Sam Fuller revamps his boat and fishing life
Running boats for other fishermen, crewing on trips for monkfish and skate, working on his own boat, Sam Fuller has been busy. “I don’t think I’ve had a day off since March,” Fuller said, paint brush in hand. Fuller was high above ground, his boat on blocks in a quiet Orleans neighborhood on a cloudy June day. The huge time commitment is meant to give him more flexibility in the future, sticking with a life plan that has fishing, and the Cape, at its heart...
Checking the boxes with MSI
Michael DeVasto is an oyster grower, wild harvester, and Wellfleet selectman, so when he was appointed to the Massachusetts Shellfish Initiative he had clear ideas about what he wanted to see happen. After more than two years, the lengthy report was completed and DeVasto, backdropped by a photo of his hometown, was on a press webinar with nearly 100 people for the release...
Chatham fleet faces gentrification pressure, study says
Of the top 29 fishing communities in the Northeast facing gentrification stress, Chatham is ranked third. Research undertaken by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collated a host of indices including retiree migration and housing disruption into a story map, also highlighting voices of fishermen. “A story map puts it into context and can help raise awareness of issues that have been neglected,” said Matthew Cutler, a social scientist with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center who worked on the project...
The country's connection to science and fishermen started on Cape Cod
We are celebrating our 30th birthday, so we thought it a good time to recognize the anniversary of a partner organization also dedicated to improving the fisheries through science. First called the Fish Commission, they are quite a bit older than us: NOAA Fisheries. The governmental organization and parent of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center got its start 150 years ago, fittingly enough on fishy Cape Cod...
PHOTO GALLERY: New beginning for boat, fisherman
If you talk to any fisherman on the Cape they can tell you all the owners of a fishing vessel, where it was built, who fished on it, if her name changed. The boats are windows into the history, present and future of the Cape’s fleets. Take the Mary Alice, bought in Gloucester by Sam Linnell, who sold her to Sam Fuller (a long-time crew man on Linnell’s uncle’s boat) when he bought a bigger boat, the Great Pumpkin, owned by Jan Margeson...
With your help, building a national model and call to action
We’re throwing an early summer outdoor bash, July 1 on the grounds of our old captain’s house in Chatham, and I’m tempted to say the reason why is simply because – finally -- we can! But even more so, it’s because we want to celebrate the great haddock chowder we’ve been making for almost a year now, find a way to share it with you as well as the food banks and pantries who do such great work in our communities...
Death by a Thousand Docks
Jake Angelo launched his boat from Prince’s Cove Marina, slowly going down Marstons Mills River toward Three Bays, a place where he has spent much of his 29 years. He remembered stories as a kid: there was so much eelgrass that props would be mired in it. And so many eels in the trap you couldn’t jam another one in. For Angelo, a commercial fisherman and shellfisherman, that’s not his experience...
Fishermen help write the science of squid
Close to 15 years ago, after researcher Owen Nichols’ first season working with a fishing family, he came up with what he thought was an impressive chart that drew direct connections between wind direction, water temperature and the presence of squid. He remembers being excited it to share it with Ernie Eldredge, of Chatham Fish Weirs Enterprises, whose fish weirs he was using to study squid...
Port by port, a real reckoning of the Cape's commercial fisheries
Everyone interested in commercial fishing’s role and impact for Massachusetts, particularly if working through solid numbers is a fun wonky exercise, will find a new report released by the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries a satisfying, enlightening document. “Port by Port: Profiles and Analysis of the Massachusetts Commercial Fishery” link bears down on an industry often overlooked when people think about the state’s economy...
From Broad Nook to Prince's Cove
Knowing the history of a place is a gift, we find we better understand it and better appreciate it. All too often history is lost and we find ourselves unmoored from the past and we think that doesn’t bode well for the future. Jim Gould, who passed away this March at 96, was able to capture much of Barnstable’s history in an engaging way. We are sharing one of his pieces from his blog here and want to mention that the other day we floated by Warren Cove, where oysterman George Hamblin built his oyster shack...
PHOTO GALLERY: All aboard for haddock chowder
Small Boats, Big Taste. You have heard about our haddock chowder; now is your chance to try it, share it, and keep this great work going. Our haddock chowder program began taking shape around this time last year and we are quickly approaching 750,000 servings dispensed, almost all of them delivered to food banks and pantries. Our goals were to keep fishermen on the water as COVID struck, and help people facing food insecurity first across Cape Cod, Massachusetts, then in almost every New England state and all the way to Delaware and Washington D...
From a New Hampshire rest stop to tomorrow
We were on our way to my first New England Fishery Management Council meeting, so must have been 1996, maybe 1997. Portland, Maine. A handful of Chatham fishermen and me were making the trek to see what we could do to keep codfishing alive in the face of amazing pressure, mainly from large boats pounding the bottom and taking out the stocks. A pit stop was in order, so we pulled into a rest area in New Hampshire...
