It took me a minute to realize the captain was talking to me. I might have been dozing in the chair next to him in the wheelhouse of the Pollyanna. I had been watching the dark, nighttime waves on the ocean surface illuminated by the boat’s headlights as we dragged the ocean bottom for pink shrimp. The waves were hypnotic in their emptiness. The captain’s radio conversation in the night with the other captains in his fleet was unintelligible to me. But now his panicked yelling startled me into action. The dark distance in front of us had suddenly lit up like a high school football stadium. His instructions were to immediately pull the nets to the surface. As I scurried from the wheelhouse to the stern, I could hear him yelling to let him know when the heavy doors of the netting were out of the water. The two other crew members were already frantically working the winches to raise the nets. I seemed to be the only one on board who didn’t know what was happening.
The two doors of each otter trawl net act as underwater kites to keep the funnel-shaped nets spread wide on the sea bottom. They look like oversized house doors made of heavy oak and steel with lots of chains. The mesh capture nets hang from these doors. As soon as each pair of doors were winched up to the ends of their respective outrigger, Little Jimmy ran to inform the captain. The boat quickly increased speed and turned in a large arc with the nets skimming the water surface. All this was very unusual. My questioning face prompted Jimmy to tell me we were heading back to Key West. We had to boat the nets while under speed.
Everyone on the boat was in a state of panic. I still didn’t know why. Jimmy and Tommy worked to secure the nets, a task made difficult by our speed. I worked the winch to lift the nets once they were gaffed. In my haste, I got the garden hose used to clean the work deck tangled up in the steel cable on the winch. I kept reeling in the nets with the green hose crushed, cut, and sticking out of the steel coils like some piece of modern art.
It took us hours to return to Key West. Once our tasks were done, three of us went to the galley for coffee. We could hear the captain frantically talking to the other boats fishing in the area. Little Jimmy told me that all these boats were shrimping in a restricted area. He explained that the state of Florida had declared this “shrimp nursery” off limits even though it was outside the nine-mile jurisdiction of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). The nursery produced an enormous amount of small “salad shrimp,” but the FWC managed the area to allow the shrimp to grow larger for more economic value. Commercial fishermen were at odds with these laws because the area was in the federally regulated waters nine to two hundred nautical miles from shore.
We could hear parts of Captain Cooper’s conversation over the radio. Jimmy explained what was upsetting the captain and forcing us back to the Key West shrimp docks. Other fishing boats had been boarded under the cloak of darkness by armed state and federal law enforcement. The captains and crew were under arrest and ordered back to port. We would later learn the details of this enforcement raid on five commercial fishing boats that night. In the meantime, we were leaving the restricted area as fast as possible.
We arrived in morning light at the Key West shrimp docks to a chaotic and threatening situation. Once we had our boat securely tied off, we ventured onto the docks to witness what was happening. The area was filled with heavily armed state patrol officers. Boat captains were being led off the docks in handcuffs by men in black tactical clothing and helmets emblazoned with either federal or state identification. All wore side arms and carried shotguns.
Five boats, including their catch, were confiscated, the captains arrested, and the crew released. All over the dock areas were other captains and crew screaming at law officers and waving clenched fists, some holding clubs. It was the most violent and threatening event I had ever witnessed.
Nighttime radio contact had spread the word that boats were being boarded and crews arrested. Without running lights, a mother ship had launched four smaller dark speed boats with a crew of three each. Once all five boats were in position, lights were turned on simultaneously, and two law enforcement officers boarded each of the shrimpers with guns drawn. It was the sudden lighting of one of the raid boats we had seen before us in the night. We were that close to being boarded. The crews of five boats were completely surprised. Several captains were able to get off warnings to other boats, including Captain Cooper.
Captains aware of these events radioed other boats, who then returned to port in solidarity with the arrested crews. The harbor and docks continued to swell for most of the day. News reporters swarmed the chaos. Fishermen were more than ready to plead their case to the microphones. Law enforcement remained largely silent and alert. As day turned to night, the dock area remained loud and turbulent. Law enforcement with big portable lights was present everywhere. It took several days for normal activity to return in the shrimping community. Valuable season time was lost to boats that stayed too long in port.
That state and federal raid took place in the winter of 1970 while anti-war protests occurred around America over the Vietnam War. Those protests were over the ethics of war, especially that war. As a young man of draft age, I had opinions about the war and the protests. The nighttime raid on those fishermen impacted me differently. The arrests of the boat captains were a clash between individual rights and government regulations. I didn’t know what to think about it or how to form an opinion. I could see both sides, but it was clear to me there was no middle ground between the rule of law and violators who felt justified to make a living. Their actions seemed akin to the civil disobedience of the anti-war protests and the civil rights marches. Both of those movements made history, while the fishermen went to jail.
As a hunter, fisherman, and conservationist, I know the value of governments regulating natural resources for the greater good. I also know the pressure of supplying food and livelihood for a family. I have heard it said, “Every man wants to live rightly, and every man wants to prosper. God help those that have to choose.”
