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| David Goethel returns to harbor in Hampton, N.H. Robert F. Bukaty, The Associated Press |
But on this chilly Saturday, after 12 hours out in the Gulf of Maine, he has caught exactly two cod, and he feels far removed from the 1990s, when he could catch 2,000 pounds in a day.
His boat is the only vessel pulling into the Yankee Fishermen's Co-op in Seabrook. Fifteen years ago, there might have been a half-dozen. He is carrying crates of silver hake, skates and flounder - all worth less than cod.
One of America's oldest commercial industries, fishing along the coast of the Northeast still employs hundreds. But every month that goes by, those numbers fall. After centuries of weathering overfishing, pollution, foreign competition and increasing government regulation, the latest challenge is the one that's doing them in: climate change.
Climate change
Though no waters are immune to the ravages of climate change, the Gulf of Maine, a dent in the coastline from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia, best illustrates the problem.
The gulf is now warming faster than 99 per cent of the world's oceans, scientists have said.
The warming waters have caused other valuable species, such as clams, to migrate to deeper or more northern waters. Others, such as lobsters, have largely abandoned the once-lucrative waters off the southern New England states of Connecticut and Rhode Island, having become more susceptible to disease or predators.
Lobster catches in Maine are booming as the species creeps northward, but as the warming continues, that's a good thing bound to end.
Fish aren't the only ones moving on, and not just in the Northeast. The US fishing fleet has dwindled from more than 120,000 vessels in 1996 to about 75,000 today, the Coast Guard says.
For the fishermen of the northeastern US - not all of whom accept the scientific consensus on climate change, and many of whom bristle at government regulations stemming from it - whether to stick with fishing, adapt to the changing ocean or leave the business is a constant worry.
Michael Mohr harvested surf clams for almost 30 of his 55 years, and his desire to stay in the only business he has ever known now takes him far from his family.
The clams he caught for decades feed tourists and locals alike in towns all along the coast. Now, those clams, which he once caught off New Jersey, are found northward or farther out to sea.
Mohr has also moved on. About 10 years ago, he started commuting six hours each way from his home in Mays Landing, New Jersey, to the former whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts. He has also switched clam species; he got his start fishing for Atlantic surf clams but now pursues the ocean quahog.
The quahog is well known to New England diners as a stuffed clam or in its own kind of chowder. Both quahogs and surf clams populate supermarket seafood sections.
The reason for Mohr's decision has been documented by published science, as well as on the decks of the boat he fishes from, the ESS Pursuit. Moving north for quahogs was a way to remain a clammer.
"We're finding clams in deeper water instead of inshore water, where we used to work 25 years ago," Mohr said. "It's just affecting everything."
Mohr's migration story is common in the clamming business, said Dave Wallace, a Maryland-based consultant in the industry. It was once based largely off Atlantic City, near Mohr's home, but has shifted northward along with the clams, he said.
Some fishermen have decided to instead pursue quahogs, as Mohr has, while others now travel farther out to sea to harvest surf clams. The surf clam fishery has slipped somewhat in the face of the changes, with a little less than 41 million pounds caught in 2014, the second-lowest total since 1980.
Mohr is undaunted. Clamming has been good to him, and if he has to spend more time on the road as he nears 60, so be it.
"It's just a way of life," Mohr said. "You've got to go where the money is at, and you're happy. Right now, I'm happy."
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