Tag Archives: Rick Collins
Everglades City: A fishing community versed in struggle bands together after Hurricane Ian
On Friday, after the water had fully receded from roads but with the power still out, it was mostly friends and family helping each clean mud and haul belongings to the curb in the stifling heat. Many neighbors and family have known each other for generations. Betty Valdes, 41, who grew up in Everglades City and whose family runs a fishing boat, said at the height of the surge, people could boat down most every street in town. “It was solid water,” she said. Most of Everglades City’s crab boats survived, secured by those who depend on them for their livelihoods. 41photos, >click to read< 08:32
‘The Worst I’ve Ever Seen It’: Lean Stone Crab Season Follows Red Tide in Florida
On a good day, in a good year, a captain fishing off the shores of the Florida Everglades might catch 400 pounds of one of the state’s unrivaled delicacies, the stone crab. These are not good days. As the sun began to set on a recent cloudless afternoon, the kind that makes it unthinkable to spend winters anywhere but in Florida, Rick Collins piloted the High Cotton to a dock in Everglades City, the fishing village where three generations of his family have made a living trapping stone crab. His crew offloaded the day’s haul onto a huge scale. Seventy-three pounds. “This is about the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said Mr. Collins, 69, a crabber for more than half a century. >click to read<13:37
