Calm Seas

This photo was taken aboard the F/V Mary Elizabeth while fishing for fluke between Montauk and Block Island. It was an incredibly calm day, but just a few days later, we rode out a tropical storm, stern-to, for three days as we headed south. On this trip, we were catching a limit of fluke for North Carolina. While you can catch the fish anywhere, they must be landed in specific states. So, even though we were fishing off the coast of New York, we had to steam all the way down to North Carolina to offload the catch. It’s not uncommon for boats in New York to buy out-of-state permits, as New York doesn’t allow fishing vessels to land any significant amount of fish other than squid. This forces boats to travel great distances to land finfish. These permits are extremely expensive, and the rising cost of doing business is crushing many fishermen’s livelihoods.