Fishing
Knowledge of the Atlantic great white shark has been relegated for too long to the fevered imaginations of nervous beachgoers and boaters. With the animals returning to the New England coastline in larger numbers, one state scientist with Vineyard roots is bringing that understanding out of the realm of the mythical and uncovering fascinating insights into this elusive two-ton, apex predator’s behavior.
Catherine Kilduff has a childhood memory of summering in Vineyard Haven and having a day at the beach when she found a number of spider crabs. She recalled hand-feeding one of the crabs with the meat she plucked from a limpet. It was June, an early visit to the Island. “I must have been 11 or 12 years old,” she said.
Bluefin tuna — the center of a highly lucrative commercial fishery and heated controversy about overfishing — will not be listed as an endangered species, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week.
“NOAA is formally designating both the western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean stocks of bluefin tuna as species of concern under the Endangered Species Act,” a press release that accompanied the decision said.
A drastic decline in striped bass stocks has state and federal officials scrambling to protect the fish, but many recreational fishermen say the government isn’t moving fast enough.
The first bluefish of the season was caught by an Oak Bluffs angler at Wasque on Tuesday.
George Moran, 66, was fishing for striped bass with another Oak Bluffs angler, Vincent Frye, in the afternoon, overcast with a hollering wind.
Mr. Moran said they were hoping to get striped bass — and he did get one.
But shortly after 2 p.m., Mr. Moran said: “I made a cast, and suddenly I got a hit. It didn’t feel like a bass.”
Bluefish are not commonly caught in these waters until about Memorial Day.
For those who love to eat fresh bay scallops harvested from Island ponds, they won’t be available in fish markets for long. The fishery closed yesterday.
Shellfish constables report it was a fair season, with Edgartown doing the best. More than 100 commercial bay scallopers across the Island were able to make a decent day’s pay since the season began back in the fall. Only one or two fishermen were out working the ponds in each of the towns by the season’s end, though.