of the guys would say, 'We're all think- 

 ing the same thing, ' and that would help 

 get me through it. Of course, your 

 motivation is the money. If you're 

 catching that many fish, you're making 

 money. But you never know, when you 

 go out, whether you'll find fish or not." 



From time to time, she hears another 

 version of that old question — the one 

 that begins, "What's a pretty girl like 

 you doing ..." This version has to do 

 with why a woman would dare go out to 

 sea for days or weeks with a bunch of 

 roughneck fishermen. She doesn't bat 

 an eye, answering that one: 



"The way they treat you depends on 

 the way you act," she says. "I'm out 

 there to work, and they know it, so they 

 treat me like a worker, that's all. 



"I've never been to sea with a captain 

 I didn't have confidence in," she says. 

 "The captains I've worked with are so 

 good, they can even think like a fish." 



Once in a while, she has a notion to be a 

 captain herself. She even took a course, 

 offered by Sea Grant, that she says 

 prepared her for the Coast Guard's 

 licensure exam. 



"I would have passed the test, too," 

 she says, laughing, " if I hadn't left in the 

 middle of it to go scalloping off New Jer- 

 sey. They called me that night, so I got 

 on a plane. When you get a chance like 

 that, you take it." 



This fall, Teague has been a mate on 

 Captain Ernal Foster's charter boat, 



The Albatross. Her job is to help 

 with the gear and to keep sportsfisher- 

 men catching fish. She first worked for 

 Foster six years ago, when she became 

 the first woman mate in the Outer Banks 

 fleet, according to Foster. 



"He started me on the wheel (steer- 

 ing)," she says. "Any time you go out to 

 sea, it's good if the captain knows his 

 mate can get the boat in, if something 



happens." 



Sooner or later, the people she meets 

 usually come around to asking if she 

 plans to be a commercial fisherman all 

 her life. That question worries Carol 

 Teague a little. She is 31. She doesn't 

 want to fish her life away, to wake up 

 some morning weathered and worn out 

 from all that hard work. Now and then, 

 she thinks she might like a "straight" 

 job, maybe even a family. But so far, 

 nobody's tempted her into surrendering 

 her fishing, her home or her freedom. 



"Heel like I '11 always have a few crab 

 pots and go fishing now and then," she 

 says. "I'm a worker. I like to work, and I 

 like working on the water. Every time I 

 do go out, I learn something, and it 

 doesn't matter if I'm crabbing or work- 

 ing a trawl boat. I learn. I learn about 

 the wind and the water, and I learn 

 where the fish might be. That's the way 

 my life is." — Neil Caudle 



Margaret: an equal partner in family-style fishing 



There's something of a family portrait in the arrange- 

 ment of three boats tied up just outside Hopkins 

 Seafood in Pamlico Beach. There against the far bank 

 lies the old 27-foot trawler that Margaret and Murphey 

 began married life on some 38 years ago. Here at the 

 dock, a newer larger trawler is waiting for repairs. This 

 boat, the Libby and Robbie, represents a second 

 generation of Hopkins. In its shadow floats a tiny 

 fiberglassed foam hull, battered and cracked. Its 

 makeshift rigging holds a scrap of shrimp net. This is the 

 third generation, a grandson's plaything. 



"Soon as my little grandson comes home from school, 

 that's where he wants to be, dragging that little shrimp 

 trawl up and down the ditch," Margaret says. "I guess 

 we've got fishing in our blood." 



Fishing has always been part of the family for 

 Margaret and Murphey Hopkins. She has been his equal 

 partner in their seafood business, whether the job is 

 dredging oysters, driving the truck or keeping the 

 books. 



She points to their old trawler. 



"That boat over there, my husband had her when we 

 got married. He bought her in January, we got married 

 in May, nineteen forty-five. We've been out oystering 

 on that, me and him together, when you'd pull the 

 dredge in and the water would ice, right on the dredge, 

 and stay right there. We've had her loaded down to 

 where we couldn't put another one on her. I guess you 

 could say it's been our life." 



Margaret spends more time weighing crabs, culling 



Continued on next page 



Photo by Neil Caudle 



Margaret and boats from two generations 



