#commercial-fishing

#commercial-fishing

The Bay Area's commercial Dungeness crab season can begin Jan. 5, state officials announced Friday, now that many of the migrating behemoths of the sea have safely made their way down the coast. The decision comes after a series of delays since November meant to protect whales from getting tangled in fishing lines, and it comes with a key restriction: Fleets will have to operate under a 40 percent trap reduction.

A long day means heading out to the Gulf of Mexico at 1 a.m. and returning at 6 p.m., after hauling and resetting 500 wooden traps that weigh nearly 150 pounds (70 kilos) each when filled with lobsters. The work is an orchestrated frenzy: one man hauls up the trap, another pulls out the lobsters, measures them, and stows them, while another cleans the wooden cage and stacks it, ready to go back into the sea a choreography of orange overalls.

On my first time out as a commercial fisherman, my boat sank, my captain died, and I was left adrift and alone in the Pacific.