dad got a load of horseshoe crabs that we use as bait it's not like a stingray tail you can pick them up by it it doesn't Bend so it's pretty sharp guys have lost their balance and fell into the Hors grab bin and impal themselves uh on their torso on the Tails it's extremely dangerous on a fishing boat on a commercial fishing boat with the rocking and the rolling in the ocean and stuff so um you definitely have to be careful but they don't attack you they don't throw up any kind of spine or anything this is Mr Hampton he's the uh store pet and he greets everyone and that's why he's so fat because everyone brings him treats I had him as a puppy on the boat and that box has no holes in it so he didn't get wet he grew and grew and grew but he won't leave that box he's a good companion this is going to be the end product of what we catch today uh these are Blowfish Tails these are yesterday's fish uh which will be sold today time to go man Sun hasn't come up yet it's a normal time that we leave um this is every day between April and December so in the back is Carlos and Jos uh Carlos has worked for you for how many years open on 15 years yeah when you need him when I need him so and he's good Blowfish migrations coming through Long Island um so we're going to go for Blowfish which is the Atlantic puffer insanity it's it's so demanding it's so hard I started selling clams to make money seriously at age s in 1953 you know I did my thing in college and uh I couldn't get a good uh teaching job that paid even with my masters and all the education I have I'd make more money after school from like 3:30 to six then I would in one day that I'd make for two weeks teaching and I just had to go back back to what I knew everything is dirty all of the time it's why we wear we wear Oilers waterproof boots um we always wear gloves this is my New York like if people think in New York they think in New York City which is like 40 m 40 45 miles that way Due West um this is where I grew up so this is the Great South Bay check that Sun out check that out up that is that is that's an awesome Sunrise man there's way more recreational fishermen than there are commercial fishermen um commercial fishing is just a dying art um you talk to guys up and down the Eastern Seaboard and and you hear of generations like mine that didn't follow in the footsteps of their fathers um just just like I did uh right now it's just it's a hard life and just there's there's better ways to uh make a more consistent living than being on the water so when you're out here you only see a couple commercial guys guys if you see we won't see another commercial guy all day today I'm giving them their breakfast most fishermen hate they hate their uh watch this it's gone and this guy here he'll come take it right and they inhale it crap all over the boat I got to power wash the front of my boat every day but anyway it's enterate very boring doing this and uh gives me a little bit of entertainment the seagull's name is Willie but it's spelled w i l l Das h e Willie will he crap on the boat or not Carlos grabs it as soon as the pot breaks water breaks the water I put it in gear and we're off to the next pot pot's got Blowfish in it and one blueclaw crab which is pretty typical just putting in a variety of bait get some scent in the water I make all my own equipment except for crab pots it's my own design he's a very moody fish I started BL fishing in 1970 uh with another older fisherman he had a totally different design and and over the course of time I've modified it all went along we work on gear it's months it's just like a regular day you go to work at 700 try to get done at 4 in the afternoon or 5 like a regular day you got to be out of your mind to be a a fisherman at the way I do it it's a big money maker it's just that it's very stason and right now that run is just starting the hardest part of this job is cleaning those fish they have to be clean and quick as quick as possible the meat's great they only have one bone straight down the middle super easy make one cut flip it over that's it that's how fast it goes skin and Blowfish is just part of catch and Blowfish um they're one of the fish that you can't sell not processed I learned when I was 6 78 somewhere in there and it's kind of like riding a bike you just you never really forget how to do it and it's just a the same repetitive motion these pots are made to catch blowfish that's that's the target species but along with those we catch KS blue claw crabs will go in there just because we're only targeting Blowfish you get other stuff fluke uh fluka crabs con crabs you know whatever else goes in there is what we call a b catch the channel Welk or what we call conx um edible uh different than the Conch that they have down in the Caribbean it's just starting to get time but we we'll start seeing these right now we're catching them as a buy catch these grow to be really big and they're beautiful um they've got Aqua around the eyes you can see it up in here and they are great to eat when they get big but when they're small like this we just throw them back really pretty fish another couple years he'll be good eating it's a fluke summer flounder or fluke we have a mark on the table that's 14 in that's the size of a commercial fish this one's way smaller so we throw them back hermit crabs so they'll take a conch shell and live in it so they back into a shell to keep that safe and they protect it with the big claws in the front all meat from here back really good they just look real ugly hey Dad is this fish big enough yeah that's a Gaper no we'll keep that one in the same exact way that the Blue Claw crab pulls out of its shell and gets one bigger so does the spider crab now this thing is super soft that's why it's so weak we use these as bait dad's taking a little break um never run the boat dad taught me how to run the boat at a at a pretty early age um just in case he have ever something ever happened to him it's a terrible retirement plan I think you're supposed to work Less in retirement and this would be working more in retirement um I mean he's an animal I mean at at he turns 78 in just a couple weeks and uh and he's just this this lifestyle just beats you up early on in my life I realized that when Dad didn't work he didn't make money there's no 401K unless it's self-directed there's no pension there's no vacation time no sick time so he's got to save all year long um to be able to you know take care of stuff all winter he works non-stop from like the second week in March till the first week in December if he could go 7 days a week weather permitting he will he's so good at what he does does in being efficient and logistically sound and how he moves pots and his knowledge of the bay is is second to none it's getting ready to clean some Blowfish to man' I like to clean them a special way we're going to cook them two different ways we're going to bread them and fry them which is traditionally how you eat blowfish and we're also going to sauté some in butter um with just sprinkled with Italian breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese eating what we catch is uh is something that we try to do here as much as we can this is not a Rachel Ray kitchen um Rachel Ray if you happen to watch this um we do the best we can with what we have here the FL fall right off the bone and you end up with that right there so Blowfish one of the best parts about them is that they only have one bone down the middle um and same thing when you uh you start talking about um the the fried Way Comes the same thing the the fs come off half on one side half on the other and what you're left with is just one it's hot obviously um but you only have one bone and then everything else is just one solid piece of meat um and they're great they're just the meat's flaky if you've never had Atlantic puffer or Blowfish try it um and buy it local and buy it from a fisherman so it's pretty good it's uh like I said it's my favorite meal delicious it's great I