DAN'S PAPERS, July 2, 2010 Page 116 www.danshamptons.com
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“If they pass this law, they’ll put me out of work,” Jens Lester says. “If they put me out of work, then I don’t have to go to work. Do I?” He grins. But then, what else would he do? Jens Lester’s father, now in his 70s, still takes a turn haul seining from time to time, although he ismostly retired. Haul seining is all the family has known. It’s a chilly morning. The haul seiners wear rubber hip boots or work shoes, shirts and jackets with hoods. A few have peaked caps. And then the fish, in the very center of the net, begin to appear, glistening at the shore’s edge. The men go down and begin throwing them into
baskets for the trip back to the fish house and, ultimately, the Fulton Fish Market in New York. In this net, in this one sweep of the ocean, there are weakfish, fluke, porgies, butterfish, flounder, stripers, skates, sea robins, herring, bunkers, shad, and many more. There are hundreds and hundreds of fish, flopping at the water’s edge. The black Labrador commences to bark. And then another figure appears, walking down the beach to the haul seiners’ trucks. This is Dino Contos, the former owner of the Buoy Eleven Restaurant in East Hampton. Dino sold the place this past winter and is now fully
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retired. He wears rumpled pants, a sweatshirt and a knitted cap. “I come down here all the time,” Dino says. “I live just up the street. It’s quite a thing, watching these haul seiners work just at daybreak, getting their bounty from the sea. Look at the size of that porgie. What a magnificent thing.” The haul seiners stab at the fish with metal picks on the end of sticks. One at a time, they put the fish into baskets as the surf washes in and out. The fish they don’t want, the bunker, skates, sea robins and shad, they toss back. A majority of these unwanted fish survive. The rest are food for the birds. “You ever see the teeth on a bluefish?” Dino continues. “they can take quite a bite. You’ll lose a finger if you put it in their way. I’ll tell you, bluefish are already quite a problem in Florida. They eat anything. There seem to be more and more of then. And there are already reports of bluefish nipping at people down there. I grant there’s no problem up here as yet, but there may well be. It seems to be an imbalance of nature. Unless it changes, 20 years from now, you might have quite a few reports of bluefish biting people. They could own the ocean.” The fish have all been put in the back of the two pickup trucks now. Engines are revved up. The rope, used in hauling in the net, is now used to haul the steel dory back up onto the trailer. There is a hook at the end of the rope and an eye at the bow of the dory. The steel boat clatters down hard against the trailer, but it is secure. “Report over the radio that there’s good fishing up in Bridgehampton,” one of the haul seiners says. “We’re going to head up there, start at Town Line Road. Put the boat in for another set.” The haul seiners climb into their trucks, put them in gear, and head out westward, toward a bigger and better haul. As for this set, they’ve pulled in about four boxes worth of fish, about 130 pounds to a box. The five men might get $200 to share among themselves for three hours work. Dino and the reporter remain on the beach, watching the incoming tide wash away the fish. The seagulls circle and scream overhead. *** Since the above article was written, the State Legislature has worked out a compromise regarding the “Save Our Stripers” law. What happened is that expert testimony was brought in, proving that the striped bass population is not in decline, as the surfcasters claim, but actually on the increase. Furthermore, experts showed that 30 haul seiners could hardly make the slightest of dents in the striper population when 30 Russian fishing draggers plied the waters just beyond the 12-mile limit, clearing out stripers and practically everything else. County officials have suggested a compromise plan. They are proposing that it become illegal for one group of fishermen to harass or get in the way of any other group of fishermen along the beach. Specifically, they propose that the surfcasters have first priority on the weekends, and the haul seiners have first priority during the week. At last report, the haul seiners were happy to go along with this “compromise,” which is really a reprieve for them. The surfcasters were not so happy about it. Still, the weekend is when all the problems take place, and so perhaps it will all turn out for the best.