January 3, 2023 — With a well-trained hook of the line by one of the founders and co-owners of Wilmington’s Seaview Crab Company, a few loops around the puller and a flick of a switch, the crab pot soon emerged.
Inside the pot, a dozen or so blue crabs scampered around, some using their impressive claws to attach themselves to the mesh-sides of the cage.
“It’s not always easy, but this never gets old,” Romano, 44, said as he emptied the crabs into a holding bin before checking to make sure they were all of legal size, the lucky ones getting tossed back into the waterway. The others were divided by size into containers to be sold individually − “These are the ones everyone wants,” Romano joked as he held up a good-sized crab − or to be sent to a crab house to be picked apart for their meat.
“It just clears my head when I’m out here,” Romano said with a Cheshire cat-like grin as he prepared to toss the now-empty pot back into the water. “I can leave most of my other problems behind for a few hours.”
For generations, fishing has been a way of life in coastal North Carolina. The industry, which used to provide much of the seafood served along the U.S. East Coast, provided jobs and a good livelihood for the hardy souls who put in the long hours on the water. Communities evolved around the routines of fishing and the requirements of different fisheries, and local traditions and histories became intertwined with water.
But driven by factors as varied as rising operational costs, the declining health of many fisheries, the changing face of coastal towns as more retirees and property investors move in, increased foreign competition and even climate change, commercial fishing and the fishermen themselves are changing in North Carolina.
The industry isn’t in danger of disappearing, but what it will become in the coming years and decades is still to be determined.