One of the big challenges in New England is to find ways to fish healthy fish stocks like haddock, while leaving stocks that need to rebuild their populations. This problem confronts fishing communities around the nation, but is particularly difficult in the Northeast, where one net can often catch some 19 types of groundfish.
Using Yankee ingenuity, two Rhode Island fishermen and a local gear maker, along with university and Northeast Fisheries Science Center researchers, developed, scientifically tested and then manufactured new gear that effectively targets haddock while letting other species, such as cod, to swim free.
The story of how the fishermen — Phil Ruhle and his son, Phil Ruhle Jr. — and others invented a trawl, now called the Ruhle trawl, and trademarked the Eliminator, might spur other fishermen to contribute their solutions to other problems. For example, fishermen need gear or new fishing techniques that allow the catching of healthy stocks while allowing depleted flounders, such as winter flounder, to swim free and rebuild. We also need to reduce the incidental or unintentional catch, called bycatch, in other fisheries, such as the ocean herring, squid and shrimp fisheries.