Gone Fishin..............not catching

            Summer has finally arrived in the Northeast.  One of my husbands favorite pastimes is fishing on the weekend.  This usually involves packing up the gear and heading to the nearest pond or on occasion a beach.  This seems to be in his blood, dating back to when his father would take him and my son out on his boat with the guarantee of so much 'catch' that by the end of the day we were making deliveries to aunts' and uncles' homes with their dinner.  Going fishing today has turned into a good time with the grad kids minus the catch of the day.

In crisis mode, angry and worried, as many as 40 parties — fishing industry plaintiffs and their attorneys from North Carolina to Maine — are scheduled to participate in a conference call Friday to discuss whether to appeal a federal judge's decision upholding a radical reorganization of the groundfishery.

Although the action has been described as climaxing the final chapter in the 400-year history of traditional Atlantic groundfishing by a fleet of small owner- operated boats — and reflects what has been described as an extreme sense of deference by the judge to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — a decision to take an appeal is not considered a foregone conclusion.

NEW BEDFORD — The nation's largest scallop company, Eastern Fisheries, is expanding in China with a scallop farming initiative to keep pace with the growing worldwide market.

Roy Enoksen, co-founder of Eastern Fisheries, told The Standard-Times that while farm-raised scallops are already being produced in large numbers, Eastern wanted to raise its own for a basic reason: "Our whole plan has always been to take it from ocean to the plate," Enoksen said.

According to The Wall Street Journal, which featured Enoksen in a recent article about the scallop business in New Bedford, scallop prices have continued to rise even in the recession because demand continues to increase while the allowable catch in the U.S. fisheries has been capped at about 50 million pounds a year.

Producers have responded by establishing farms off the coast of China and Japan, where 90 percent of farm-raised scallops are produced.