Wolffish ban
 

Wolffish? OK, but what about halibut? From Bigelow's Fishes of the Gulf of Maine.........

" ....contemporary writers (early 1800's) described them as extremely numerous in MA bay and along Cape Cod"

"....halibut congregated in the winter in the gully between the tip of Cape Cod and Stellwagen bank....."

" ...a party of equal size (4) landed 13,000 lbs off Cape Cod in three weeeks"

" They were taken in great plenty on Nantucket shoals...."

"...we knew of 25-30 halibut, ranging from 40-110 lbs....caught within 1-3 miles of land.......in 1930, in 10 -15 fathoms of water."

".....the heaviest one was 401 lbs taken NEAR RACE POINT, Cape Cod, in JULY 1849."


To think, without trawlers and trotlines we could have been fishing for, and catching, 50-700 lb flatfish, within the sight of land, winter and summer.

Boy this deal sucks.

The landings showed total catch oscillations from 200 metric tons in 1970 up to 1200 metric tons in 1984 and down to around 68 metric tons in 2007. NOAA also found, "the average size of an Atlantic wolffish has declined by over 50 percent from the 1980s to 2000."

Gee isn't the late 70's early 80's about the time that the goverment stepped in and put alot of commercial fisherman out of business. less boats less fish landings.

Wolffish is one of my favorite fish to eat !

If the feds put the wolffish on the endangered list it could shut down all net fishing in the Gulf of Maine!

If only we could get something like that to get rid of the trawlers.