Commercial fisherman Chris Brown has spent nearly his whole life fishing the waters of New England. See what he has to say about the current state of U.S. fisheries and why American seafood is among the most sustainable natural resources in the world.
Commercial fisherman Chris Brown has spent nearly his whole life fishing the waters of New England. See what he has to say about the current state of U.S. fisheries and why American seafood is among the most sustainable natural resources in the world.
I'm Christopher Brown, a commercial fisherman from Point Judith, Rhode Island, and the President of the East Farm Commercial Fisheries Center. In just one building, we have commercial lobstermen, trawler-men, scallopers, dragger-men, charter boat captains, and a research foundation. It's one-of-a-kind in the country, and we're awfully proud of our unity.
I've been doing this for...well, I graduated high school in 1976 and I had probably 10 years of hanging around my grandfather before then...so it's been a really long time. My grandfather bought his boat, the Lucy M, when I was 6 or 7 years old, and I just fell in love with it immediately. My grandfather was a really cool guy. He instilled in me a number of ethics, values, and core principles that are with me to this day. Among those are conservation, don't be wasteful, and personal responsibility.
I fish a bottom trawl. But to say I just fish a bottom trawl is like saying you just swing a golf club at a golf ball. I've got a lot of clubs in my bag. We have bottom trawl nets that are designed to catch everything on the bottom and let juvenile flounders go. We fish with gear that's designed to miss flounders at times and capture other things. We try to be as selective and surgical as we can.
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