Saving Seafood

Generations of Maine fishermen keep shuckin’ in the cold

February 22, 2019 — The salt water of Casco Bay is in Alex Todd’s blood.

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he said as he headed out off Chebeague Island with the sun just starting to peak above the horizon.

His boat, the Jacob & Joshua, named after his sons are out on these waters year-round.

Todd’s 17-year-old son Joshua was spending his February school vacation out on the boat fishing for scallops.

Joshua and sternman Levi Gloden pulled in shellfish in subzero temperatures as ice started to build up on the deck.

“It’s harder on them than it is on me,” Alex Todd said.

As the boat’s captain, Todd careful picks locations to drag the ocean floor for the prized shellfish, all from the comfort of the heated cabin where he sips his morning coffee.

“Every once in a while I’ll open the door and say, ‘Now do you think I should take a shirt off or? You know what I’m getting a little hot,’” Todd said. “I get a kick out of it but they don’t see the humor as much.”

That sense of humor is what keeps the crew going through the harsh winter months.

With every catch, Joshua and Levi alternate jobs, then sort and measure every shellfish by hand and throwing them in baskets.

Read the full story at News Center Maine

Maine scallop fishery, a conservation success story, to start for the winter

November 20, 2018 — Maine scallop fishermen set a 20-year high with last year’s harvest – and now they’re gearing up for the start of what they hope is an even better season.

The state’s rebuilt fishery for scallops, which runs from November to April, is getting started for the winter in the coming days. Many in the state’s seafood industry consider Maine scallops a conservation success story, as the fishery collapsed in the mid-2000s and slowly rebuilt to the point where fishermen last year collected the highest total since 1997.

The state built scallops back from the brink with measures such as enforcing localized closures, rotating open harvesting areas and applying tighter quota limits. Regulators said the approach will continue this year, and fishermen and consumers will benefit.

“They’re landing plenty of them,” said Alex Todd, a scallop fisherman in southern Maine. “I’m sure it’s made a difference.”

Read the full story at The Portland Press Herald

 

‘Couldn’t Get Any Fresher’ — Maine’s Scallop Industry Looks to Grow Market

January 25, 2017 — It’s scallop season in Maine. Fishermen here have hauled in over 450,000 pounds of the tender delicacy in each of the last three years, but the state produces only a tiny fraction of the entire U.S. sea scallop harvest. So to grow a market for its own brand of inshore scallops, the Maine industry is trying to sell one particular quality that sets it apart.

Just offshore from the Cousins Island town dock in Casco Bay, Alex Todd and his crew, Levi Gloden and Edward Lefebvre, are shelling scallops on Todd’s boat, the Jacob and Joshua.

“We get rid of the stomach and the mantle and all that. And just put the abductor muscle in the bucket,” Todd says.

He is one of more than 600 licensed scallop fishermen in Maine, of which about 450 are active. He has been harvesting scallops for almost 30 years, and chairs the Scallop Advisory Council, a panel that makes recommendations about the fishery.

In Maine, a few dozen fishermen dive underwater in scuba gear to harvest scallops by hand, but the majority of scallops in the state are harvested by draggers, like Todd.

“We tow the dredge — we call it drag, the federal government calls it a scallop dredge — across the bottom. There’s chains on it that tickle the top and the bottom and flip the scallops into the link bag, which we tow a couple hundred yards behind the boat depending on the depth of the water. And after say, 15 minutes, we haul it back, see how many scallops are in it. Dump it out, start over,” he says.

On a good day, like today, Todd hits his quota of 135 pounds of meat, or 3 buckets.

“And yesterday we got ‘em a little quicker. But it’s still early. It’s still good — we’re happy,” he says.

Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News

Scallop fishermen poised for fight over shellfish

April 19, 2016 — PORTLAND, Maine — Scallop fishing has increased dramatically off some parts of New England recently, and fishermen and regulators will soon meet to discuss how to avoid overexploiting the valuable shellfish.

The concern over scallop fishing centers on the northern Gulf of Maine, a management area that stretches roughly from the waters off of Boston to the Canadian border. Scallop grounds off of northern Massachusetts have been especially fertile, prompting increased fishing in that area.

The New England Fishery Management Council, a regulatory arm of the federal government, will hold a public meeting about the issue Wednesday and decide how to proceed.

Part of the concern arises from the fact that different classes of fishing boats harvest scallops in the area, and not all of them are restricted by a quota system. Alex Todd, a Maine-based fisherman who fishes off of Gloucester, Massachusetts, said he and others feel the rules are not equal.

“We’re playing by two different sets of rules,” Todd said, adding that fishermen who follow the quota system could reach quota as soon as next month.

But Drew Minkiewicz, an attorney for Fisheries Survival Fund who represents many fishermen who don’t have to abide by the quota system, said he thinks the boats can coexist.

Read the full story at The Salt Lake Tribune

Maine scallop fishery to see cutbacks to ensure conservation

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — October 2, 2015 — A plan to place new restrictions on Maine’s scalloping industry is the right way to ensure that the fishery keeps rebuilding, some fishermen say.

Maine’s meaty scallops, which are harvested by drag boats and cold-water divers, are prized in restaurants and fish markets. Their value per pound surged to an all-time high last year, frequently topping $20 – several dollars more than other scallops.

The fishery is also on the mend, as fishermen caught nearly 4.9 million pounds of the scallops last year, up from less than 700,000 pounds five years earlier. Catches sometimes topped 10 million pounds in the 1990s.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the New Jersey Herald