Chesapeake Bay Fishing

I spent a day out on a commercial fishing boat in the Chesapeake Bay of Maryland, near the town of Cambridge with local waterman Boo and his crew. This method of fishing uses a pound net. The huge bulk of the catch (2.5 tons at the end of the day) was menhaden, a small, oily fish used as a bait fish up and down the east coast of the US. The catch also included striped bass (also known as rock fish), flounder, spadefish, and a bewildering variety of sea creatures.

It's hard, difficult, and dangerous work. The day starts before five and doesn't end until three or four in the afternoon. It's constant cycle of netting the fish out of the trap, sorting them, getting them into the market, and then cleaning the boat and gear - we visited four traps in one day.

This lifestyle is gradually dying out on the Chesapeake. There's strong environmental pressure to restore the bay to its earlier state, leading to inevitable confrontations between the watermen and conservationists. Like much of modern American society, there's a large group of moderates on this issue, but extremists on both sides force their own agenda that makes compromise virtually impossible. As a result, Boo is finding it difficult to make fishing in the bay viable and he's ready to retire. His son, who was one of the crew members, will be going to New York to study the culinary arts next year. This marks the end of a family tradition of fishing on the bay that's lasted for over a century.