People and Pogies

This summer I looked down from the Halibut Point promontory at what seemed to be sport fishermen on the bay below, not so far from a commercial netting operation.

I assumed they were trying to catch game fish like stripers, bluefish, or tuna attracted to their favorite food, pogies. No, the anglers were pulling up the pogies themselves. I wondered how these guys could get plankton-eaters to bite on a hook.

Eric Hutchins, Fisheries Biologist at NOAA, helped unravel the story. Eric advised, "They do only eat plankton. They way you catch them is to simply cast a 3 way treble hook into the dense school of menhaden and they are snagged. They don't try to eat the hook." Sure enough, a close look at this photos revealed the hook had lodged in the skin behind the fish's head.

After awhile the bait catchers zoomed off across Ipswich Bay toward Plum Island where they evidently planned to target desirable sport (and culinary) species.

Meanwhile, the menhaden (pogey) fleet was busy offshore.

Three sizes and specialties of boats coordinated the capture of the densely schooled pogies: net-carrying and handling vessels, skiffs to quickly surround the fish with a purse seine, and a floating 'factory' to haul the catch onboard.

A spotter plane roamed over the Bay directing the operation.

As the net was hydraulically tightened around the captive fish they were sucked aboard by a vacuum pump and conveyed below deck on a belted trough.

The handful of 'fishermen' efficiently completed the harvest and departed for their processing port in southern Maine where the pogies would be rendered into oil, fish meal, and fertilizer.

The Most Important Fish in the Sea

Two remarkable resources have come my way since the last blog posting, "Diving on Pogies." One reader writes, "our nephew up in Maine has been on the prowl with his new drone.  We thought you might like a different peek at pogie fishing.  Unless this cormorant is doing a lot of underwater feeding, it looks like the fish are winning." Take a peek from this overhead view, of a hard-working cormorant repeatedly and unsuccessfully diving on pogies. As illogical as it may seem to you and me, their concentration in a school may actually be making it harder for the hunter to 'catch a fish in a barrel' by somehow confusing the predator with plenitude, as is also said of flocking birds and insects.

Striped bass attacking a pogey school along the Halibut Point shoreline

Such a defensive strategy may backfire when pogies are attacked by mackerel, bluefish, or striped bass, which slash their way wantonly through a school, leaving lacerated victims for secondary diners.

Gannet plunge-diving

High-flying gannets roam the skies in search of pogey schools, with a view similar to the drone of those dense submarine shadows. The bird's dive takes it well below the surface and capable of swimming under water in pursuit of the fish.

A title with a startling assertion

The second astonishing resource I've referred to in regard to pogies (menhaden) is the book The Most Important Fish in the Sea. Its subtitle, Menhaden and America, doesn't make it onto the cover of the book because so few people have ever heard of or seen this fish, and none of us has eaten it directly. The book is a story full of ecological revelations and consequences, which will be the subject of our next postings.

Diving on Pogies

There are times especially in early fall when the water roils in the coves of Cape Ann and birds congregate in a feeding frenzy on tiny fish migrating from coastal nurseries to the open ocean. These fish are juvenile menhaden, or pogies, driven to the surface attempting to escape the jaws of predators pursuing them from below. Considering what must be the vast numbers consumed - or that throw themselves up on the shore in a vain leap for freedom -  it seems remarkable that these 'schoolies'  populate the ocean year after year as a sustaining element of the maritime food chain.

Double-crested Cormorants, Folly Cove

Cormorants that are usually solitary hunters congregate for a feast when pogies are trapped along the shoreline.

They gorge on the myriad silvery fish that at this stage of their life have various local names, including "peanut bunkers."

Ring-billed Gull and cormorants

Cormorants are not the only opportunists. Certain aerodynamically buoyant species of gulls hover over the water surface waiting for the pogies to be driven upward by voracious bluefish and striped bass.

Laughing Gulls swarming...

...and plucking fish from the surface.

Cormorant surfacing with mature pogey

When they move through our inshore waters earlier in the year, calorie-rich pogies become a favorite food of many other species.

A 15-inch adult pogey challenges the elasticity of a cormorant's jaws and throat.

One supposes the bird will not have to fly far or frequently after such a satisfying meal.

Fishing

 

Fishing, I imagine, has a close-to-nature appeal for sportsmen similar to birdwatching for those who like a purposeful fresh-air outing in scenic elements.

Catching something for dinner may not always be the first objective of fishing, but this woman caught a keeper.

For some it's an immersion swim into the submarine environment where fish are pursued by all manner of birds and mammals and the scenery is other-worldly.

Some folks stay high and dry, pursuing trophies for Facebook as well as the cooking grill.

Some team up commercially to make a living at sea,

while others are drawn to solitary rhythms and harvests.

Every one of these shoreline adventurers recognizes the conditions and contests that Ernest Hemingway depicted so vividly.

The Solstice Tree

Red Oak tree, Winter Solstice

During Christmas week trees are on my mind. Part of the general holiday centers on bringing a perfectly shorn  evergreen indoors to decorate, a tradition with both pagan and Christian roots that symbolizes everlasting life in dark times. The tree itself is a sacrifice and will be discarded.

Two days ago on the Winter Solstice I stopped in front of a particularly well-formed oak tree at Halibut Point. As a solitary specimen it had room and light to develop its crown into broad symmetry. I admired its grandeur and the details of its achievement made visible during its naked hibernation. In contrast to the Christmas message of man's salvation, this tree spoke to me of inherent harmony in all things.

Musculature, symmetry, armor

Of course wood has many properties that are useful to man. Those properties came into being as useful to the tree itself. Imagine being strong enough to hold upright such great mass and density, yet allowing sap to flow up and down within its structure, pliant enough to withstand and sway with windstorms, protectively encased but with the ability to expand in size annually. I know the challenge of trying to pick up and carry even a small chunk of this wood.

Lichen

The tree hosts all manner of cycles, events, and ecologies over the course of the year. Most prominent of these is the foliage that converts solar energy to growth. Buds and seeds come and go. Birds, insects, mammals, myriad organisms depend on it for sustenance, shelter or anchorage. 

Knot

The tree's method of dealing with injury is different from ours. It attempts to seal over stubs, wounds and cavities to keep out weather, pathogens, and other invasions. It's method involves encasing problematic tissue rather than healing it in the sense of restoration. So long as a dead or damaged branch protrudes from the trunk the bark cannot callous over that vulnerable point. Recovery becomes a race with time.

Standing before this tree on the winter solstice marks the beginning both of lengthening days and of astronomical winter, of more cold and more light, of  'the return of the sun.' The sun has reached its lowest point of noontime elevation and its longest arc on the horizon between rising and setting. Its low angle gives us thinnest warmth. Today, as its celestial  course reverses, it seems to stand still in the sky. This has been noted since ancient times, giving us solstice  from the Latin words sol “sun” and sistere, “to stand still.”

Shoreline Fun

 

Pivoting to the Shoreline

This first-of-the-year dusting of snow this week calls for a mental as well as a physical re-orientation to enjoying Halibut Point.

Winter shoreline

Animated life has quieted in the Park uplands. My seasonal compass points toward the shoreline.

Snow Bunting

At the tip of the grout pile this Snow Bunting foraged for seeds in weedy patches. It's a fancy sparrow-like bird with feather-tufted leggings.

Harlequin Duck

Down below came the annual pleasure of returning Harlequin Ducks, and renewed astonishment at their chosen habit in the rocky surf.

Semipalmated Plover

One day I was favored by the sight of a tiny stone-colored plover.

Peregrine Falcon

It pays to turn around occasionally, where a formidable falcon  might make a brief perch.

A fish-spotting Northern Gannet

On windy days gannets go rocketing past the Point on their six-foot wingspans.

Red-breasted Mergansers and Greater Scaup

Sea birds have been on the move during the fall migration, sorting themselves into local niches or moving further south. Luckily for lovers of the outdoors, shoreline wildlife will be much more varied and active than in summertime. Bundle up.

Ribbon Cutting

After four years of renovation to the Visitors Center and landscape of Halibut Point State Park by the Department of Recreation and Conservation (DCR), tranquility has returned to our local sanctuary. The Park staff is particularly relieved to be quietly back at the helm of the impressively rehabilitated facilities and new exhibits.

DCR engaged top-notch contractors to carry out repairs to the old coastal watch tower battered by shoreline elements and decades of less than perfect attention.

The landscape, roadways and parking lot received a massive overhaul. The State devoted $4.6 million to the project.

State Senator Bruce Tarr at the podium,
Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante to his left

On the beautiful crisp last day of November dignitaries and the project team celebrated the completion of the work.

Gail Halloran cutting the ribbon, surrounded  (L to R) by
Rockport Selectman Paul Murphy, Kathleen Theoharides, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Senator Tarr, and Stephanie Cooper, Acting Commissioner of the DCR

Governor Ed King and State Rep. Ted Tarr
at the Park dedication November 1981
Photo from Park archives

Gail Halloran, the first Park Supervisor and currently President of the Friends of Halibut Point State Park, reminded the gathering of the blustery day forty years ago when Governor Ed King flew in by helicopter for the Park dedication.

Tour guide training session, May 1987
Walter Johnson, center, and Gail Halloran, right
Gail Halloran photo

Gail paid tribute to Rockport resident Walter Johnson, once a tool boy at the quarry, for his generosity to Park programs and for teaching her how to split granite.

Gail with kindergarten apprentice c. 2000
Gail Halloran photo

Over the years she had a chance to share this knowledge with visitors of all ages. Friends of Halibut Point hoped it would develop into a Granite Museum.

Groundbreaking ceremony for the Granite Museum, October 2000
Ted Tarr (l), Sen. Bruce Tarr (c), Gail Halloran (r)
Gail Halloran photo

That aspiration never quite came to fruition. However the newly renovated Visitors Center presents many educational displays. 

The Babson Farm Quarry in operation, 1913
Painting by Leon Kroll

Among the most interesting items in the new exhibits are facsimiles of Halibut Point quarrying operations in the painting by Leon Kroll and a large scale model of the quarry commissioned from craftsman Dominick Ciati.

 The Visitors Center will be open throughout the winter.