by Josh Payne
NARR: It's 6:30 a.m. on the dock. The horizon turns from the deep indigo of night to the vibrant pink of a clear winter dawn. The frigid air smells of salt and fish.
TAPE: SOUND: [Bring up birds and men talking as they board the boat. Hold through the following narration.]
NARR: Morning silence is broken only by birds and the men boarding the Ocean Eagle V for a day on the water.
TAPE: SOUND: [Bring up sound of men pulling on their hip pants and preparing their gear. Hold through following narration.]
NARR: At seven o'clock, the boat leaves. Men pull on hip boots and heavy coats inside the cabin. 36 men and one woman are fishing today. The woman is humoring her boyfriend. The group ranges in age from 16 to 80. Some of them live two blocks from the dock...others live in a distant city borough like the Bronx...and one man came all the way from New Jersey.
TAPE: SOUND: [Bring up sound of boat pulling out of the Sheepshead Bay channel. Hold sound for a beat, then fade under the following narration.]
NARR: The water is smooth as glass as the 80-foot long Ocean Eagle V cruises from the inlet...past Breezy Point on the western tip of the Rockaway Peninsula...and into the Atlantic.
TAPE: SOUND: [Bring up the sound of the rig dropping under the following narration. The quick wind of the reel should come at the end of the narration.]
NARR: Two hours later the boat stops. On the sea floor below is a wreck where blackfish are known to mingle. The fishermen drop their lines...and wait.
TAPE: SOUND: [Ambient calm fishing sound under the following narration.]
NARR: A few fish are caught, but they're too small to be kept. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, known as the D.E.C., sets size limits and daily catch maximums for each type of fish. Only adult fish of a certain length and weight may be taken home.
TAPE: SOUND: [Bring up sound of reels winding as the boat moves. Hold under following narration.]
NARR: Nothing's biting at this location, so the two shipmates raise the anchors and the engine starts. All lines are reeled in as the boat moves. This pattern is repeated several times as the captain searches for schools of gullible fish. David Benjamin comes to Sheepshead Bay every chance he gets. He is 16 years old, and he's been fishing here since he was two. Benjamin's noticed a change in recent seasons.
TAPE: BENJAMIN: Well the fishing's been getting worse every year. Cause the draggers and the commercial fisherman are just wipin' out a lot of fish. You know they just take a net they drag the entire bottom and they take everything. And then we drop a few lines in and that's it.
NARR: Though he may not like it, drag fishing is not illegal. A commercial fishing license allows the use of nets and other devices to gather fish. Benjamin has another theory about the decline in fishing quality.
TAPE: BENJAMIN: The D.E.C. keeps increasing the fish regulations. So like fluke however many years ago they were like 15 inches and now they're 17. And now most of the fluke are like 16 inches. So you end up having to throw back like half the fish you catch. And, like, that stops a lot of people from coming fishing.
NARR: The D.E.C., which did not return calls, is concerned with maintaining a healthy population of fish in the ocean. To that end, its regulations are designed to prevent the depletion of any one species. Greg Nardiello, owner and captain of the Ocean Eagle V, agrees with the theory. But he thinks the regulations are not enforced against the large commercial fishers.
TAPE: NARDIELLO: They have a lot more money to back 'em with lobbyists in the state and on the federal level and, yeah, they have a lot more clout.
NARR: According to the D.E.C., regulations on recreational and commercial boats are enforced equally. Nardiello also thinks that the D.E.C. uses incorrect data to set their fish limits. He says the department calls the owners of small, personal boats for information on their catches, but ignores commercial boat yields. Though Nardiello disagrees with the D.E.C.'s methods, he is careful to inform his passengers about the regulations.
TAPE: NARDIELLO: I let them know what the law is and what the people choose to do is their responsibility. I am not given a badge or a license to enforce the law. I just let them know what it is and they do what they want. But I'm not gonna have someone throw me a beating if I try to throw their fish overboard.
TAPE: SOUND: [Bring up sound of grill during the following narration and hold for a beat into Kevin's AX.]
NARR: Around noon most of the men file into the cabin to see Kathy, the only other woman on the boat today. Kathy works in the galley and prepares sausage and peppers for lunch. One of the mates takes this opportunity to sing the boat's praises
TAPE: KEVIN: Only on the Ocean Eagle will you get this kind of food. [Kathy is heard in the background].
NARR: After lunch the captain tries another location or two, with little success. Around 2:30 p.m. he addresses the fishermen over the loudspeaker.
TAPE: NARDIELLO ON LOUDSPEAKER: Sorry the day sucked. The fishing this time of year is unpredictable. Most of the time it's lousy. And we won't get anything going probably 'til the end of March.
NARR: Nardiello sits at the wheel in the pilot house - a small steering room on the second deck of the Ocean Eagle V. When he came to Sheepshead Bay 12 years ago, he remembers 22 or 23 party boats at the docks. Now there are a dozen. Few boats sail during the winter, and Nardiello's is the only one that sails in February. He talks wistfully about the absence of a cold water fish called whiting.
TAPE: NARDIELLO: If we had whiting in the winter there would be a thriving business in Sheepshead Bay. The boats would be packed like this every day of the week. Even if it was 20 degrees out because they were so abundant that people loved to catch them and loved to eat them. They were an easy fish to catch and the boats were packed.
TAPE: SOUND: [Fade sound of boat moving under narration to out cue.]
NARR: The D.E.C. amends regulations frequently. Nardiello expects the agency to revise its saltwater policies again within the next month. For now, he simply hopes the limits on fish don't increase.
For Columbia Radio News, this is Josh Payne.