If I don't fish for a season, I'm dead. I'm history. It scares the heck out of me. I'm 56. I've done this my whole life. I don't know what else I would do. |
It puts us in the poor house. I'm still optimistic that we can come out with something along the lines of last year's situation, but frankly National Marine Fishery Service has really dropped the ball on this. |
It's not a pretty picture. Our options are either we have no season or we use an emergency rule which means we'll be able to go below the floor and still have a season. |
Last season was the most restrictive on record. This year, we're hoping we just have some sort of season. But it's not going to be easy pulling a rabbit out of that hat. |
Last year's season cut my income by 25 percent, and if you cut it by half again, I'm not going to be able to pay my bills. |
The market softens now because they anticipate those guys going fishing and they anticipate cheaper crabs on the market really soon. It takes about two weeks to mop up the majority of that fishery up there, so hopefully when that starts tapering off we can afford to go fishing again. |