You may be surprised to hear me say that I’m not all that into fishing. Growing up along the Jersey shore, sure, I did a lot of casting off of docks, bulkheads and beaches in my youth, and spent countless hours drifting through inlets for fluke and the elusive striped bass. And I’ve succumbed to the ancient stirrings of my Scottish heritage in that I love the whole Zen thing of the flyfishing experience, even though it’s not something I do very often or am very good at. But although inshore fishing is much more accessible with a large variety of species up and down the Atlantic seaboard and most people I know who fish have relatively good levels of success, it’s just not something I do very often.
There are two exceptions for me, however. The first is tarpon fishing and the second is offshore sportfishing. I don’t go fishing to brag, compete, kill, or anything else. I fish primarily for the experience of being out on the ocean, away from it all. To me, an offshore trip means clearing the inlet before dawn then charging a big sportfishing yacht into the swells of the sunrise, sighting blowing whales and shark fins cruising, spying a marlin slashing away at a surface school of baitfish and generally being humbled by the grandness of it all, out there in a world where we don’t belong. If I do manage to hook and fight a fish, it’s just a bonus to the overall offshore experience and the only fish I’m really interested in are the BIG powerful ones, tunas. Looking at fishing empirically, it’s the only sport (I’m talking hunting-type sports here, not field competitions between people and such) where you truly experience the power of the animal. All other forms of hunting involve seeing the animal first, then chasing it down and killing it from a distance with a gun or an arrow. But in fishing, if successful at luring the unseen prey to the boat, you literally get connected to the animal; you battle it hand-to-hand and can defeat it, then release it to fight another day. I know a lot of you fish for smaller inshore species and I’d never tell you you’re not having fun “fighting” that six or even 20-pounder. But until you experience the tug of even “just” a 50-pound yellowfin tuna, much less the raw strength of a 250-pound bigeye tuna, or, better still the awesome explosive power of a giant bluefin tuna weighing hundreds of pounds, in my book you really don’t quite know what real fishing is yet. I’ve seen the heaviest of fishing reels literally explode and disintegrate, and big, brawny men almost pulled over the transom when these fish smash the lure and take off on a 50mph dash. There is no other comparable sensation like it in the sportsman’s world and if your fight is successful, boy are they tasty.
I mentioned tarpon earlier. I enjoy tarpon fishing as well since, at up to 160 pounds on relatively light tackle, they provide an equally physical fight. But the real beauty of tarpon is that they are big AND fished for within sight of land and from relatively small boats. Unlike the costs of owning or chartering a 60-foot battle wagon that can take you safely out and back to the Gulf Stream, tarpon gives an incredible bang-for-the-fish-fighting-buck.
My first offshore fishing experiences were in the “canyons” (that is, the bottom structures of the continental shelf) off the northeast coast. The Hudson Canyon, the Wilmington. the Lindenkhol, I trolled over them all. But a bit further inshore, many offshore tuna hunters do not troll for the fish, rather, they go “chunking” which is very similar to chumming in that you anchor the boat up just before sunset, then start throwing large chunks of cut up fish (like menhaden or butterfish) into the water. The currents start carrying away the chunks and oils in a slick for several miles. The scent is picked up and followed by the tunas, right to the boat, where they are offered much more substantial baits with hooks embedded within.
Basic seamanship prescribes that when you anchor a boat, to get a firm “bite” into the bottom, you need to let out an amount of anchor line that is a multiple of the depth of the water, typically seven feet (more in stormy conditions). Simple math then says that when anchoring in ten feet of water then you should let out 70 feet of line to get a sufficient hold. But think about anchoring far offshore in hundreds of feet of water out at the edge of the continental shelf – the “100 fathom curve” somewhere on the order of 600 feet deep. To set an anchor there means paying out some 4200 feet of anchor line… that’s ⅔ of a mile or better of wet, heavy line, even with a windlass.
On my first chunking trip, the boat captain warned me not to be late since it was imperative that we leave the dock on time in order to assure that we “got a pot.” It seemed that the bite was really hot that season and lots of boats headed out in the middle of the afternoon so as to still have daylight after the several-hour run offshore. They needed the daylight so that they would be able to spot “a pot.” A commercial lobster pot. “Why”, I asked, and was informed that instead of trying to set a 2/3 mile anchor line, the boats just found a lobster pot buoy and tied off to it, using the pot below as an anchor of sorts. This struck me as quite odd. Even the big commercial pots aren’t all that big in terms of providing sufficient holding power for a boat that has a displacement in the tens of tons. The answer was that, well, it doesn’t hold you exactly in place, but good enough, even if you start dragging the pot around the sea floor.
As a summer beach-rat of a kid, I was hanging around commercial fishermen, clammers and crabbers long before I was ever a regular around the sportfishing and charter docks. I knew them all to be tough, gruff, hardworking guys that’d give you the shirt off their backs if you REALLY needed it, even though most of them had a pretty much hand-to-mouth existence, and that was in the good years. They didn’t ask anyone for anything and just wanted to fish for a living with minimal governmental regulatory interference. One day, “Crabber Jimmy” was talking about how a bunch of his crab traps had been raided. He didn’t even mind so much that the raiders took some of his catch, he considered it “just a cost of doing business.” What really incensed him was that there was still good bait in the trap, but the raiders didn’t even have the courtesy to close and secure the trap properly, so they not only deprived him of his original catch but in so doing, cost him the rest of the set as well.
Back offshore as we bobbed there in the star-studded darkness, “secured” to that lobster pot, I was on watch, monitoring the LORAN (positioning) unit and seeing that we were indeed drifting with the Gulf Stream, dragging that pot 600-feet below along with us and it suddenly seemed so wrong to me. I saw it as vandalizing the equipment and effort of some lobster fisherman who had trekked far offshore in some small workboat that surely paled in comparison to the comfort and safety of the luxurious sportfishing yacht on who’s flybridge I sat while watching the crime take place, just because we weren’t willing to expend the same sort of effort as did the lobsterman, to enjoy the bounty of the sea. To me, it was no different than going into some farmer’s field at night, stealing his harvest and damaging his tractor. No different at all.
Fast forward a few decades. I’d moved to Charleston, S.C. and is my want, I eventually gravitated towards a place called Shem Creek, across the harbor from the Charleston peninsula, and home to the area’s local commercial fishing fleet: several dozen shrimp boats (think Forrest Gump); a few “bandit boats” (from the name of the reels and short gunnel- mounted short stiff rods they employed in pursuit of reef species like snappers and groupers) a few crab boats; and several nearshore and far-offshore longline boats (think The Perfect Storm). This was around the time that commercial fishing – especially the long liners who killed non- targeted sportfish species like marlin – became absolutely demonized to the point that sportfishermen who came across a drifting longline would cut the line and destroy the high-flyers (radar reflecting buoys the fishermen used to monitor the set and drift of the longline). It was pure high-seas terrorism and the sportfishermen had the time, money and lawyers to goad the government into placing ever-increasing onerous regulations upon the beleaguered commercial guys to the point of putting many of them out of business. Not to as serious a degree, but the shrimpers came under the same sort of attacks for the by-catch caught up in their nets.
The U.S. currently produces very little of the seafood we Americans consume, although we have control over some of the most productive fishing grounds on the planet. The American commercial fishing fleet (and this includes ALL forms of waterborne harvesting from clams to fish) is in serious – VERY serious – trouble, and that it is no longer unreasonable to imagine that the day is fast approaching when it will be impossible to buy a domestically fresh and wild caught seafood from an American fisherman. The American commercial fisherman is the most productive, regulated, monitored and environmentally conscious sea harvester in the world. Since long before our country’s founding, they have been an integral component of the fabric of our society. They work in THE most dangerous profession there is (on a death-per-capita basis). Worse than being a cop, a coal miner, a logger or a member of the military in a war zone.
So, what’s my point here? Easy, I want you to start educating yourself. When you go to the supermarket for a fish fillet, read the labels carefully and note the country of origin. The same goes for your local seafood store if you have one. Even one located close to the fishing docks may source a majority of its products from overseas.
When you go to a fine seafood restaurant, ask where the seafood is sourced. When you hear things about mercury in tuna and swordfish, or the benefits of “Chilean Sea Bass” that someone says you should or shouldn’t eat, or that a certain species is “overfished”, do your homework. You’ll find there is always a whole different side to the story and enough conflicting data to raise some really serious questions as to who’s REALLY doing the damage out there.
And when you complain that buying fresh local seafood products isn’t as convenient and sometimes costs a little more, just envision the Vietnamese shrimp ponds that feed shrimp with raw sewage to cut costs, then clandestinely soak them in chemical preservatives that are banned in most developed nations. There’s a reason that pre-made circular tray of shrimp cocktail you get at Costco is relatively cheap. Or envision the sweating loin-clothed wretch working for pennies a day processing a tuna or swordfish on some dock on the west coast of disease-ridden Africa. The higher-end “natural” grocery stores like Earth Fare, Fresh Market and the like label their stuff pretty well. Look for words like “wild caught” or “domestic.”
You all wish to pay less and less because you think there isn’t a difference: “fish is fish.” But as waterfront real estate values sky rocket, forcing the commercial fishermen off their traditional landing docks situated in the very heart of our coastal communities; as the price or everything a fisherman needs go up and up; or when you’ll insist on, and willingly pay a premium for only bottled water for mixing baby formula, but give nary a thought to what’s really in that can or pouch of tuna you feed the wee ones, stop for a moment and THINK! It’s just fish, after all, how can it be so complicated? Well, it is, so please start educating yourself.
Comments welcome to: Editorljwallace@gmail.com