Category: Fisheries

Regulators have set an abbreviated 2013 Maine Shrimp season.

Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which met Monday, said the total catch limit was set at 1.38 million pounds, down from 5.3 million pounds caught last year. That compared to the catch of 2011, when 13.3 million pounds of shrimp were harvested.

The season will begin on January 22 for trawling fishermen, who can harvest on Mondays and Wednesdays. For fishermen who use traps, the season will start on February 5, with a limit of 800 pounds per day per boat.

For additional reporting read this article in the Bangor Daily News.

The latest issue of Down East includes a feature article about the Maine oyster industry which ranges from Eventide to oyster farms to sidebars on two better mouse traps for opening the tasty bivalves.

“Oyster are trendy now,” says Jeff “Smokey” McKeen, a co-owner and founder of Pemaquid Oyster Company, which has been growing oysters in the Damariscotta estuary since 1986. “They are way more popular than they were twenty-five years ago, so the market is their for us now. All the Maine oysters have a good reputation in the marketplace. They come out of cold water so they are sweeter, plumper, and crisper than warm water oysters. They stack up against anything out there.”

The latest issue of Down East isn’t online yet but you can pick up an issue at your local newsstand.

An article in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram traces the route and mark-up from the few bucks per pound paid to a lobstermen on the dock to the $17+ that will be charged at a restaurant.

Once caught, a lobster can change hands five to seven times before it reaches a diner’s plate.

Lobstermen this summer are getting paid as little as $2 to $2.50 a pound for their catch — the lowest level in 30 years — but the price escalates to $17 a pound or higher by the time a customer orders a lobster in a restaurant.

The paper also continues their reporting on the recent conflict in Canada about processors importing inexpensive Maine lobsters.

Working Waterfront has published an article about the emerging squid fishery and market in Maine.

Culinary trends can be tricky to predict with the recent trend to sample both exotic and local foods—sometimes on the same plate. The roster of locally available foods is well known, and here in Maine one can expect rather hearty fare; potatoes, lobster, apples and kale are among the offerings, but lately there’s been a newcomer by way of Port Clyde Fresh Catch (PCFC). Though once considered the province of the adventurous gastronomic, squid have found a place among the palate of Maine eaters, and PCFC can barely keep up with demand.

The Associated Press has written an article about GMRI’s program to get Maine chef’s to put unappreciated fish on the menu.

Twenty Maine restaurants from Kittery to Bar Harbor put Acadian redfish dishes on their menus in June, and 23 eateries served up menu items with Atlantic mackerel in July as part of an effort to raise public awareness — and demand — for unappreciated seafood species.

The Forecaster has a report on the expansion of Nonesuch Oysters in Scarborough.

Farm expansion plans were approved July 16 by the Maine Department of Marine Resources, with a three-year lease on a site adjacent to 4.5 acres she already uses to moor floating mesh bags of virginicus oysters.

Carroll will gain more room for the second stage of oyster cultivation, in a setting DMR officials have determined provides plenty of water flow and nutrients for her crops, without interfering with navigation or other river uses.

Today’s Maine Sunday Telegram includes a front page report on what lobstermen are doing (or not) in response to the high supply and low price of Maine lobsters.

They can’t talk about the historically high supply of their product. They can’t talk about the historically low prices they are getting for their catch. They can’t talk about whether they have agreed to keep their boats tied up until things improve — because talking about it might imply that it’s a concerted effort and a concerted effort would be a violation of federal anti-trust laws.

Today’s Press Herald reports on efforts by Maine’s Lobster Advisory Council to improve the perception of soft shell lobsters.

Soft-shells are lobsters that have molted recently, shedding their old hard shells so they can grow into new, larger shells. They have less meat per pound than hard-shells, but that meat is perceived as more tender and sweet. And they’re easier to crack and eat.

So what’s so bad?

Also in today’s paper is a Maine Voices editorial by the Kim Libby from Port Clyde.

The hundreds of fishermen in our region — the small, day-boat fleet that brings fresh seafood to your dinner table and the charter boat captains who take you out on the water to catch fish yourself — are paying the price for the mistakes of a few new-to-the-region industrial ships.