By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association will hold their annual banquet tomorrow at noon at the Edgartown Whaling Church. More than 100 recreational fishermen are expected to attend the luncheon in the Baylies Room. The event is open to club members and prospective members during this celebration of the club’s 20th year.

Members and friends of the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association got a flavor of a busy season ahead on Saturday. The club now in its 20th year held their annual afternoon banquet at the Edgartown Whaling Church. More than 100 anglers showed up for the luncheon, to sip soda and eat fried chicken. The event included the delivery of plaques to first place winners of the club’s own summer-long fishing tournament and included the election of officers and a report on plans for the new year.

A renewed effort to restrict striped bass to game fish status in Massachusetts is dividing recreational and commercial fishermen.

Legislation was filed on Beacon Hill last month that would ban the commercial sale of wild striped bass in the commonwealth and also place stricter limits on the recreational fishery.

A small but spirited group of fishermen met this week to discuss forming an advocacy organization.

The meeting was held Wednesday at the county administration building; 16 people attended. The idea of forming a formal fishermen’s association comes at a time when federal regulators are clamping down on fishing permits and a new bill has been filed in the state legislature to ban commercial fishing for striped bass.

Martha’s Vineyard leads the Cape and Islands in bay scallop landings, beating Nantucket. The Vineyard’s commercial and recreational shellfishermen landed over 12,000 bushels this past season, and more are being landed. With three weeks still left in the season, Nantucket shellfishermen have landed 8,000 bushels. This makes the Vineyard the largest producer of wild bay scallops in the world.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

The Vineyard’s four popular freshwater ponds were stocked with more than 1,100 trout on Wednesday. Officials from the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife came over with a special truck filled with bubbling water, loaded with rainbow, brown and tiger trout.

Steven Hurley, fisheries manager for the state, said the fish were delivered to Duarte’s Pond, Old Mill Pond and Uncle Seth’s Pond in West Tisbury, and Upper Lagoon Pond which is shared by the towns of Tisbury and Oak Bluffs.

Spring rain and fog did little to dampen the spirits of young anglers and their parents participating in the 35th annual Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club trout tournament early Saturday morning — very early. More than 200 youngsters rose before sunrise to get to Duarte’s Pond in West Tisbury in time for the start at first light.

They came wearing raincoats and rubber boots, bearing cans of worms and artificial bait and laden with fishing gear.

Tomorrow is the first ever Kids Fishing Jamboree. Youngsters from all over the Island are invited to attend a learn-how-to-fish program and it involves a lot of experienced anglers. Registration is at 8:15 a.m. at the Edgartown School and it is open to all children aged six through 14 years of age. The program is especially open to parents.

The event is sponsored by the Martha’s Vineyard Surfcasters Association, a nonprofit fishing club dedicated to promoting the sport. They do a number of fishing friendly events and this one is an experiment.

By MARK ALAN LOVEWELL

Fewer fish were caught and released in the 18th annual Martha’s Vineyard Rod and Gun Club’s flyrod striped bass catch and release tournament last weekend than in the previous year’s contest. It may be the first time the number of fish caught and released was less than the number of anglers who entered the contest. There were a total of 146 striped bass and 193 flyfishermen.

Bait fish that were once plentiful in the waters around the Cape and Islands have grown scarce. And recreational fishermen want Congress to step in to help do something about it.

Menhaden, also called bunker, have all but disappeared. Atlantic mackerel had a weak showing this spring. Even squid are down; the commonwealth has extended the spring fishing season into June to help commercial draggers meet the state quota, but the bigger question is what happened to the squid?