Crab boat combat

This week on "Deadliest Catch," the fellas caught a little Fo'c'sle Fever.

Capt. Keith Colburn (the Wizard), who I now refer to as Cap'n Cup-O-Noodles, spoke loudly and plainly to his brother, Monte, a deckhand and relief skipper.

Those outbursts are a little painful to watch at times, but it's definitely good TV. The more perplexing act of aggression was that of deckhand Matt on the Hansen brothers' boat, the Northwestern.

When I saw the clips of Matt punching a cod, I figured he was letting off some steam after a verbal confrontation with greenhorn Jake. But when the show came back, the clip revealed that he is apparently just kind of, well, let's just say it looked like he was punching cod for camera time. Is that really the best you have to offer, Matt?

My opinion of him was confirmed when Matt went for Jake's throat. If there's anything riskier than rolling around on an icy deck in the Bering Sea, it's letting your emotions get the best of you and rumbling with fellow crewmen on said icy deck. (Not to mention Jake made Matt look even more pathetic as he tossed him onto the deck one-handed.)

It must be tough to be stuck in close quarters with a guy who is possibly a threat to your position in a lucrative job. But as the old hand, not the greenhorn, Matt should know better.

Hats off to Edgar and Sig for managing the situation without being namby-pamby about the dangers of crab boat combat.

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Gillnet reprieve

It's hard to believe, in this economy, that some folks in Alabama are pushing to buy out gillnet fishermen. And yet…

Fortunately, the ban stalled in the state Legislature yesterday when Senate republicans tried to replace the bill with a version the House passed last year. That version would make the gillnet buyouts voluntary and provide funds for a five-year study on the effects of the nets on local fish stocks.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. In the grand scheme of fisheries management, five years is a blip on the radar. And a study, perhaps followed by a mandatory buyout, seems like the least we can do to be sure that we're eliminating jobs — not to mention a way of life and family legacies — in order to preserve fish stocks.

Otherwise, we're firing folks in a bad economy because one group feels like it's the right thing to do.

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No fuelin’

The whirring numbers at the gas pump are putting the squeeze on everyone these days.

This morning I read in the Portland (Maine) Press Herald about a convoy of commercial truck drivers from 25 states that’s bound for Washington, D.C. Truckers are protesting the rising fuel costs that they say are evaporating their profits.

According to U.S. Department of Energy data, U.S. average gas prices have jumped from $2.86 a year ago to $3.50 as of April 21 this year. On the diesel front, prices skyrocketed from $2.85 last year to $4.14 this year.

Fishermen feel their pain. The Mobile (Ala.) Press Register tells the plight of shrimpers in Bayou La Batre. Their boats remain tied to the dock because of high fuel prices and low dock prices for wild-caught shrimp. The story notes that to cover fuel costs, a shrimper today must catch nearly 2 pounds of whole, head-on shrimp for every gallon of diesel burned.

Mix rising fuel costs with a steady supply of foreign, farmed-raised shrimp that depresses the wild-caught dock price, and you have a recipe for vessels tying up.

But the fuel crunch is affecting more prosperous fisheries, too. WPVI-TV in Philadelphia broadcast a story about how scallopers in Cape May, N.J., are wrestling with rising fuel costs. Diesel costs $3.75 at the Lobster House Dock in Cape May, meaning it’ll run you $7,500 to fill a boat with a 2,000-gallon tank.

Scallopers are getting $7 a pound for their catch. But the fuel costs are quickly eating into the profit margin. And as in Bayou La Batre, some boats are tying up because the high diesel costs prevent them from making money.

Now I’m far from being an economics expert. But I see fishing boats and truckers unable to make money as fuel costs soar, and I don’t even want to think about how the airlines are going to survive. I’ve even seen stories about folks here in Maine hocking household items just to have gas money to go to work and make it through the week.

All of which makes me wonder, if we’re fast approaching a point where nobody can afford to buy fuel anymore, to whom, exactly, are the oil companies going to sell their product?

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Say it ain’t so, Paul

Several years ago, I met a guy who played in a garage band, and when he learned I play guitar, he invited me over to jam with them. When I arrived, one of the guitarists asked me if I knew any Beatles songs.

“Yeah,” I said. “All of them.”

I wasn’t boasting. Back in the day, I largely taught myself how to play guitar by sitting down with Beatles albums. I’d drop the needle on our portable record player and try to figure out how to play each song. It was a wonderful musical education.

I was, and still am, a big Beatles fan. I’ve formed great friendships with folks who share a similar love for the Fabs. Books, magazine articles, TV shows, movies, whatever; if they’re Beatle-related, I’ve probably devoured them.

So imagine my chagrin when I saw a story on the Web in which Sir Paul McCartney urged fish-eating "vegetarians" to give up seafood for Earth Day on Tuesday.

“When you consider the overfishing, the marine pollution and the huge damage to our precious oceans that are caused by commercial fishing,” McCartney is quoted as saying, ”it becomes obvious that a [complete] vegetarian lifestyle would greatly improve our environment and help to save our oceans.”

Ack! Say it ain’t so, Paul.

You hate to see such oversimplified generalizations bandied about. And it’s doubly troubling when you see how hard American fishermen work to promote sustainable fishing — and the devastating impacts increasingly stringent regulations have upon the folks who risk their lives to provide a protein-packed nutritious food to consumers.

Sir Paul, as you so nicely put it all those years ago, think of what you’re saying. You can get it wrong and still you think that it’s all right.

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Hollering for help

I'm amazed every time I bring up my concerns about the price of wild salmon this year with my friends outside the fishing industry.

Every single time, the reaction is, "What do you mean?" They have no idea the entire West Coast fishery has been shut down.

This story has been a mainstay in the West Coast press, but East Coasters remain blissfully ignorant of the impending shortage of wild salmon this year and most likely next year, as well.

Meanwhile, I've been hearing and reading story after story about the grain shortage and the pork surplus. What do these commodities have that fish doesn't?

Proper marketing.

Furthering the frustration are the stories about how fuel prices are affecting truck drivers and airline margins. What about the fleets of fishing boats that line our harbors?

We fully encourage fishermen to speak out and speak up, but it's also critical that you encourage the associations you belong to, to do the same. Talk to the press as well as government officials.

You have nothing left to lose.

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Greenpeace and the politics of tuna

Ah, those wacky Greenpests!

Greenpeace activists this week have assaulted fishing vessels legitimately plying their trade in the Pacific Ocean and crashed the European Seafood Exposition (which is owned by Diversified Business Communications, parent of National Fisherman) in Brussels, where they draped the exhibits of five tuna suppliers with netting, temporarily curtailing their sales efforts, Agence France-Presse reported.

Elsewhere, 16 Greenpeaceniks dressed as orangutans scaled the front of Unilever headquarters in London to protest the multinational's consumption of palm oil, at perilous cost to the world's rain forests.

It would be one thing if Greenpeace employed its zany antics to set the stage for meaningful discussions about consumption of resources.

But that is not the case. The hackneyed stunts that have become the stock in trade of the Greenpests reflect the absence of any desire to set about the heavy lifting required to improve the human condition; they are unseemly expressions of political dissatisfaction, the protestations of children who refuse to eat their vegetables.

But don't take my word for it. You need only turn to the op-ed page of the April 22 Wall Street Journal, where Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace who left in 1986 over what he describes as the group's abandonment of "scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas," criticizes the campaign against phthalates (which make plastics flexible), which he says "are among the most practical chemical compounds in existence."

"Greenpeace has evolved into an organization of extremism and politically motivated agendas," he writes.

"We all have a responsibility to be environmental stewards. But that stewardship requires that science, not political agendas, drive our public policy."

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One special dinner

Here at the National Fisherman offices, we’re getting ready to shove off to Fish Expo Atlantic in Providence, R.I., tomorrow.

Our fearless leader, Editor in Chief Jerry Fraser, has packed up all the goodies for the NF booth, including plenty of copies of our May issue for all our adoring fans to peruse. The May issue, of course, salutes our 2008 Highliner Award winners, Tilman Gray, of Avon, N.C., Rodney Avila, of New Bedford, Mass., and Craig Pendleton of Saco, Maine.

The three are being honored for their exemplary work on behalf of the fishing industry at the annual Highliner dinner on Wednesday night. As I write, Jerry is polishing up his Highliner dinner remarks and burnishing them to a warm glow, and reminding himself to make sure the Highliner plaques are in his possession to cart down to Providence.

I’m looking forward to the Highliner dinner, and not just because scallops and prime rib are on the menu. (Those are just the perks.)

No, what makes the Highliner dinner special is the collection of people in the room — the three new members of the Highliner club as well as the past recipients who come year after year, regardless of what coast the dinner is held on.

It’s seeing the pride each year’s recipients take in being named a Highliner. It’s seeing the joy on the faces of their family members as their favorite fisherman is honored in front of his peers.

Most of all it’s listening to all the Highliners. Every year at the dinner, there’s always opportunity for any Highliner who wishes to speak to do so. I’m always struck by their commitment to and their passion for this industry. Fishing isn’t just a way for them to earn a living; it’s an endeavor that fulfills them.

And in an era of buyouts seeking to remove fishermen from the water, it makes me wonder why anyone would want fewer people around who are so passionate about their life’s work instead of more of them.

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Saving and surviving

It can be difficult to remember that fishing Alaska's frigid waters is actually getting safer, especially when stories like that of the Alaska Ranger rescue (and tragic losses) garner headlines for a week at a time.

While we should study how those lives lost could have been saved, we also must recognize the training and effort that went into saving 42 crew members. The Ranger's crew was prepared and trained, and the Coast Guard pulled off a stunning rescue in the dark to pull the survivors to safety from life rafts and roiling waters.

"That right there is a miracle," Don Lane, a veteran skipper from Homer, Alaska, told the Los Angeles Times. "That means those guys were practicing. A crew that doesn't practice when mayhem sets in, about half of them totally forget what they're doing out of fear."

An industry that once scoffed at safety gear and training is considerably less deadly in the decades following the installation of safety standards, dockside exams, always improving gear and the dedication of Coast Guard rescue teams.

Being safer at sea does not make the job any easier, and it certainly does not make it easier to say goodbye to those we've lost.

Eric Peter Jacobsen, skipper

Daniel Cook, chief engineer

David Silveira, mate

Byron Carillo, crewman

Satashi Konno, crewman (missing, presumed drowned)

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What is the bottom line on right whale protection?

I must applaud the Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation for organizing the Bottom Line Project, which is holding rope exchange sessions for lobstermen affected by the edict that their inshore fishery is threatening the dwindling right whale population.

Using federal funds (and seeking state congressional funds for future phases), the Bottom Line Project offers vouchers for $1.40 per pound of float rope, which can be applied toward purchases of sinking groundlines.

This is exactly the kind of support the industry needs in the face of costly new restrictions. And it's a great start.

But what happens after this initial phase? Will we all simply be paying more for lobster so lobstermen can afford to replace lost gear? (Yes, sinking lines are bound to snag on Maine's rocky ocean floor.)

By the way, has anyone seen that pesky 10-foot pole with which I might touch on the idea that container and tanker ship strikes wreak considerably more havoc on the aforementioned protected species?

The big-ship equivalent of sinking lines is a NMFS request to slow down. I'm not sure how much this slow-down would cost each vessel, but the Bush administration decided last year that a more tender rate of speed was too taxing to let fly, so they delayed compliance with this request by a year.

New legislation is afoot, but I'm betting those vessels travel faster than the Senate does.

For more info on the Bottom Line Project, visit www.gomlf.org or call Laura Ludwig at (207) 985-8088.

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Hollywood calling

You just never know who’ll be on the other end of the line when the phone rings around here.

This gives me hope that one day it will be actress Evangeline Lilly (Kate on “Lost”) professing her undying love for me and informing me that there is a first-class ticket waiting for me at the Portland International Jetport so that I can join her in Hawaii immediately.

So understandably my hopes rose when the phone rang last week. It wasn’t Evangeline (rats!). Instead, a man named Tedd Schermerhorn introduced himself as the senior casting producer for the CBS reality television show “Big Brother”.

The show gathers together colorful strangers (for example, one gal this season is listed as a “bikini barista” and another woman is a single mom described as a former model who was Penthouse Magazine’s 1984 Pet of the Year). Contestants must live together for 100 days in a house in Los Angeles where multiple cameras and microphones record their every move and sound, 24-7. Each week a house guest gets voted out. The last contestant standing collects the $500,000 grand prize.

Mr. Schermerhorn explains that he’s calling because “Big Brother” is starting to seek contestants for the upcoming 10th season. And they’re hoping to find some folks whose professions — such as commercial fishing — are a little out of the ordinary.

Now I’m guessing that fishermen who must battle snotty weather and live with others in confined quarters aboard a boat in the middle of nowhere can hack chilling in a house in L.A. with a bunch of strangers.

CBS will hold open casting calls in the next few weeks. You can also submit a brief, home-taped audition by April 25.

If you’re interested, send your name, contact info, a photo and a short paragraph about yourself to BB10casting@gmail.com. For more information about the application process and eligibility requirements, log on to www.cbs.com.

Good luck. As for me, I can’t possibly audition. Evangeline could call me any moment now.

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