Bob Mines (left) 



After a short ride to a vacant lot in 

 Morehead City, Hines and the fisher- 

 men pull out this newfangled net and 

 spread it on the ground. 



It's a floating pound net. Commer- 

 cial fishermen use the nets in New Eng- 

 land sounds. Hines will test this one to 

 see if it will catch schooling fish such as 

 bluefish and spot offshore here. 



Today Hines checks the net for torn 

 spots, floats and leads. It will take days 

 of work before the net is ready. 



Walter Clark (left) 



2 p.m. Walter Clark greets a packed 

 class of N.C. State University students. 

 Sea Grant's coastal law specialist gives 

 a legal perspective to a marine re- 

 sources class taught with cohort Lun- 

 die Spence. 



Today's topic is the Law of the Sea. 

 Clark carefully explains the Law of the 

 Sea Treaty, territorial rights and re- 

 source exploitation. 



Then he adds a touch of reahty. 



The scene: a mock Law of the Sea 

 Conference. The players: seven stu- 

 dents representing seven nations. The 



goal: to determine who profits from 

 deep-sea mining. 



In the end, the students learned that 

 negotiating is tough, that the issues are 

 real, and that they can make a dif- 

 ference. 



3 p.m. Helping commercial fisher- 

 men comes natural to Wayne Wescott. 

 A coastal native, Wescott started crab- 

 bing when he was 9 years old. His 

 father was a commercial fisherman 

 and owned a fish house in Manteo. 



You can tell Wescott likes his job 

 when he talks to Moon Tillett, a suc- 

 cessful fisherman from Wanchese. This 

 afternoon, Wescott checks on some 

 gear Tillett's been testing. 



The gear is stashed away, but out in 

 front is the fisherman's latest beef — 

 the low prices the catch is bringing. 

 Wescott hears him out and offers some 

 advice. 



Wayne Wescott 



Murray Bridges of Colington knows 

 the story, too. He's a crab shedder who 

 fishes in the off-season. The flounder 

 he's been catching aren't bringing the 

 prices expected. 



Bridges looks ahead to crab season. 

 And Wescott can help. His assignment: 

 check on a chemical that may spur 

 crabs to molt and find out something 

 about raising crabs from eggs. 



3:30 p.m. David Green steps inside 

 a warehouse-sized freezer at a Beau- 

 fort fish processing plant. The freezer 

 is empty now, but it may eventually 

 hold thousands of pounds of menhaden 

 for use as bait or perhaps even as a 

 food fish. 



Menhaden, the most-caught fish in 

 the state, is used mainly for fish meal 

 and oil. Recently the industry has hit 

 hard times. David Green is working to 

 change that. 



David Green (right) 



"The industry has realized it can't 

 live on meal and oil. But if it can diver- 

 sify, it might be able to stay afloat," 

 says Green. 



He is working with local processors 

 to improve onboard handling of men- 

 haden so that a food-grade product 

 reaches the docks. 



4 p.m. In the past few hours, Marine 

 Advisory Director Jim Murray has had 

 eight phone calls. 



Jim Murray (center) 



Log them in: a researcher, three 

 MAS directors from other states, two 

 MAS agents, a graduate student at 

 NCSU, and an enthusiastic entrepre- 

 neur who wants to grow snails. 



From his office in Raleigh, Murray 

 steers the MAS crew like the pilot of an 

 oceanliner. It takes a lot of phone calls 

 to guide 12 agents and their activities. 



"A lot of what I do when I'm in the 

 office is to coordinate things, pull things 

 together," says Murray. 



With open lines of communication, 

 Murray keeps atop the news and events 

 affecting the MAS. 



