Sports
Two of the most popular recreational fish will soon be off limits to commercial fishermen. The commercial bluefish season ends tomorrow. The commercial striped bass season ends on Tuesday.
This is the first time Massachusetts fisheries managers are closing the commercial season on bluefish. Using landing data, the state estimates the 516,619-pound quota for bluefish in the state will be taken by tomorrow. Fish markets may carry the fish beyond the date, but it won’t be for long.
Fifty-two boats are scheduled to start tomorrow in the 31st annual George Moffett Memorial Sailboat Race. Sailboats from 60 to 17 feet will participate in the race which begins off Eastville Beach in Oak Bluffs.
The sailboats will race across Nantucket Sound on a course still to be determined.
With the fall fishing season about to begin, there is a renewed warning out to shore fishermen to be careful not to litter the landscape. Spent fish line left on the ground can be a killer to wildlife.
In July an osprey chick was killed when it got entangled in a monofilament fish line.
The Holmes Hole Sailing Association continued its summer season of handicap sailboat racing from Vineyard Haven Harbor with a Thursday night race on August 14 and a Sound race on August 17.
Striper Wars author Dick Russell talks about efforts to save a troubled fishery, on Wednesday, August 27, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Chilmark Public Library.
When populations of striped bass began plummeting in the early 1980s, author and fisherman Dick Russell was there to lead an Atlantic coast conservation campaign that resulted in one of the most remarkable wildlife comebacks in the history of fisheries.
Mary McConneloug, the Vineyard’s own Olympian who competed in the Beijing games last week, finished seventh in the women’s mountain bike cross-country course. The highest-ranked cross-country mountain biker in the nation and one of two women on the American team, Ms. McConnelaug was the top American finisher in her event, with a final time of 1:50:34 for a six-lap, 26.7-kilometer (16.6-mile) course. The cross-country race was Saturday. Sabine Spitz of Germany took first, with a time of 1:45:11. Ms. McConneloug, who is 37, lives in Chilmark with Michael Broderick.