From Captain Quint to Polo
by Alex Goetzfried
The commercial fishing fleet at Shinnecock Docks.
Photo by Alex Goetzfried
Although the Hamptons are the summer getaway and play-land for the mega-rich, this was not always so. Before high-end boutiques and estates dominated the landscape, there was a rough seafaring community running the economy.
Settled in the 1700s, the Eastern end of Long Island was predominantly sustained by the commercial fishing industry. Commercial fishing was a trade passed down through generations and was the backbone of the local economy. There is still a stronghold of fishermen, working out of the Shinnecock Inlet who are reluctant to let go of the old way of life, and still provide a necessary product to the area: fresh, local, fish.
As the latter half of the 20th Century approached a shift in the industry began to take place. Government regulations and catch laws enforced by agencies like the Department of Environmental Conservation to protect stocks from overfishing hurt the industry. It is a bitter relationship between fishermen and conservationists. The families who had been working in the trade for generations were facing the loss of their livelihood if regulations were too strict. However, if regulations were not put in place, fish stocks would have been depleted, the industry would perish anyway, and there would be a world of ecological problems.
A scollop knife used to shuck scallops on the boat. Photo by Alex Goetzfried
The initial regulations were not too strict and the commercial industry endured. In 1985 nature wreaked havoc on the industry in the form of the Brown Tide. Brown Tide is when the waters of the bay turn a murky brown caused by an enormous algae boom. Although harmless to humans, the Brown Tide in 1985 decimated bay scallop populations, and nearly collapsed the commercial fishing industry in the Peconic Bay.
The industry survived, but never returned to its former economic dominance, and today social norms have left the industry with a skeleton staff. Rising gas prices have also effected fisherman whose boats can eat up to $600 of fuel going out to sea, another $600 to return and that does not include the cost of actually fishing.
Rising gas prices are part of the demise of the local fishing industry.
Photo by Alex Goetzfried
The pride of being a bayman has diminished. Many fishermen don’t want their kids to enter the industry, and many of the kids don’t want to be fishermen anyway. The restaurant business, construction, and landscaping have all overtaken fishing as leading industries of employment, mostly catering to the rich who visit just a few times a year.
