To this years abundance of Pogie's!!
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/punew...tory_160115540
Group Lakeman is back seining
Gloucester Daily Times
Watch out, brevoortia tyrannus, otherwise known as the pogie or menhaden, Gloucester's Group Lakeman is back pogie seining.
The Lakeman brothers, Jack, 49, and Freddy, 51, and their sons, John Jr., 26, and Dean, 25, have been putting the final touches on a 50-foot seine boat and 90-foot carrier they recently purchased with the hope of prowling the pogie grounds south of Cape Cod soon.
"Some fish have shown up," Freddy said.
The Lakeman's seining operation will pump badly needed fresh bait into the lobster fishery. Herring supplies could be tight this summer because of the June-to-September midwater trawling ban in Area 1-A.
Nothing new
Buying, fixing up, converting over, fishing and selling boats is nothing new for Jack and Freddy Lakeman, who began mackerel fishing as adolescents with their brothers, Ed Jr. ("Ned") and Larry, out of Marblehead.
The Lakeman family later relocated to Gloucester where the four brothers, encouraged by their father, Edmund Lakeman, continued their fishing careers trap fishing and later purse seining primarily mackerel and pollock in Gloucester Harbor. The Lakemans have since bought, fished and sold about 30 draggers and seiners, including the 150-foot pogie seiner Diane Carinhas.
The brothers have also earned the respect of their peers for their can-do attitude, hard work ethic, prowess as jacks-of-all-trades from engine repairmen to metal fabricators and welders, foresight to spot an opportunity and cash in on it, and amazing ability to turn another's junk into their treasure.
Larry and Ed Jr. - "Ned" - went on their own back in the 1990s and now work on herring and mackerel midboats. Jack and Freddy have also been captains for hire. They have sometimes moved customers' vessels from Canada to the U.S. and from the U.S. to the Carribean.
"We have moved more boats than you can count," Jack said. The sons have followed in their fathers' footsteps, and the four men work together today, unofficially as Group Lakeman out of Gloucester.
Lobster bait opportunity
"We started on bait fish in Gloucester Harbor, and now we are back on bait fish," Jack said. The Lakemans decided to get out of the highly regulated and uncertain groundfishery last year.
"We'll miss groundfishing like a toothache," Jack added. Salvatore "Sal-San" Sanfilippo, a Gloucester fisherman, bought one of their groundfish draggers - the St. Elmo - and renamed it Janaya & Joseph, while their other one - Mederick - now works in the Carribean as an inter-island freighter.
"We drove down to the Gulf early in the year and looked for a pogie boat there. We didn't find anything, but while driving home through North Carolina, there was the Taylors Creek docked at Beaufort, N.C. We bought her in March," Jack said.
The 90-foot by 28-foot by 4.5-foot red and white steel vessel, powered by a pair of approximately 400-horsepower-apiece diesels, was built in 1977 for Beaufort Fisheries.
"That was a big pogie plant that recently closed," he added. Besides the bait market, the lipid-rich pogies, or menhaden, are also reduced to fish meal and oil. Gloucester once had a dehydration plant, known as the dehyde, that handled pogies on the Jodrey State Fish Pier in the 1970s.
The Taylors Creek came equipped with below-deck refrigerated seawater (RSW) tanks. The Lakemans plan to use this vessel as a carrier. The 140-foot Sun Dragon from Fall River, a former West Coast tuna seiner equipped with RSW tanks, will also transport fish for them. "These two alone are good for carrying 450 tons of pogies," Jack said. Pogies, like mackerel and herring, are volume fisheries.
In addition, Group Lakeman purchased a 50-foot former salmon pen tender named the Ugly Duck from owner Scott McNickle at Eastport, Maine. This 14-year-old fiberglass vessel will carry, set out and haul back the approximately 150-fathom-long by 28-fathom-deep seine. The Ugly Duck can also carry up to 45,000 pounds of fish. The Lakemans have added a mast with booms and a hydraulic power block, a rail roller and winches to their seine boat and even built up its fish hold. They removed the seine boat ramp on the Taylors Creek and filled in that stern area with metal plating.
The plan
"All we have to do is catch the pogies. We have signed a contract with a bait dealer. We'll call him when we have a boat full. The Taylors Creek will offload at Fall River, and the Sun Dragon will take out at Portland, Maine. This will eliminate a lot of tr#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&g. The pogies will keep just beautiful in the RSW tanks in temperatures of about 35 degrees Fahrenheit. The longer the fish are in the tanks, the harder they get," Jack explained.
While the two large vessels are offloading their cargo, the Ugly Duck will continue fishing and unloading small catches at the nearest port. "Freddy will skipper the Taylors Creek. He loves steaming. He'll sit behind the wheel all day and night," said Jack, who will captain the Ugly Duck.
The Lakemans have also hired the spotter plane services of pilot Jeff France from Newport News, Va. "You have to have a pilot. Pogies will scatter if you turn your recorder on," Jack said. Fishermen do use electronic recorders, sounders and sonars to find herring and mackerel. Schools of pogies appear as large black spots on or near the surface from the air. The pilot will not only put the boat on the fish, but he will also instruct the crew how to set the seine around them.
Group Lakeman plans to seine from May through October.
"You can push it into December sometimes," Jack said.
"You have to go get them where they are," Freddy added. The fish have been south of Cape Cod down to the mid-Atlantic.
Big set in harbor
The Lakemans netted approximately 1 million pounds of pogies with just one seine set right off of the former Star Fisheries Wharf in Gloucester in September 1987.
"1994 was the last year up here for the big pogies," Jack said. The men believe chemically treated effluent from the Deer Island sewerage treatment plant's sewerage outfall in Massachusetts Bay has continued to keep the big fish away. Lobstermen also feel that this same effluent has driven the lobsters away from that area. Schools of small pogies, or bunkers, still migrate inshore past Cape Ann in the late summer.
"All we want to do is to fill up (both carriers and the seine boat) the first day. You need it. That will start your season off right," Freddy said.
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