Tag Archives: waterman
Luke McFadden Will Chart His Own Course
I’m a commercial crabber, or a waterman as they call us, here on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. People ask me, “What would you do if you weren’t a waterman? What would you do if you weren’t crabbing?” And I say, “I don’t even know. I’ve never considered it.” I’m an outlier in my industry. I’m Asian American. I’m also young; I’m 26. I started my business when I was 18. I’m also a first generation fisherman, meaning I didn’t come from a family of fishermen, which is very uncommon among watermen here, but really everywhere. I had a lot of resistance from a lot of other watermen, and they were not bashful about letting me know. >click to read< 09:30
Community mourns passing of ‘a great American’, Capt. Warren Butler
Lifelong waterman, Captain Warren Butler, 92, died unexpectedly, Friday, July 2, of apparent heart failure. Upon learning of his death, Jerry Harris, founding family member of Harris Seafood, and Harris Crab House at Kent Narrows, said, “My whole family knew Captain Warren. He was a great man, a great American. He sold oysters to my father. I looked up to Captain Warren all my life. Black or white, he was a role model, someone to model your own life by. I wish there were many more people in the world like Captain Warren!” Butler had a lifetime passion working as a waterman, first, working alongside his father and brothers to help support their family. From 1954 to 1983, Butler worked in the oyster and crab industry in Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. Throughout his life, he owned and operated 17 commercial boats, carrying may fishing parties out of the Chesapeake Bay, also oystering and sightseeing. photos, >click to read< 08:10
Spinning Chesapeake Gold
Ten years ago, Johnny Shockley came face-to-face with a future he couldn’t fathom: One day, perhaps soon, he’d no longer make his living as a waterman. The third generation of his family to fish the waters around Hoopers Island, he’d oystered and crabbed with his father from a young age. They gave up on oysters after the Chesapeake Bay oyster populations collapsed, sticking with blue crabs. Those declined too. He spent two decades running the family’s retail seafood market in Salisbury. Then it closed. He discouraged his son from crab-potting and was convinced he couldn’t hold on much longer either. >click to read<17:47
Slithering from the bay to dinner tables far overseas
When onlookers see Jimmy Trossbach pull up pounds and pounds of eels from his pots from the water, they are amazed. “They get a little closer to stare at them,” Trossbach said. “Then they get scared and they back up” from the slimy, snake-like aquatic creatures. The most frequent comment he hears is that they didn’t know eels existed in the Chesapeake Bay, just like oysters, crabs, rockfish and other marine species with which Marylanders are familiar. A waterman who lives less than a mile away from where he was born in Drayden, Trossbach has spent many of his waking hours hunting for eels up and down the bay and its tributaries for the past 31 years. >click to read<16:33
