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Slinky pots revolutionize Alaska's blackcod fishery seafoodsource.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from seafoodsource.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
SHARE The crew of the F/V Devotion easily handles a lightweight CodCoil pot with live blackcod. Ryan Johnson photo One year ago, when interviews via Zoom were new (and a little exciting, even), I sat down in my East Coast kitchen to talk with a fishing family in the San Francisco Bay Area. Adam Sewall, 38, and Eleza Jaeger, 33, had spent the first part of the year tracking production on their line of blackcod pots, while running their commercial and charter fishing businesses, and managing schedules for their three young children. The fishing family had an early warning of what was to come for 2020 when their Asia-based blackcod pot manufacturer shuttered in January as the virus caused shutdowns in nations on the other side of the Pacific. They watched the spread of covid-19 disrupt commerce and lives around the globe until it reached the shores of the U.S. West Coast. ....
SHARE The crew of the F/V Vansee (above) preps new CodCoil, or slinky, pots. The gear is made for longliners tired of feeding whales a seafood buffet and is noted for being collapsible and lightweight. Shawn McManus photo. When Shawn McManus, skipper of the F/V Vansee, left Seattle in the spring of 2020 to longline for blackcod in Alaska, the outlook was not good. The burgeoning pandemic had injected uncertainty into a fishery that was already struggling with flagging prices and crippling whale depredation. On the grounds, McManus and his colleagues estimated half their catch, sometimes more, was being snatched off hooks by orcas and sperm whales. Fishermen with bigger boats and more powerful hydraulics had long ago switched to whale-proof rigid pots, but they were not an option for smaller operations like the Vansee, a 107-year-old halibut schooner with limited deck space. ....