Here’s something you don’t hear about every day: good news about the Chesapeake Bay.  The Washington Post is reporting that an artificial reef in a tributary is teeming with new life.  The reef is nothing more complex than a large pile of shells.  Historically reefs like that were so numerous they were a hazard for ships.  So many oysters lived in the Chesapeake that they filtered all the water in the bay every few days. 

The demise of the Chesapeake oyster came around the turn of the last century through a manic and violent harvest that reduced the population to just one percent of historic abundance in less than a century.  As many as 15 million oysters were harvested annually in the late 1800's, compared to 100,000 or less today.

Scores of people died in the mad pursuit of oysters.  Maryland was forced to establish the Oyster Police to protect its oystermen against their counterparts from Virginia.  Violent conflicts between watermen from the two states became so common that this era is now known as the Oyster Wars.

EDF mostly works on ocean fisheries, but we took some time out a few months ago to meet with Willy Phillips from Columbia, North Carolina to see how he fishes using pound nets on the Scuppernong River. Willy owns Full Circle Crab Company, Inc. and he also fishes for yellow perch, shad and other fish that mostly come to the river after spending part of thier life in the ocean.

Pound nets are an ancient fishing method. They're basically fish traps: fish swim in but can't swim out. Fishermen simply pull the nets up and harvest the fish. There's virtually no bycatch or waste because unwanted fish are thrown back unharmed into the river. 

Here are two video clips of my trip out on the river with Willy. I was on a rocking boat surrounded by flopping fish and working fishermen who were very gracious to this city boy.

VIDEO 1: This is the start of the pound net fishing process. The fishermen pull the nets up until the fish are close to the surface where upon they can be scooped up with smaller nets.

VIDEO 2: As you can see, the nets are loaded with fish. The herring fishery is closed in North Carolina and herring constitutes most of the fish you see here that are being thrown back into the river.