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NEWBURYPORT, Mass., — August 20, 2013 — The North Shore had its own version “Shark Week” this past weekend, when fisherman Bob Cloutier landed a monster off the Cape Ann coast that checked in just a few pounds shy of the state’s all-time record for thresher sharks.

On Saturday afternoon, a Newburyport-based charter boat was about 60 miles off shore, beyond Jeffreys Ledge, when Cloutier said his nephew Zach Cloutier hooked a fish that instantly caught their attention.

“The fish took a lot of line, so I knew it was something out of the ordinary,” said Bob Cloutier.

It was indeed something that isn’t normally seen in these parts — a 609-pound thresher shark that the crew landed on the Newburyport waterfront.

In the world of sharks, it’s an unusual creature — it has an extra-long extension on its upper tail that is nearly as long as its body. It uses it to slap the surface of the water to herd its prey.

It also has an extraordinary behavior that the Cloutiers witnessed several times — thresher sharks leap out of the water, sometimes several feet in the air. It’s a sight that is stunning and frightening even to the saltiest of ocean fishermen.

“We saw it jump a few times. It gave a heck of a show,” said Bob Cloutier, of Dracut.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times 

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — August 13, 2013 — The only thing about Sandy Margret’s taxidermy business that’s not all about fish is the name itself: Kingfisher Taxidermy.

The kingfisher, of course, is a bird — one with a powerful affinity for fish. On that score, Margret, whose studio and gallery are located at the Sea Ranch Marina, and the kingfisher see eye to eye.

When the native of upstate New York learned traditional taxidermy in Wisconsin at one of the nation’s top schools, she focused exclusively on fish to complement another art form she had already mastered: Gyotaku, an ancient Japanese technique that involves printing an image of the fish on linen or rice paper using the fish itself.

The earliest Gyotaku prints were black and white, though colored inks eventually came into use as the technique evolved into an art form. It’s thought that Japanese fishermen created Gyotaku as a way of recording their catches.

Margret learned the technique while earning her master’s degree in art at New York University in the early 1990s, then began doing Gyotaku on weekends as a sideline while working as an art teacher in Southold, Long Island, a big fishing community. Many times customers would ask for a traditional taxidermy mount of their fish in addition to the Gyotaku print, she said.

Read the full story at the Valley Morning Star

August 12, 2013 — A veteran journalist with more than 30 years experience begins work today as staff writer and reporter covering the fishing industry and Gloucester’s waterfront for the Gloucester Daily Times.

Sean Horgan, a native of Danvers who grew up on the North Shore, then worked at newspapers from New England to Dallas, comes to the Times after serving as lead investigative reporter with the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News.

At the Times, he will be working in a beat designed to pick up coverage that had been carried out by the late Richard Gaines, who died suddenly June 9 at the age of 69 after a more than 40-year career in journalism, including the last 10 at the Gloucester Daily Times covering Gloucester City Hall and then focusing squarely on the fishing industry.

Times Editor Ray Lamont said that Horgan’s experience in the newspaper industry and in investigative work should prove an excellent fit for carrying coverage of the fishing industry forward, and in looking into other stories along the city’s waterfront and elsewhere.

“Sean brings a great deal of experience to the table, and is enthusiastic about diving into this beat at such an important time,” Lamont said. “I have said all along that we cannot truly replace Richard Gaines, but that we would be naming a successor. Sean is not replacing Richard; he is, however, ready, willing and able to advance the stories and coverage that Richard had delivered, and we’re very proud to welcome him to our news team.”

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

August 9, 2013 — In order to feed a rapidly growing population, there will need to be a greater focus on food farmed in the ocean. Kelp has been highlighted as a possible source due to its high nutrient quality and low input farming, writes Lucy Towers, TheFishSite Editor.

Speaking at a Gulf of Maine Reasearch Institute Sea State Lecture series, Paul Dobbins, from Ocean Approved, spoke about the potential of kelp farming and in particular, the farming of kelp in Maine, New England, USA.

Seaweed and kelp production currently represents 40 per cent of all the aquaulture production in the world, making it one of the largest farmed crops on earth.

Kelp is farmed in 28 coutries around the world, with the majority farmed in South Africa, Australia and Chile. There are also kelp farming industries in China, Japan and Korea where demand and consumtion of kelp is very high. The US currently brings in more seafood than it exports and, in terms of seaweed and kelp, the US imports around $700 million a year, meaning the US has the demand to justify building kelp farms.

Kelp is very popular as it is an excellent source of iodine, iron, fiber and calcium. Among its health benefits, eating kelp and seaweed has also being linked to low incidence of breast cancer.

Read the full story at The Fish Site 

August 10, 2013 — BARNSTABLE, Mass. — On Cape Cod, farmers say oyster theft, the peculiar purloining of mollusks from underwater bags in which they are grown, is an increasingly common problem. There were at least four reported oyster thefts last year, said Amy Mahler, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Environmental Police, and this summer has already seen two large heists: 3,000 oysters were stolen two weeks ago from Barnstable’s Marstons Mills River, and 20,000 were stolen in July from Crowes Pasture in Dennis, where 31 farmers grow the shellfish.

No one knows the exact appeal of stealing oysters, but most theories suggest they are stolen to be sold, either directly to vendors or to farmers who own plots in the harbor where the oysters can continue to grow.

Here and elsewhere on the Cape, oyster season is popular and lucrative. An oyster can sell for up to $3.50, and families who own plots can make more than $50,000 a season, enough that farming can be a full-time job or a viable income supplement.

John Lowell, who runs the East Dennis Oyster Farm in Crowes Pasture with his wife, Stephanie, divides oyster theft into two categories: “retail theft,” when locals or tourists snag a few dozen oysters from plots to eat, and the rarer and more premeditated “wholesale theft,” which involves taking a boat out and stealing thousands of oysters (and sometimes also farming gear) to sell.

Both types, he said, go “beyond mere poaching.”

“These thieves are helping themselves to our harvest,” said Lowell, who is offering a $1,000 reward to anyone with information on the recent Dennis theft. “Sometimes, it takes as long as three years to grow oysters large enough to be marketable, so a theft can be quite devastating.”

Read the full story at the Boston Globe

August 8, 2013 — A Virginia man has caught the largest northern snakehead on record with a rod and reel, landing a 17-pound, 6-ounce specimen of the fish often called "Frankenfish" for their monster-like appearance and tenacious survival skills.

Caleb Newton, a plumber who lives in Spotsylvania County, Va., caught the fish in June during a tournament on Aquia Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River that's near the Quantico Marine Corps Base, according to the Fredericksburg, Va., Free Lance-Star.

Newton tells the newspaper that it took about a minute to get the fish in his boat. And measuring three feet, it was a tight fit to get the record catch into his cooler, he says.

But, he adds, it didn't give him a whale of a fight. "I caught one 13 pounds on Saturday, and that one fought harder," he tells the Free Lance-Star.

Newton's fish bests the previous record catch of a 17-pound, 4-ounce northern snakehead in 2004 in Japan, according to the International Game Fish Association.

According to the IGFA website, the group awards world records for seven varieties of the snakehead, with only the giant snakehead being larger. The record-setter for that fish was hauled in earlier this year in Thailand — and weighed in at 26 pounds.

Read the full story at New York Now 

August 7, 2013 — The Mustelus canis shark, often referred to as the smooth dogfish, is known to skulk from the edge of New England to the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Brazil and along the shores of northern Argentina.

It is not native to the ocean-blue seats of a Queens-bound N train.

But there it was found on Wednesday morning, just after midnight, deceased beneath a subway bench, as passengers braved a stench that, even by transit standards, might have driven them away under ordinary circumstances.

Brandon Sanchez, 20, noticed the shark, about three feet long and on its side, through a train window as the subway arrived at Canal Street. He stepped in with a friend, snapped a picture, and left to board a neighboring car. He did not say a word to train personnel.

“I thought eventually they would find out there was a shark on the train,” he said.

And they did, a dozen stations later, at Queensboro Plaza, when a conductor called in a report for which there is no transit code: There was a shark in Car 8994.

Read the full story at the New York Times

August 7, 2013 — Subway riders got a taste of Sharknado late yesterday when a dead shark was discovered riding to Queens on the N train.

NYU student Brandon Sanchez, 20, of Williamsburg said he and a friend made the fishy discovery when they boarded the N train at Canal Street yesterday about midnight.

“I walk in, and there’s a pretty big, three foot dead shark on the train, and it smells terrible!” said Sanchez. “We were pretty much in disbelief, and kept laughing. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen on the subway in New York!”

Sanchez quickly Instagrammed the carcass, and then bolted to another car. “It smelled like rotten fish,” he said.

He speculated that it may have been a prank because of Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, which started on August 4.

“I don't think someone killed it and put it there,” said Sanchez. “I think somebody probably bought it and left it there as a prank.”

Read the full story at the New York Post

August 8, 2013 — An Ashland man left the Cape Cod Canal on Tuesday night with quite a fish story. But the difference is he had proof: a white marlin.

Justin Sprague, 29, said he went out for a bike ride Tuesday night with no plans to fish. But after seeing a handful of fisherman, he decided to get his gear.

"I was casting for about 15 minutes," he said, "and I saw the tail out of the water."

Initially thinking it was a shark, Sprague figured out it was a marlin. "Holy (expletive)!" he said when he realized what he hooked.

After hooking it under its mouth, the fish began jumping out of the water "just like you see on TV," Sprague said. Two nearby fisherman came by to help and the men eventually pulled the fish up, Sprague said.

"I can't believe I got it out."

The fish was "a good 6 feet long" and weighed at least 60 pounds, he said. The fishermen tried to revive the fish after catching it, but were unable to, Sprague said.

Sprague's catch was caught near the popular fishing spot known as Murderer's Row on the east end of the Cape Cod Canal, said Mike Thomas, owner of M&D's Bait and Tackle in Wareham.

Some are doubting Sprague's claim, but Thomas said he saw a video of the catch Wednesday morning. Still, a marlin in the canal is a rare sight.

Read the full story at the Cape Cod Times