a good price for squid, so long as it's 

 frozen almost as quickly as it's hauled 

 aboard. In Japan, squid are known as a 

 high-protein, delicately flavored sea- 

 food, not as trash. 



After a test run, the "Captain Male" 

 is ready for serious squidding. But 

 nobody can say where the beasts are all 

 holed up. The Point Judith Fishing 

 Cooperative in New England doesn't 

 know, even though, in August, most of 

 the squid are likely to be somewhere in 

 northern waters. And the out-of-state 

 fisheries people and Sea Grant agents 

 don't know either. At ten-thirty, 

 Tillett gives up and rocks back in his 

 chair. 



"The squid is an under-utilized 

 species," he explains. "People in this 

 country just don't know much about 

 them." 



Around the docks and fish houses, 

 Tillett peppers his conversation with 

 enough ripe expletives to make the 

 tatoos on a sailor blush. Nobody raises 

 an eyebrow. But "under-utilized" 

 sticks out like a gin bottle at a deacon's 

 meeting. 



It's the buzz-word these days. 

 Under-utilized sources of energy, 

 under-utilized species of fish. It's about 

 the only bit of bureaucratic jargon to 

 sprout in Tillett's vocabulary since he 

 took his "government job" with Sea 



Tillett spreading word about hydraulic gear 



Grant in 1974. As a matter of fact, 

 there's nothing very official about 

 "Captain Hughes." Sure, he drives a 

 car with state plates and uses an office 

 in the N. C. Marine Resources Center 

 on Roanoke Island. But he still lives in 

 Wanchese, spends his spare time 

 fishing, and insists that his home phone 

 number be printed on his business 

 cards. 



He believes it's his job to support the 

 sort of initiative it takes for a fisher- 

 man to give up some of his old habits 

 and re-rig his mind and equipment for 

 a different catch. 



"If they don't find something new to 

 work, it's going to be the fishermen 

 who are under-utilized," he says. 



Leaving a few messages with agen- 

 cies that might hear something about 

 the squid, Tillett climbs into his car for 

 the drive to a sometime fisherman's 

 house in Manteo. The man and his sons 

 need help stitching a line into the tail 

 bag of their shrimp net. 



"We get all kinds of requests from 

 people," he explains. "There are a lot 

 of people, young people, moving into 

 the area, wanting to know almost 

 everything about the coast." 



The backseat of his car is stacked 

 with publications, and he uses them to 

 answer many of the requests for infor- 

 mation. They cover almost everything 

 from eel fishing to storms. But if 

 neither Tillett nor the booklets can 

 answer a question, he refers the person 

 to another agent or researcher who can. 



Helping a seasoned pro — the guy 

 whose livelihood depends on the 

 vagaries of weather, water and fish — is 

 not quite so simple. 



"They told me, when I came to work 

 with Sea Grant, to just work my forty 

 hours a week, and that was enough. 

 But I knew when I took the job that I 

 was going to get a lot of calls at home. 

 When else is a fisherman, who works all 

 day in a boat, going to call you?" 



To have the answers when the calls 

 do come, Tillett combs the industry 

 publications for news about gear, 

 processing and fishing techniques. 



"A fisherman who goes out and 

 works all day long, and gets home after 

 dark, a lot of the time, he's just too 

 tired to read and keep up with every- 

 thing," he says. "They call me, when 

 they've got a problem, and I try to do 

 their reading for them." 



But the problems of the fisherman 

 are more than just technical or trade 

 problems, these days. People, politics 



