By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
Angee Doerr faces the group of 26 and runs through some simple instructions: it’s a working dock, so give fishermen the right of way; don’t get too close to the edge; dock planks are uneven so watch your step.
It’s the first of an-every-Friday-morning-in-August tour of Newport’s commercial docks run by Oregon State University’s extension and Sea Grant programs. It’s also Doerr’s first time leading a tour since she was hired in May, succeeding longtime extension agent Kaety Jacobson, now a Lincoln County commissioner.
Her first tour is made even more challenging by a soaking summer drizzle.
The “Shop the Dock” program is just a part of Doerr’s job, but it’s one of the most popular, drawing dozens and dozens of people to four morning tours each Friday in August. On Friday, Aug. 2 they came from coastal communities, Willamette Valley cities and even six women taking an Extension Service class on canning.
“The whole idea is to de-mystify shopping directly from fishermen,” Doerr says. “But it’s also a chance to educate people about all the types of commercial fishing along the Oregon coast.”
Indeed.
The Port of Newport’s Dock 5 is filled with tuna boats, back from days-long runs to warmer water far offshore. The salmon season is just cranking up, so most of those fishermen are still out. A short halibut fishery doesn’t start for another week. Commercial crabbing is ending; big shrimp boats are coming and going.
Jacobson started the program seven years ago as a way to connect the public with the commercial fishing industry, setting up tours in Newport and Garibaldi.
For participating fishermen it can help fill a niche in their business – selling their catch directly to customers in addition to wholesalers or processors. For the consumer, it can take some of the intimidation of walking the docks, which are always open to the public, how to approach fishermen, what to look for and when to look for it.
“A lot of fishermen like to talk about their boat and what they do,” says Doerr. “They also like to get the word out.”
The tour
Much of the 90-minute tour is spent helping people recognize the difference in fishing boats – vessels with long nets for ground fish and shrimp, the tuna and salmon guys, and even the few boats focusing on the unusual (and notoriously slimy) hagfish – and their general seasons.
Doerr explains that fishermen using the Port of Newport handle 40 percent of Oregon’s $175 million-a-year commercial fishery. Whiting is the largest fishery by volume; Dungeness crab is the most valuable.
Salmon, halibut and tuna make up the smallest catches, but can be the most profitable for fishermen and the most popular with people wanting to buy direct.
Kenny and Dustin Hayner, two brothers from Newport, have just returned from tuna fishing. They use their F/V Edgar B to crab in the winter, fish for salmon in the spring and summer, and chase Albacore tuna farther offshore when the current changes and the water warms.
“I do whatever’s going to be the most profitable,” Kenny Hayner says.
They’ve just finished a disappointing 40-mile run chasing tuna. When fishing is good, they’ll land 300-400 a trip. They caught just 20 tuna this trip, in addition to a couple of salmon.
“Once we got out there, the fishing stopped,” he said.
Although most were already spoken for by family or friends, the Hayners were offering filleted tuna loins to shoppers for $4.50 a pound.
Tim Mulcahy moves his boat, the Calogera (Italian for Gloria, he explains) up from San Diego to Newport for the summer to fish for tuna.
From the stern of his boat Mulcahy explains to the Shop the Dock crowd that he needs to catch 40-50 tuna a day to break even, tuna prefer water about 65 degrees, and the importance of cooling the warm-blooded fish immediately to 14 degrees.
Albacore tuna make a wide circle in the warm currents of the Pacific, he tells the group, starting near Japan, going south and then up the West Coast to Vancouver Island before heading back to Asia.
“It’s not a lack of fish, it’s their feeding habits,” he says of trying to attract tuna to lures trailing on the ocean surface. “It’s really variable. We’ve come back with 200. We’ve come back with thousands.”
Selling and buying
Not all fishermen at Newport’s docks sell their catch. Those who do often have signs at the top of gangways or on their boat. It’s also OK to walk around and ask, Doerr says.
The Chelsea Rose is a permanently moored boat at Dock 3 that serves as a retailer for many of Newport’s fishermen. There is a regular fish seller at Port Dock 7, farther up the main harbor. The White Swan III often sells from Dock A at the South Beach marina.
Doerr offers this buying advice:
- Although they are working vessels, a tidy, clean boat often means well-cared for fish.
- Feel free to ask fishermen how long they were out, when the fish was caught, and if it bled, frozen or put on ice immediately.
- The price per pound will seem low compared to the grocery store, but remember you are buying the whole fish, not just packaged pieces.
- Some fishermen will fillet the fish for you, but expect a charge for that.
- Filleted, smaller and sometimes flash-frozen pieces of halibut or salmon will cost you about double the per-pound price of a whole fish.
“If it looks beat up, you don’t have to buy it,” Doerr says. “But even if you don’t buy anything, seeing the catch and the boats is fun.”
That’s what Kevin and Brenda Dickmann of South Beach thought after last week’s tour. They moved to Oregon from California a year ago and are getting a feel for their coastal community.
“We already buy fish from the Chelsea Rose, so we thought we’d come down to see what else happens,” said Brenda Dickmann. “It’s a good, informative tour and it’s nice to know how hard they look to be sustainable.”
Shop the Dock
WHEN: 9:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. Fridays, Aug. 9, Aug. 16, Aug. 23, and Aug. 30.
WHERE: Port of Newport Dock 5, across from Local Ocean restaurant.
ABOUT: The free tours run about 90 minutes and are on a first-come, first-served basis. Call OSU Extension at 541-648-6816 if you have a group of five or more. Arrive early to find parking.
BUYING: People interested in purchasing seafood should bring cash and a cooler with ice.