It isn’t just the Northeast commercial groundfishing fleet that is struggling under the weight of the more restrictive federal fishing regulations that have completely taken cod off the table in the Gulf of Maine.
The tendrils of those new regulations have reached the charter and for-hire fishing operators, who try to combat the reality (no cod) and the perception (no other groundfish species is worth the time and expense of a charter trip) that have been generated by increasingly restrictive regulations instituted for the 2015 fishing season.
Now as the weather starts to warm, Tom Orrell of the Gloucester-based Yankee Fleet and other charter operators are trying to push back against the unceasing dire reports on the state of the cod fishery that continue to play against the backdrop of the declining fortunes of the Gloucester groundfish fleet.
Their sales pitch is simple: The cod, at least for this year, are gone, but the continuing allure of the sea-going fishing experience remains. The experience, they say, trumps species.
“We can’t fish for cod this season, and there’s nothing we can do about that right now,” Orrell, who recently moved his entire operation to Parker Street from its previous location on East Main Street, said. “There’s just been so much negative publicity, but what we’re trying to get across to folks is that there are species we can fish and that the experience of fishing out on the North Atlantic and the experience of Gloucester and the experience of getting to take some fish home are all still there.”
In the place of cod, Orrell and other big boat operators are trying to sell their customers on fishing for species, such as haddock, pollock and cusk.
“Haddock have come back, unbelievably,” Orrell said, adding that while each fisherman has a bag limit of three haddock, the minimum size for keepers in federal waters has dropped to 17 inches from the previous 21 inches. “We also run what we call “Bring-a-Buddy” specials, where fisherman can bring a friend who doesn’t fish, so the fishermen can use his friend’s bag limit and can bring home up to six haddock.”
Still, it’s a tough sell in an industry where cod always has stood center stage as the marquee attraction, the grail that lured recreational fishermen to Gloucester from all over New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
On a sunny, cool spring day, there were still a number of vehicles with out-of-state plates in the Yankee Fleet parking lot. Clearly, people still want to fish, but the business is scrambling now that the regulations — which run contrary to what commercial fishermen are seeing on the water — have turned cod into a ghost fish.
And the small bag limits for the available species haven’t helped matters, especially for the smaller, six-pack charters.
“No one is going to charter a six-pack charter for just three fish,” said longtime Gloucester fisherman and charter operator Bill Monte, the owner and skipper of the bounty hunter of “Wicked Tuna” fame. “If they had just given us something like five cod and five haddock (per fisherman), we’d be working. I would have already had 10 trips by now, but I’ve lost them all.”
He’s not alone.
On this day, Gary Cannell’s Tuna Hunter also sat idle at Cape Ann’s Marina. Cannell estimates he will lose about 30 trips this summer before tuna season picks up. Bruce Bornstein of the Sandy B said he normally would have 50 charters booked now for the season. As of Thursday, he had four.
“As soon as you tell them they can’t take any cod, the conversation ends pretty quickly,” Bornstein said. “I’m selling my boat. I’m done. You can’t fight it.”
Orrell, however, is fighting it as hard as he can.
His larger boats — the 65-foot Yankee Patriot, the 75-foot Yankee Clipper and the 100-foot Yankee Freedom — allow him to offer longer, overnight trips, out as far as about 150 miles. He’s also tapping into the “Wicked Tuna” craze, scheduling a special full-day charter July 15 with Dave Marciano, one of the featured captains on the show.
“All we want to do is bring people fishing and make sure they have a good time,” he said.
But even by his own estimate, Orrell said his business is down about 50 percent from what he did before the prohibitions against cod fishing began last fall.
“Once they took cod away from us last September, my ridership for the rest of the month was down 85 percent,” he said. “Now I’m at half of what I normally would be at. On weekends, we’d normally do two boats a day. Now we’re down to one. Instead of taking a boat out with 50 aboard, I’ve got 25 to 30. The biggest trip we had was 45.”
Chris Charos, one of the owners of the Newburyport-based Captains Fishing Parties and Cruises, also is trying to sell the undiminished experience of fishing in the deep waters of the Northern Atlantic while trying to fight the perception all groundfishing stopped when the cod were removed from the equation.
“We’re still putting some pretty good trips together, but we’ve been hit pretty hard,” Charos said.
The third-generation charter business has four boats and is trying to hit every component of the potential market. It runs charters, public all-day trips and whale watch trips. It does a special Wednesday night fishing trip. It even runs half-day mackerel and blue fish trips.
But, Charos said, the largest portion of revenues still come from the charters and the public all-day boat, both of which are down significantly in ridership. That decline has forced him cut the number of trips in half and reduce his workforce by about 25 percent.
“I’m off by better than 50 percent,” Charos said. “And the real problem is that in a seasonal business, there is no makeup. There’s is nothing you can do in a three-month season to make up for those lost revenues. You’ve got three, possibly four months to put people on your decks and make your season.”
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