Fish Tales

Mountains and sea. East Coast and West. Cubicles and ocean. Fishing and retail.

Captain Mike Abdow has walked across the busy parking lot of the Chatham Fish Pier many times with a couple of big, beautiful striped bass, and people will call out and ask if they can buy them.

Not long ago, Faye Anderson was sitting in the office of the Fishermen’s Alliance chatting about her new lobster business with her dad, longtime fisherman Mike Anderson, while people across the Cape watched from home.

Sean Leach is a second-generation fisherman who hesitates before saying how many boats his family has owned in the last 30 years. At least 8, he surmises.

Not too long ago the Orleans harbormaster, a bit worried, asked a longtime fisherman to keep watch on a young guy who had started bullraking in Cape Cod Bay with no more experience than watching a few videos on YouTube.

The spring day was cold, but the greenhouse Jamie Bassett was standing in felt cozy as he and Richard Curtiss picked dried kelp from lines strung from the ceiling.

Over the course of a few decades, Mac’s Seafood has grown from one small fish market on the Wellfleet pier to 10 markets and restaurants, a processing facility, catering business and wholesale shellfish company.

In Al Youngren’s small kitchen there is a big nautical chart, covering most of a wall, nicely framed and in perfect view of anyone seated at the kitchen table.

When Captain John Our needed to redo his boat he hired people to do the body work, but did much of the engine work himself.