You're scanning the restaurant menu, and, if you're like me, you go right to the fish.
Suddenly the air gets misty; the music swells, and you feel better about the entire world because this restaurant is serving "Line-Caught Cod." You think, "fish stocks are coming back! The family farm is saved! Peace stands a chance!" – all because this restaurant is serving "Line-Caught Cod." In fact you have no idea what line-caught cod is.
You vaguely believe that eating this fish excuses those bottles you didn't recycle last week, but you don't know much more than that. You believe this fish will taste better than – well, than what? What other kinds of fishing is there? Do you even know? Maybe you've heard of "dragging," and there must be some reason why this restaurant isn't advertising "Fresly Dragged Cod," but you don't really know that either. I'll start with some terms: "Line-caught" fish is better known in the fishing industry as "Hook Fish." A more dated but still accurate term for it is "Tub-Trawlers." That's because one very long piece of fishing line is intermittently hooked, and each hook is baited by hand. The entire extension of line is coiled and stored in a tub on the boat until it is let out to sink down to the ocean floor. Cod are bottom feeders, so the lines fall to the bottom of the ocean and lay in one spot for the fish to come along and eat the bait, and get hooked. The lines are hauled back up to the boat after a change of tide, or whatever measure of time the boat uses, and the fish are hand-removed from each hook. Gillnet fishing is another way to catch fish.
Read the complete story at The Gloucester Daily Times.