Herring fishermen get early Christmas gift

The owners and the four- to five-man crews of the eight mid-water trawlers currently working out of Gloucester got the shiny, silver blue early Christmas present they had been hoping for since Oct. 25 or before: Abundant herring outside of Management Zone 1A.

“Everybody is getting fish now,” reports Dave Ellenton, vice president of Cape Seafood Inc.

That was not the case for some of the vessels last summer, and certainly not for all of them — the Challenger, Endeavour, Voyager, Providian, Western Venture, Osprey, Starlight and Sunlight — during the month after the closure of 1A on Oct. 25.

The news isn’t all good for all of them today, either.

Early Christmas gift

“The fish went further north (into the waters off Maritimes) this year. Finally, the fish moved out,” said Gerrard McCallig, skipper of the 149-foot Endeavour.

By late November, much of the often elusive, huge biomass of herring, which most scientists estimate to be around 1.85 million metric tons, began departing its summering waters off the Maritimes and the closed U.S. Area 1A. Area 1A stretches inshore to mid-shore from the U.S.-Canadian border, to roughly the tip of Cape Cod.

The herring began arriving in U.S. Management Areas 1B, 2 and 3, all of which run outside and further south of Area 1A, and have a combined yearly herring quota of 95,000 metric tons for the fleet to work on.

Area 1A, the main source of the peak July into October lobster bait market and the most profitable, and nearest area for the mid-water trawlers to work — that is until 2007 — was shut down for the year on Oct. 25 when the last of its 50,000 metric ton annual quota was netted. The bait market devours most of the herring catch.

“The fish just showed up on Georges (Area 3),” said McCallig. “They got there very late this year. These fish are mixy (on the small side — seven inches long or less). The stuff coming out of 1A (and into Areas 1B and 2) is nice fish (eight to 13 inches long). We are seeing some 100-ton spots (in Areas 1B and 2 on the monitors of their vessels’ sounders and sonars).”

Towing their nets through such spots can yield hundreds of thousands of pounds of herring in a short time and make for a quick and profitable trip in this volume fishery.

The herring “are still coming down,” said Jody Martin, who captains the 118-foot Sunlight.

“They’ll go all the way down to Long Island, New Jersey and the Carolinas and winter there. The fish do the same thing every year. The herring and mackerel usually come down together.”

The fish move up the coast with the warm water, typically in the spring, and back down the coast with the cold water, typically in mid to late fall and early winter.

“A lot of those fish even travel through the Cape Cod Canal,” explained Peter Mullen from Gloucester.

Mullen is the father of the first successful long-term mid-water trawl herring fishery in Gloucester and also owner of two mid-water trawlers, the 109-foot Osprey and the 165-foot Western Venture and the 78-foot seiner Western Wave.

Not all good news

But, the Christmas present is not all good news for the crewmen of the Providian, Sunlight, Starlight, Western Venture and Osprey, which primarily rely on selling to fresh and salted lobster bait markets, which have no capacity to freeze surplus fish.

Those vessels’ landings in this time of plenty have sometimes been limited by what their markets could bear. Bait demand normally ebbs this time of year as lobstermen haul ashore their traps, and weather limits fishing. Some of the Providian’s catches have been trucked to New Brunswick for processing as food.

The three Western Sea Fishing Company vessels, the Endeavour, Voyager and Challenger, have been largely able to bring in what they catch, thanks to selling to their affiliate herring and mackerel processing company, Cape Seafoods Inc., which also owns and operates a large freezer.

“We are freezing for the bait market in the spring,” said Ellenton.

Recently, one mid-water trawl crewman on the Western Venture voiced the frustration many in the herring fishery have felt since a new rule went into effect in June in Area 1A: “We can sell the fish when we can’t catch them and can’t sell the fish when we can catch them.”

The new rule, which primarily restricted large-scale herring harvesting in Area 1A to seine-only from June through September, kept much of the Gloucester fleet either tied to the dock or forced them to make costly, catch-less trips in the other management areas, especially on Georges Bank.

During the seine-only period, two of the eight mid-water trawlers converted to seining and successfully seined, even after one of the crews had to adjust to a new piece of European equipment — the triplex — that hauls in the seine.

Another mid-water trawler spent more than $1 million and three and a half months converting a mid-water trawler to seiner, only to work out the bugs of the new system before switching back to mid-water trawling.

One other vessel, which was already built as a combination European purse seiner-mid-water trawler, took off its seine after several unsuccessful fishing attempts with it and reverted back to mid-water trawling.

An owner of several vessels even leased a former tuna seiner with herring fishing history in Area 1A for a year to seine during the tail end of the season. Once parts of Area 1A reopened to mid-water trawling in October, the seiners had to switch back to mid-water trawling. Most crews prefer the less labor-intensive mid-water trawling over seining.

Furthermore, after Area 1A closed and the bait demand for herring remained high, the entire fleet this time found itself either docked or fruitlessly looking elsewhere for herring and burning up more fuel at over $3 per gallon.

Most of the Gloucester mid-water trawler fleet will target mackerel south of Cape Cod from January to April. The demand for mackerel as a food fish is good then.

During last winter’s mild weather, the fleet finally found a main body of mackerel south of Nantucket in March and was able to land two to three good trips before the fish dispersed.

“You need cold water for good mackerel fishing; it will drive them down from Canada,” said Martin.

McCallig added, “We’ve already had a cold winter. We’re expecting to see some more mackerel. Last year was too mild.”

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