A Day at the Fish Pier
Gloucester still lands fish. Not as much as it used to. Enough to make the pier one of the most honest places on the coast in any month.
By Dotti Maguire
Every few years someone writes an obituary for the American commercial fishing fleet, and Gloucester gets a paragraph about its decline. The paragraph is not wrong. The fleet is smaller than it was in 1980. The regulations are stricter. The costs are higher. Most working ports on the East Coast have been converted to marinas by now.
But Gloucester is still a working port. The fish are still landed at the Jodrey State Fish Pier on the east side of the inner harbor. And standing near the pier on a March afternoon is still one of the most honest experiences you can have in New England.
What Happens on a Tuesday
The day-boat fleet goes out early, often before first light, and comes back in the afternoon. By 2pm in March, the first boats are tying up. They unload into hoists that lower the totes into the dockside sorting area. A sorter inspects the catch by species. Buyers stand nearby with clipboards.
Haddock is the dominant catch in winter. Also pollock, hake, and redfish. The prized catches (monkfish, day-boat scallops, occasionally halibut) go to specific buyers who have been on a standing relationship with these boats for decades.
You are not going to see a 1940s version of commercial fishing. You are going to see a small number of working people doing a skilled, dangerous, and heavily-regulated job. That is worth seeing.
Where To Stand
The public access areas of the Jodrey Pier are along the outer walkways and the parking lot overlook. You cannot walk onto the active unloading area without a pass, which is correct, because it is a dangerous place to not know what you are doing.
The observation deck at Maritime Gloucester, a few blocks west, gives you a clear view of the pier and a narrated context for what you are seeing. If you are only going to do one of the two, do Maritime Gloucester first and walk over to the pier afterward.
What To Eat After
Most of what you see unloaded is not going to a Gloucester restaurant. It goes to Boston wholesalers and then onward to restaurants along the Eastern Seaboard. But a meaningful percentage does stay local, and a handful of restaurants in Gloucester make it a point to work from the day's landings.
Short and Main tends to run specials that reflect Tuesday and Wednesday landings. Causeway Restaurant serves the day's catch without making a show of it. The Gloucester House is old-school and honest. For exactly which kitchens are doing it best in any given month, ask us when you arrive.
Why Come
Eating fish on Cape Ann that was landed a mile away, on the day you saw it come off the boat, is one of the small luxuries of being here in March. It is not available in many other places on the East Coast, and even fewer where you can also rent a house on the water and walk home.
Bring good shoes. Go mid-afternoon. Have a plan for dinner. You will not regret any of it.