National Fisherman

6 days ago | nationalfisherman.com | Paul Molyneaux

Boats and fishermen have qualities that capture the interest of artists. While providing subject matter for masterpieces like Winslow Homer’s painting of a dory fisherman, Fog Warning, used as a cover photo for the Commercial Fishermen Only page on Facebook, the painters and photographers who focus on fisheries also tell stories that seafood consumers need to understand. They speak to the value of fishermen and working waterfronts.

1 week ago | nationalfisherman.com | Carli Stewart

At this year’s National Working Waterfront Network conference in February, a session on Alaska’s fisheries brought together a diverse panel of fishermen, policy experts, scientists, and community advocates. Their message was unified: Alaska’s fishing communities are at a tipping point. Regulatory pressures, climate change, and economic consolidation are making it harder to fish, and harder still to stay rooted in the coastal communities that have long relied on it.

1 week ago | nationalfisherman.com | Michael Crowley

In early April, Samoset Boatworks in Boothbay, Maine, was finishing up two 42’x14’ 6” Mussel Ridge tuna boats. The first one to be launched will be Pretty Work, going to Cape Cod, Mass., in mid- to late May. It’s powered with a 900-hp Scania matched up to a Twin Disc 2.04:1 marine gear with a 5-blade, 34” square prop on a 2 ½” shaft. It should top out in the “mid to upper 20 mph range,” says Samoset Boatworks owner Matt Sledge.

1 week ago | nationalfisherman.com | Carli Stewart

After almost ten years of waiting on the sidelines, commercial fishermen in northern California finally got the green light to return to the water for rock crab. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) announced the long-anticipated reopening of the commercial fishery from the California-Oregon border to the north jetty at Humboldt Bay- an area that’s been closed since 2015 due to domoic acid contamination.

1 week ago | nationalfisherman.com | Paul Molyneaux

For the past several decades, the state of Maine has been removing dams and building fishways intended to restore alewife runs, and it has paid off. "In October 2024, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Council (ASFMC)approved five new commercial river herring [alewife] harvest sites in Maine. Quite a rarity in today’s fishery management landscape,” says Bailey Bowden, executive director of the Alewife Harvesters of Maine.