Commercial striped bass season opened on Sunday with mixed reviews from fishermen. Fishmongers, however, are happy to have the desirable fish in stock again for the Island’s many interested customers.

Striped bass is a highly regulated fishery, especially on the commercial side. Last year the season come to a quick end on August 9 when fishermen reached their allowable catch about a month after the season opened.

Butter stained tables line the dock of Menemsha harbor where on summer evenings fresh lobsters are eaten off paper plates as the sun sets on another Vineyard day. Finger licking is required, bibs are optional. Lobsters are a celebration says Larsen’s Fish Market owner Betsy Larsen.

The Vineyard’s top saltwater fly fishermen will pair up with anglers from all over the country to compete in tomorrow night’s 22nd annual Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club striped bass catch-and-release tournament. It is primarily a night fishing event that begins at 7 p.m., and no fish are taken home.

Cooper A. Gilkes 3rd, who co-organizes the event, said many of the contestants are already here and are out scoping their favorite fishing places. This is a good fishing spring, Mr. Gilkes said. Shorefishermen are doing well all around the Island.

In an effort to spread the success of raising mussels offshore, local Vineyard commercial fishermen and shellfishermen are being invited to a special workshop on mussel farming on Friday, May 17 in Rhode Island.

Scarlet Pangia, age two and a half, and her father Jonathan were at Duarte's Pond off Lambert's Cove Road before five in the morning on Saturday.