Every spring, the squid come to Nantucket Sound, for a few weeks they hug the beaches from Falmouth to Chatham. For a week at the end of April, the draggers are allowed to fish inside the three mile line between Mashpee and Hyannis, after that they have to stay outside the three mile line, if they are east of Succonesset Shoal. The draggers have been allowed this one week inside since 1990, when the DMF began to allow them to fish using squid mesh inside the line, because a few boats had already been doing it in previous years and DMF wasn’t able to enforce the rule prohibiting from doing so, as strange as that sounds. You can read where it says precisely this, it’s in a report from the DMF - The Loligo squid fishery in Nantucket and Vineyard Sound Page 15.
The trawlers tow an area about 5 1/2 miles x 2 miles over and over for a week. See the chart inserted -
Inside Squid Tow
Some years there are only a few boats and some years there as many as 40 trawlers. How many depends on how early the squid arrive and how thick they are, word of a good run spreads quick. In the last few years the squid that show up inside have been scarce and the number of boats dragging has been limited, mainly to the few local boats from Hyannis and Falmouth and Menemsha.
As you’d likely imagine, jigging for squid in this area is popular, but not very productive until after May 1’st when the draggers have left, usually it takes a day or two for things to settle down from all the disturbance of the draggers towing back and forth between Colliers Ledge and Succonesset Shoal all day for a week, it’s a small area and the week of dragging activity keeps the squid from settling in 1 spot for very long. Once the draggers have left though, squid are able to be jigged and the area becomes an eclectic mixture of sport boats, party boats, six pack charters, commercial jiggers and sea bass potters who also must wait until the trawlers are out of the area before they put their gear in, or risk losing it.
The draggers continue to catch squid after May 1’st, further out in the sound, most years well into June and most boats do well, getting thousands of pounds a day for several weeks, perhaps a month. The inshore area, this little area between Osterville and Mashpee, only sees any good numbers for a week or ten days and again, not until the draggers have left. There are a lot more fishermen who fish this area who aren’t draggers, than there are, but we have to give up this week because they are there. For twenty years the draggers have had this week open to them in this area, but to a certain degree, at the expense of all the others who would also access this area and not just the other fishermen, but the squid themselves, which never really get a chance to settle in until they leave and sometimes don’t until after other fish arrive like scup, seabass, stripers, blues and fluke, all go there to eat squid, which also keep the squid from having very long to themselves in this very small place.
I think it’s time we looked at re-closing this area year round to squid trawlers. The area had been closed for 70 years, basically since we’ve been dragging with powered vessels until 1990. Considering how many more local fishermen, both recreational and commercial would benefit with an enhanced squid presence inshore and the lingering effects of the attraction of more bait to other fish, we should keep this area off limits to Mobile gear fishermen. During years of an abundance of squid in late April, many of the boats that show up to drag aren’t from the area, some are even from out of state. I think that keeping this area off limits to them will be of a greater benefit to more people, locally.
A few years ago the trawlermen attempted to get this area left open to them for the first two weeks of May, they were unsuccessful though. At the time, due to a procedurally improper motion made by the Marine Fisheries Commission, they almost got to fish inside for a week in May, but efforts by myself and others, convinced the Wildlife commissioner Tom French, to overturn the MFC decision and the area remained closed to squid trawlers in May. Now if we can just get that last week in April re-closed, we’d be all set. It’s not as if the draggers wouldn’t still catch any squid, which they do all during May and into early June, it’s just that the rest of us, which is a lot more than the few draggers who would be excluded, need this area and the availability of squid in it far outweighs the quick buck the draggers get there at our expense.
Last 5 posts by Cape Cod 19
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