By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The commercial striped bass season began this week with a whimper. The fishermen are out hunting for this highly prized fish, but their landings are off.

Striped bass are local and one of the few species that are plentiful and available at fish markets and restaurants to sell. Bluefish comes a close second as a local fish and are landed daily.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Island waters are filled with bluefish, especially now. Striped bass fishing is sketchy and the bonito are only now arriving, but for Vineyard and Nantucket commercial and recreational anglers, there is one certainty: the bluefish are here.

Capt. Tom Mleczko of Nantucket reports bluefishing is good this summer for him, as good as it was last year. He fishes in a 29-foot Hawk called Priscilla J.

Overfishing may be the buzz word on the waterfront to explain the decline of many stocks of fish around Vineyard waters, but it isn’t heard often enough when it comes to explaining the loss of bait fish.

On Wednesday night at the Chilmark Public Library, a lone man stood before an audience of anglers and commercial fishermen to report the worst environmental tale needing to be told is the loss of one of the most valued forage fish in the ocean, which used to swim in abundance in these waters but is almost gone — menhaden.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

This is a summer of leatherback sea turtle sightings by local fishermen. Capt. Dick Smith of the charter fishing boat Patriot Too has seen quite a few of these large sea turtles in Vineyard waters.

“During the summer, the jellyfish come through Nantucket and Vineyard sounds,” Mr. Smith said. “Leatherback sea turtles are usually out there on the Gulf Stream, but their diet is jellyfish, so they are here.”

Earlier in July, the captain said, he saw quite a few sea turtles almost daily.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The days this summer for eating locally caught fluke on the Vineyard are coming to a close.

Fluke, also called summer flounder, are a flat fish. Their fillets are white and tasty, and most come from Vineyard Sound. Since the start of the summer, fluke have been the catch of the day.

On Tuesday, the state closed the commercial season for landing fluke, based on projected estimates that the state quota had been met.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

August can be a tough month for catching striped bass. It isn’t that the fish have gone south or disappeared, but they are certainly into their warm water August state of mind.

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.

This has not been a good blue crab season on the Vineyard. The Edgartown Great Pond is doing poorly compared with last year and there are lackluster reports from the Island’s other coastal ponds.

But that is the story with blue crabs. Some years the fishing is great and some years it is bad. Feast or famine and nothing much between.

Blue crabs and the state of the fishery, which is largely unregulated, is the subject of a public hearing in Tisbury next month.

The initial success of the Island’s offshore blue mussel aquaculture efforts could lead to real new jobs on the Vineyard, at a time when costs are up for fishermen but seafood prices are not keeping pace.

Recreational saltwater fishermen in Massachusetts likely will be required to have a fishing license beginning next year.

That word came from Paul Diodati, the director of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, who came to the Island last week and spoke at the Chilmark Public Library.

Mr. Diodati was joined by John Pappalardo, chairman of the New England Fishery Management Council. The council oversees many fish stocks that swim in federal waters south and east of the Vineyard.