By Sarah Friday 



Photo by Scott Taylor 



own and Out in Coastal North Carolina 



wenty-seven dollars a day isn't 

 much, but oysterman Phillip Dixon of 

 Mill Creek figures he's lucky to make 

 that much. 



e knows fishermen who haven't seen 

 work in weeks. 



ed tide took their jobs. 



ow Dixon must drive 60 miles to put 

 in his 1 7^2 -foot workboat. Then it 

 takes another hour and a half on the 

 water to reach the oyster beds. 



ome days his harvest is good— as 

 much as seven bushels. Others, it is 

 hardly worth the drive to the dock. 



iding out the ebbs and flows of the 

 red tide has been rough for 9,000 of 

 the state's shellfishermen. 



he slick muck of algae that spread 

 across the waters of Carteret, Onslow, 

 Pender and New Hanover counties 

 during fall and early winter stymied 

 the oyster, scallop, finfish and clam 

 fisheries. 



he toxic tide led to a ban on 

 shellfish harvesting in the 200-mile 

 stretch from Avon to Long Beach. And 

 it scared the public from eating favored 

 fish. 



he N.C. Division of Emergency 

 Management gauges red tide cost the 

 state more than $4 million in regard to 

 commercial fishing. 



t quelled the recreational fishing in- 

 dustry, too. In the four-county area, 

 pier owners lost from $4,000 to 

 $12,000 per week. Bait and tackle 



shops showed declines of $500 to 

 $3,000 per week. And charter boat 

 services, $14,000 per week. 



he timing of red tide couldn't have 

 been worse. 



he 1987 brown and pink shrimp 

 seasons left most commercial 

 fishermen empty-handed. The poor 

 fishing led many to put their hopes in 

 the winter shellfish harvests. 



nd things looked good. 



rices were up for North Carolina 

 oysters, clams and scallops because 

 harvests in Maryland and Virginia 

 were small. 



4 4 e were looking forward to a big 

 season this year," Dixon says. "We 

 had the biggest setting (crop) of oysters 

 in eight years." 



efore the tide, oystermen were pull- 

 ing 10 to 12 bushels out of the water a 

 day. Now that's been cut in half. 



he scallop harvest looked good, too. 

 "There were scallops like you'd never 

 seen," Dixon says. 



ut red tide hurt that fishery, too. 

 More than 50 percent of this year's 

 bay scallops died, says Sea Grant 

 researcher Charles Peterson, a shellfish 

 expert. And many of the juvenile 

 scallops— next year's harvest— died 

 also. 



ost commercial fishermen count on 

 shellfish for an extra $2,000 to $3,000 

 before Christmas, says fisherman Mark 

 Hooper of Smyrna. 



his December, it wasn't there. 



n top of that, some fishermen risk 

 losing houses and boats because of 

 missed mortgage payments. Phones 

 have been cut off, meals skipped and 

 furnaces left cold. 



4 4 here's people down here that's 

 real hurt," says Pinky Lewis, a fisher- 

 man for more than 40 years from 

 Beaufort. "Every day that it goes on, 

 they're that much closer to going out." 



ed tide hit the small operations, the 

 individual fishermen, the hardest. If 

 they couldn't fish, they tried to find 

 construction work or other kinds of 

 jobs. Or they worked on their boats 

 and hoped things would get better. 



ut for some, fishing is all they know. 

 So they went out of their way to find 

 open waters with untainted shellfish. 

 Or they switched to another fishery. 



y mid-November, clammers around 

 Beaufort started sink netting, gill net- 

 ting and crabbing. Oystermen and 

 clammers farther south began gill net- 

 ting for spot, speckled trout and puppy 

 drum. 



ther fishermen geared up for off- 

 shore runs for tuna and king mackerel. 



efore long, everybody was fishing for 

 the same thing in the same place, says 

 Bob Austin, a full-time fisherman from 

 Williston. "You go set two to three 

 nets in the morning and when you get 

 back there's a 100 on top of you. 

 There's so many of us at it, it crowds 

 the market," he says. 



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