Nine New England Fishermen Go
Back to the Future

by Mike Crowe

NEFMC meeting 01/30/19, Portsmouth, NH. New England ground fishermen who are using selective fishing techniques that land targeted market size ground fish. Those techniques range from hook and line to gill nets
from day boats. “The result is a very fresh, properly handled high quality product that is rapidly gaining market
share.” – Tim Rider.
Left to right: Alex McMorran, Chris Roberts, Ben Plolr, Tim Rider, Jim Ford, Carl Bouchard (Ret.), Karl Day.

Nine New England ground fishermen have been successfully catching, landing and marketing their catch with a new strategy. They are foregoing the industrial ground fishing efficiency model that lands poorly handled bulk product for low prices per pound. These fishermen, said their spokesman Tim Rider, go after specific species seasonally, catch, handle, process and deliver them using labor-intensive means that optimizes the quality and freshness of the fish. Rider says that what these fishermen do is not something most fishermen are going to do.

The respect for the fish product and the consumers who have eaten it is reflected in the success of their operation. “We have broken our own sales records weekly for months,” said Rider. “People respond with ‘Wow’ to the flavor and texture of the fish. They tell us they have never tasted fish this good.”

What they do combines what was done by fishermen generations ago with contemporary scientific knowledge and technology. All nine of these fishermen are involved in every stage of the process from catching the fish to handing it to customers. Sailing out of Portsmouth, NH and Gloucester they fish 50 miles offshore on a 36’ Northern Bay and a 46’ LeBlanc Novi. Fishing with hook and line, the fish are brought aboard and immediately a surgical cut is made to sever the fish’s aorta. The still-pumping heart pumps out the perishable blood. The fish are never tossed because it bruises the fish and impacts texture and flavor. They are then immersed in iced salt water to bring the flesh temperature down below 40 degrees. Iced salt water can be cold enough to freeze flesh, said Rider.

The day’s catch is then brought into port at their state-inspected and certified processing facility. Rider said the facility is sterile and well lit. There the fish are cut and skinned in small batches to keep flesh temperatures cold and then returned to ice salt water. All the fishermen are involved in this process, said Rider. When all of the day’s catch has been processed it is loaded onto their trucks and taken to one or more of the 30 restaurants and farm markets where they regularly deliver. These are located in southern Maine and northeastern Massachusetts. “Our customers tell us the fish is the best and freshest they’ve ever had and that it has an exceptional shelf life”, said Rider.,

They sell directly to customers from their trucks. Conversations with customers about the fish and how they are caught and handled is among the more rewarding aspects of the way the fishermen are doing business, said Rider.

“The only negative,” said Rider, “is having to pay an environmental group or owner of the quota in order to catch the fish.” He added, “Inactive fishermen and in one case, a hedge fund, had quota attached to a permit or bought permits with quota as an investment in order to lease it to fishermen at varying rates.”

“This arrangement evolved out of federal fisheries management plans that were influenced by private interests seeking to control the fish in a public resource and treating it like a stock market”, said Rider.

“Bringing in a superior product and vertically integrating their process was the only way to make fishing worth the effort and expense,” Rider said. tim@newenglandfishmongers.com.