LONGLINER: We seen some babies. Small. Maybe five pounds at that.

FS: And what would be a big swordfish?

LONGLINER: Biggest I ever unloaded, guts out, weighed 453 pounds. It was a monster. We had to get in the water, cut off the head and gut it or the hydraulic boom wouldn’t bring it in the boat.

FS: What would you get per pound for a fish like that?

LONGLINER: Four, five dollars a pound.

FS: Did you see fewer bigger fish in the last couple of years?

LONGLINER: Yeah, definitely.

FS: And were you getting less for your fish at the end of a trip?

LONGLINER: We’d still get money. In winter, we get better money for our fish, ‘cause boats up north can’t fish; it’s so rough up there. In summer, puce pretty much drops down to around three dollars a pound.

FS: So what made you get out of the fishery?

LONGLINER: I can’t see sword fishing being around much longer. The government, they gotta step in and close it down before all the fish disappear, or they’re gonna regulate it so bad to where you can’t make no money at it. I just got tired of it.

FS: Were some of the other captains talking about getting out?

LONGLINER: Yeah, lots of them would like to. But it’s a pretty good job. It’s fun and exciting, if you like doing that kind of stuff. You make good money when the fish are biting.

FS: If you had recommendations for the government, what would you suggest?

LONGLINER: Tell them they need to close it down for a while, close down the Straits or something. I ain’t kidding you, there were some days-and I mean this goes on every week-that we was out there we would be catching anywhere from, some days forty, fifty undersize fish. Maybe five of them would swim away. That just don’t make no sense.

FS: How many boats would be out on a night?

LONGLINER: All the boats out of Ft. Pierce, and the ones out of Pompano, there would be a line of boats five miles apart. The only way to keep in touch was through radio. Some times it was hard to find a place to fish be-cause of all the boats out there. Ten or twenty sometimes.

FS: When you’re bringing in fish, can you see what other guys are bringing in?

LONGLINER: If we get done early before another boat and we were close enough a couple of times we rode over to watch ‘em bring in their line.

FS: What did you see? Marlin sometimes?

LONGLINER: Something really sticks in my head. It was bringing up all then undersize fish, just one after the other.

FS: All of them dead?

LONGLINER: Yeah. They don’t stands -chance.

FS