitive. The peak season is short with huge financial rewards, so fishermen feel the need to get out there, even if the weather isn’t good.

Of course we were going to fish in this shit.

“Okay, throw the buoy over and set the net!” Kat yelled through the howling wind.

Even as my mind questioned whether she’d turn the boat back around (maybe we could spend one or two more nights on land, wait out the storm, tucked into our warm bunks?), I watched the gear bounce in the water. Suddenly our commitment was real.

I heard the radio from the cabin. Eric, a robust and free-spirited, longhaired Californian on another boat, yelled, “This is looking good. We’re loading up!” Another group member, the eldest at 75, said, “Look at this weather. You know what that means, the salmon are about to show up! Not bad for an opening day.”

After each opening, we headed to the tender to sell our catch. Our boat, dwarfed by the buyer boats’ large hulls, bounced and banged against their rails in the seas. We communicated by screams and hand motions over high winds and loud machinery.

We each kept a knife handy; Kat repeatedly told us, “Be ready to cut our tie-up line at all times.” We’d seen what could happen if one line flung loose while we were still connected on the other end. Boats had flipped from less weather than we were in.

It was a painful start to the season. The unrelenting rough weather and fumes from the solvents and hydraulic oil smoking off the engine nauseated us.

Six days into the season, on one of the darkest and stormiest nights, we heard through the radio that two boats had sunk with rumored loss of life. There was another rumor that our boat, the Seahawk, had sunk. We received over twenty satellite phone messages

from concerned loved ones the next day. The idea sent a chill down my spine and made me realize that it could have just as well been us. Death, knocking on our door. ”I could die doing this,” I thought, repeating the words like a mantra in hopes that saying them would keep me alert enough to make smart decisions amidst extreme sleep deprivation.

“This season is intense. It feels so dark, hearing about boats going down right around us,” I vented to Ashley, a wave of sorrow washing over me for the potential lives lost.

Unloading that night, I asked the tender captain if he knew what had happened to the boats that went down. He didn’t know any details, but said in a morose voice, “This year reminds me of 2018. It was stormy like this and so many boats went down that year.”

He spit his chew over the rail and

Nora Skeele

Running the Seahawk in foul weather, captain Katherine Carscallen on the bridge and crew member Ashley Miller on deck. looked me in the eye. “Bristol Bay eats people.”

In a season that lasts only five weeks, it would be almost impossible not to catch FOMO: Fear of Missing Out. Especially the captain, the person responsible for the many decisions that go into the process of filling the fish holds. As crewmen, our job is to handle tasks on the deck like setting and picking fish out of the net.

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We want those fish, we want them bad, but the “how to get them” is not in our job description.

Suddenly, the group radio speaker crackled with words that shocked and galvanized us into action. “Get over here, like now.”

A tight-knit bunch of eleven captains, the so-called ‘code group,’ worked together with the shared mission of catching hundreds of thousands of pounds of sockeye salmon – and staying alive so everyone returned safely home to their families after the short and grueling season. They used the radio to communicate how much they were catching, weather and tide conditions, how much space there was between them and other boats, invaluable mechanical repair advice, as well as encouragement and playful shit-talking banter – a hive-mind of highly skilled mechanics and specialized fishermen.

We picked our net as rapidly as possible, which happened to have only one sockeye in it, and sped off to join another captain nicknamed Mogley, our nervous systems on high alert. We could see splashing all along the cork line as we set. Within five minutes of putting out the 1,200 foot-long net, the Styrofoam corks that keep the net afloat began to sink. Within fifteen minutes, the whole thing had disappeared beneath the waves completely – weighed down by a giant school of sockeye salmon.

We froze in shock and awe, witnessing the sheer volume of salmon, masses of schooling sockeye moving together like a water dragon. I looked at Kat’s face to determine how concerned I should be. She was staring at the water with wide eyes, relaying what she was seeing to her code members on the radio. Her voice was thick with emotion. “Thanks for calling me over here. We’re surrounded by an army of salmon. I ’ve never seen anything like this!”

“This will be a test to see what our crew can handle together,” I thought.

Not only did we need to have our net aboard by the time the fishery opener ended in six hours, the tide was on the flood and moving our boat swiftly toward the regulatory line of where we were allowed to fish. Crossing “the line” meant the fish cops would not only confiscate all the fish we had laboriously picked out of our net, but also our captain would be slapped with a huge fine, a future court date and a violation on her record. Basically, we needed a miracle in order for this to end in our favor.

As we pulled in the buoy at the start of our net, Kat said, “I know you guys know this and I’m sorry to have to say it, but I need you to work as fast as you can and don’t stop for anything.”

Two hours into our set, Kat called out

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on the radio. “Well, there’s no way I’m getting these fish aboard in time without getting a ticket. It’s too dangerous to round-haul [pull the whole net on deck, fish and all] the end of the net in this weather with our starboard list and the front holds already so weighted down.”

Three of our other group members had already called for help. Another captain, John, responded, “I can’t help you with all those boats so close around you. I’m gonna go help Mogley and then I’ll stop by and see where you’re at.” John was Kat’s childhood friend. When they were growing up together in Dillingham, their parents would alternate childcare on land to take care of them so both families could keep fishing.

Resigned to the fact that she would get a ticket, Kat said, “Okay, we’ll just get as many of these fish aboard as we can.”

We kept working as fast as possible. Three hours later, I saw John whip his aluminum boat close to us, attempting to drop off his tall blonde Viking of a deckhand. As John nosed his bow up to us, the Viking carefully navigated an eightfoot lurching drop between each swell that rammed our two boats together and stepped gracefully onto our stern to work alongside us. Four minutes before the fishery closure and 100 feet shy of drifting over the line, our net’s final corks came aboard, salmon overflowing the holds. Our miracle had indeed shown up. As we motored to our tender boat to sell and offload the fish, the boat was so heavy that we rode dangerously low in the water, brown waves washing over our decks. We caught more fish that day than Katherine had ever caught in her eleven years captaining her own boat. The teamwork of our captain, crew, and code group turned what could have been her worst nightmare into her best day on record.

Nora Skeele

Captain Katherine Carscallen and others cut salmon on deck, accompanied by the captain’s dog Chula.

Nora Skeele grew up spending summers commercial fishing for salmon and halibut out of Sitka, Alaska with her family in their old wooden troller boat. She has fished trollingfor salmon, halibut long-lining and gillnetting. She is a writer, artist and designer in the offseason and enjoys splitting her time between Sitka and Hawaii.