May 28, 2020 — In the early days of the coronavirus shut-downs, commercial fishermen were among those gut-punched by the impacts of an economy screeched to a halt.
Fishermen were told they could keep working, and the fish they sought were plentiful, but the value of fish at markets reeling from the forced closures of tens of thousands of restaurants and people fleeing into their homes was minimal.
But fishermen say that as the pandemic has settled into the habits of humans across the world, where one window of opportunity has closed, others have opened and helped the industry keep itself … well, afloat.
They have been buoyed by a steep drop in the amount of seafood being imported to the U.S. from other countries — the practice itself a plague that many fishermen said the country needs to rid it self of — and a populace that has still eagerly sought out seafood to eat while in quarantine.
With restaurants either closed or doing a fraction of their usual business, fishermen have relied more on selling to retail seafood markets, or at retail farmers markets, selling fish off the back of their boats or pickups and, in some cases, door-to-door deliveries, to peddle their catch.