THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 7, 1995 TAG: 9509070168
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BATTERY PARK LENGTH: Long : 168 lines
SONNY GAY THINKS he may have done something he shouldn't have to his son during the young man's formative years.
Maybe it was that salt water he spilled on the child when he was a babe, Gay chuckles. He must have christened him with a yen for the waters of the James River.
``He got his hands wet on this stuff one time, and you can't keep him away,'' Gay says, pointing toward his son unloading crab-laden baskets from the tri-hull fiberglass boat the men use to work 200 crab pots a day.
Shannon Gay, 23, hops onto the pier at Dock Side Seafood in Battery Park, laughs with his dad and agrees. In the winter, he's an electrician. Dad saw to it that he attended Thomas Nelson Community College to learn a trade.
But in the summer, he's a waterman.
``There's no one out there telling you what to do every five minutes,'' he says. ``The faster you work, the quicker you get home. It's the air, the smells. I love everything about it.''
Shannon is on the river with his dad six days a week. On Sundays, he's on the river in his pleasure boat.
But the younger man is uncertain how much longer the river will be as much a part of his life as it has been for his father and grandfather, both lifelong watermen.
``This is what I want to do,'' Shannon Gay says. ``But things just keep getting worse and worse every year.''
For him and other locals who earn a living on the water, it keeps getting harder each year because they face declining populations of fish and shellfish and increasing restrictions and regulations from the state.
Once, the commercial crab season in Virginia was year-round. As state officials began to recognize there was a problem with the crab population, the season was cut back, until this year commercial crabbers have been allowed to work only from April 1 to Nov. 30.
``That's just one of the minor things we've done,'' says Jack Travelstead, chief of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission fisheries management division. ``But we think it will have some effect on the resource.''
The state has done several other things to protect the blue-finned crustaceans. Last Dec. 1, Virginia established a 48,000-acre sanctuary at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Shore side for female crabs during spawning season.
In addition, Travelstead says, new regulations effective Jan. 1 require two cull rings, or escape routes, in crab pots so that small, illegal-sized crabs can escape. Cull rings now are required in peeler, or soft crab, pots as well.
Traditionally, men who make their living on the water haven't always agreed with scientists who work for state agencies.
``You can be the best scientist in the world, but you ain't gonna figure out Mr. Hardcrab,'' said Wishey Melzer, a veteran waterman who spends his retirement years keeping a close eye on the industry from Dock Side, his nephew's business.
But this year, many of the watermen are beginning to think maybe the scientists could be right.
There are a whole lot less than what there's been,'' Buddy Pittman, from a long line of Battery Park watermen, said one day last week.
``A few years ago, it was nothing to bring in 30 bushels a day. I brought in five today - 10 yesterday.''
The scarcity of crabs on this particular day, Pittman said, may have been due to Hurricane Felix, which was perched off the North Carolina-Virginia coast. Often, fish and shellfish feed well for several days before a storm then stop feeding as the storm nears. Many of the species move up river to get away from rising, turbulent waters.
But the weather isn't the only reason the crabs are scarce, Pittman conceded. It could be that state officials are right about over-fishing, he said - and the oyster season isn't likely to be much better.
``There's not much out here for a young man anymore,'' he said. ``But I guess it's just like being a farmer. If you've always farmed, that's all you know.''
Crab season started April 1. By mid-August, James River crabbing had just begun to pick up, says Joe Melzer, who operates Dock Side, now the only local crab-buying operation where once there were several crab houses dotting the James River shoreline.
``We've had a good peeler crop this year,'' Melzer says. ``And maybe there are more crabs this year than last. It's looking better. But there's not a whole lot of crabs out there, not like there once was.''
Melzer, his uncle - respected among the watermen for his experience and knowledge - and others who work on the water every day say there's one thing Virginia could have done long ago that may have had an impact on crab populations: The state could have outlawed the taking of busted sooks, or female crabs loaded with a spongy, orange egg pouch.
``In Maryland, if they find a busted sook on your boat, they can take everything,'' Joe Melzer says. ``Equipment, boat - everything.''
That has been the law in Virginia's sister state to the north since 1975, says Dave Blazer, assistant to the director of the Tidal Fisheries branch of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
And Maryland is still moving quickly to protect the resource.
``You need to do something before you have a collapse,'' Blazer said in an interview late last week. ``We've imposed time limits for both commercial and recreational crabbing. We've seen the trends over the last three to five years. We felt it was getting critical, and we had to do something before we had a real population problem.''
Maryland put a halt this year on issuing commercial licenses. Virginia made a similar move, limiting crab pots to 400 per license. But two licenses are allowed on every boat.
``Can you imagine somebody trying to tend 800 pots?'' Joe Melzer says. ``It would take night and day just to fish 'em.''
But Virginia isn't finished yet, Travelstead said. Crab restrictions may increase as time goes on.
There's no move to outlaw taking female crabs with eggs, he says, because Virginia's female crab population is much higher than Maryland's. The females seem to prefer this state's saltier water.
``We are continuing to look at the problem,'' Travelstead says. ``It's not as if we put these measures in place last winter and decided that's all we'll ever do, that's all that's needed. We are continuing to discuss the future of the crab industry in Virginia.''
Meanwhile, Joe Melzer has found his market in Maryland. People there - in Washington, northward - seem to have more of a taste for crabs, he says, and are willing to pay a higher price. Right now, he's shipping about 600 bushels of jimmies, or male crabs, out of state each week. That's not counting female hard crabs or soft crabs that leave Battery Park each week for all points north.
And then there's oysters. Watermen already are speculating about the coming season and what it will bring. Already, the men who work on the water say they are seeing signs of death and disease.
``We started seeing dead oysters about mid-July,'' Joe Melzer says. ``I personally don't think 50 percent of them are still living.''
One problem was caused by flood waters from western Virginia that dumped directly into the James early this summer. The flood of fresh water forced oysters in the upper James for several days to exist in water with almost no salt content, and many of them didn't survive. Neither is the outlook good for the oyster diseases Dermo and MSX, caused by too much salt content.
The weather conditions needed to help the oysters this summer simply haven't come at the right time, says Jim Wesson, Marine Resources Commission chief of conservation and replenishment.
Although last year turned out better than expected, questionable harvests for the last several years have forced watermen like Gay's son to work other jobs in the winter.
``Back when I was younger, I didn't appreciate what my dad did for me,'' Shannon Gay says. ``Oystering is hard, hard work. That's why I do electrical work in the winter.''
That, combined with questions about how much longer local waters will continue to support the industry, is fast leading to a generation of part-time watermen like the younger Gay.
James Brock of Suffolk is a plumber in the winter. In the summer, he's back on the water.
``I've been crabbing since I was 15,'' Brock says. ``I'm 33 now. I've got a master plumber's card. That's what I turn to - but being out here is my real love. I like it because of the independence it provides, and I get paid every day.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
[Color Photo]
FIGHTING FOR LIFE
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Waterman Sonny Gay wheels empty crab baskets along the dock to his
boat after unloading his day's catch.
Shannon Gay works with his father, but is an electrician in the
off-season.
Sonny and Shannon Gay pull away from the dock in their workboat
after unloading their catch of hard-shell crabs.
Wishey Melzer, a veteran waterman, spends his retirement years
keeping a close eye on the industry.
Jay Combs, right, packs up crabs as Darrell Bowden waits to wheel
them off.
by CNB