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Commercial Fisheries News
Volume 33 Number 1
September 2005
Bait market hungry for herring
GLOUCESTER, MA - Just as bait shortages were reaching the critical stage for the region’s pot and hook fisheries at the end of July, Western Sea Fishing (WSF) Company finished upgrades on its three midwater trawlers and sent them to sea.
The Gloucester-based boats found herring on Georges Bank, and, in back-to-back trips the first week of August, pumped approximately 3.5 million pounds of largely 10"-12" food-grade fish into the bait market. The herring disappeared into local and out-of-town fishermen’s pickups and bait dealers’ trucks, some carrying 40,000 pounds a load, as soon as it hit the dock at the Jodrey State Fish Pier here.
“We’ll keep the herring going into the fresh market as long as it needs the fish,” said Dave Ellenton, vice president of Cape Seafoods Inc., which would normally process much of the trawlers’ catches for food at its Gloucester plant.
The company charges $22 per tote (over 1-1/2 bushels) for fresh herring, $24 per tote for salted herring, and $12 per 5-gallon bucket.
The Challenger, Endeavour, and Voyager had been idled for nearly two and a half months following the end of the mackerel season, while their electric/hydraulic systems and main trawl winch motors were being repowered and new de-watering boxes were fabricated and installed.
The Voyager first returned to sea in late July with little success on Georges Bank. The trawler spent much of its sea time searching for fish and waiting for them to rise up from the bottom.
“The fish were down deep, hanging around the pinnacles. They came up only briefly. If you weren’t there then, you would miss them,” said Capt. Jim Gallagher, who felt that the full moon and warm water at the time could explain why the fish stayed down hard on the bottom.
Fishing dramatically improved on Georges the first week in August when the trawling pair Challenger and Endeavour arrived.
“There was a decent sign of fish. We also did not encounter a haddock bycatch problem like last year. Hopefully, that has subsided. The fishing should only pick up out here,” said Gerrard McCallig, captain of the Endeavour. His brother Danny skippers the Challenger.
All of WSF Company vessels are working flume-tank-tested experimental midwater trawls designed to cut down on bycatch.
By mid-August, bait demand and herring catch seemed to be holding even though lobstermen remained uneasy about bait supply. The summer run of lobsters had still not come on strong, especially in Maine, so the most intense fishing was still to come.
According to Kohl Kanwit of the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the preliminary 2005 herring catch in metric tons as of July 30 was: Area 1A, 20,677; Area 1B, 343; Area 2, 11,737; Area 3, 440; and total 33,197.
Kanwit also provided the following for comparision of the catch through July in previous years:
In 2004: 26,337 in Area 1A; 39,951 in all areas.
In 2003: 20,555 in Area 1A; 42,527 in all areas.
In 2002: 29,438 in Area 1A; 50,835 in all areas.
Peter K. Prybot
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