A Simple Clammer

Reprinted and edited from Fish House Opera by S. West and B. Garrity-Blake, Mystic Seaport Press, 2003

Clammer Bob Worthington’s home was a black concrete sailboat anchored in Taylors Creek in Beaufort. The Hard Rock looked like an embattled pirate ship and had lost its mast long ago. Bob rode his dinghy the short distance to Carrot Island, part of the Rachel Carson Estuarine sanctuary and one of the few barrier islands still harboring herds of wild ponies. He and his cat Kitten hiked along the horse trails past snarling tangles of smilax vines, yaupon bushes, and cedar trees. They emerged from the thicket to his favorite clamming grounds on the other side of the island facing Shackleford Banks. The head of Bob's clam rake was made of several butter knives welded in a row. The rake cut thin even lines in the wet sand, the tines glinting in the sun and clinking against the occasional clam.

“I rode on one of the buses to Raleigh that February,” he recalled, placing the small grey bivalves in a bucket between Kitten’s paws as she liked to stand astride the rim to keep off the damp sand. Bob harvested the common hard clam Mercenaria mercenaria and sought the valuable one inch-sized little necks. “The only thing the legislators did for us was let Reverend Carpenter open the meeting with a prayer.” He glanced over at four bay ponies that had emerged from the woven canopy to graze on cordgrass “I don't think those politicians realized what it took for some of us just to get there,” he reflected. “I was up by 3:00 AM and had to wade from my boat in Nasty Harbor to my bike. Do you remember how cold it was that morning? It snowed that day. I rode my bicycle over Gallants channel bridge through Beaufort all the way to that grocery store parking lot where the buses were waiting.”

Clammer Bob strove to keep life as simple as the hard-boiled egg and Mason jar of water he carried for his lunch. But the complications of modern society caught up with him one day after an encounter with two marine patrol officers. The officers had approached him as he and Kitten walked along the shoreline. The cat darted into the brush. Bob poured his clams onto the wet sand when the officers asked to count them. “Mr. Worthington,” they informed him. “You are 57 clams over the personal consumption limit. Where is your commercial tag?”

Clammer Bob explained that he had forgotten to attach the tag to his bucket. The patrolman asked for identification, but became suspicious when the fisherman offered a photo card that was homemade. When Bob turned to put his wallet back in his pocket one patrolman misunderstood his gesture and reached for the pepper spray. This led to a beach chase during which an officer pulled a gun on Bob and the clammer almost drowned after his boots filled with water. Finally with Coast Guard backup and a marine patrol helicopter thumping overhead, Clammer Bob was shoved down onto the beach and pepper sprayed. He was handcuffed, transported across the Creek to the Beaufort waterfront, and hauled to jail as outside diners at a trendy new American cuisine cafe applauded.

“The state nailed me, almost drowned me because my paperwork was out of order,” Bob said. “They violated me and stuck a gun in my face over a missing ten-cent clam tag. Well, I say that legislators and their so-called reform package -- their paperwork is out of order! Nobody's pepper spraying them! When I heard about that March in Raleigh I signed on. You better believe I got on that protest bus.”

The reform package was a complex set of recommendations that would, among other things, cap the number of commercial fishermen in North Carolina. During its three-year development, policymakers had declared a moratorium whereby no new commercial fishermen would be welcomed in the state. “They started out saying it's all about the environment, but ended up targeting fishermen,” clamor Bob declared. “Why are people with nothing the problem?” He put his rake down and nervously fingered in unlit cigarette. “I'll tell you why. Because we are of no economy to the system.”

Fishermen had indeed become the center of attention during the overhaul of fisheries management. “If there's one thing I hope we get out of this process, it's the definition of a commercial fishermen,” said Bob Lucas, attorney, angler, and avid fundraiser for the successful political campaigns of Governor James B. Hunt. The Governor had rewarded Lucas, whose career in the courtroom had honed an impatient confidence that he could convince anybody of anything, with chairmanship of the Marine Fisheries Commission. The Commission, charged with making fisheries rules for the state, included sport fishermen, commercial fishermen, and scientists. The commercial fishing community was loathe to trust the leadership of a chairman who was both a lawyer and a sportsman, and Lucas found his patience put to the test.

“We want to create a class of professionals,” Lucas continued, enthusiastically addressing a small group of men and women on Harkers Island. But the folks assembled weren't so sure that the growing interest in their occupation was benevolent. Fishermen knew they were already professionals and feared that the state's efforts to “find” and “define” them would turn into a search and destroy mission. As soon as they heard that the reforms were up for debate in the legislative building, fishermen mobilized.

“So there we were on the bus to Raleigh, and I still had on my boots!” recalled Clammer Bob. “I forgot to bring shoes.” He wasn't the only protester wearing white rubber boots. Some wore Helly-Hansen jackets, insulated winter jumpsuits fondly called “full goodies” by fishermen, and caps advertising Osprey-brand crab pot line or Harris Net Shop in Atlantic men. Women and children poured off the buses, carrying signs that read “NO NET BAN” and “NO REFORM.” The protesters received honks and waves of approval from urban passersby glad to see any kind of collective disapproval on the staid streets of downtown Raleigh 

Legislators and committee members were mystified by the protest. Why would anyone object to fisheries reform? “Because these people are scared for their lives,” explained Sandra Kellum, whose husband Larry fished in both the Carolinas. Nothing frightened fishermen more than the possibility of a statewide ban on fishing nets, an issue running neck-and-neck with the Reform Bill through legislative halls. In 1995, Representative Billy Richardson of Fayetteville had introduced a bill based on his inability to catch a croaker in Pamlico Sound and the misguided claim that fishermen were free to trawl waters 365 days a year to gauge public support for outlawing nets. It was rumored that the Coastal Conservation Association, a sportfishing organization known nationally for lobbying against the use of commercial fishing nets, was behind the net ban bill. Commercial fisherman saw the CCA as little more than a wolf in sheep's clothing, wealthy sportsmen trying to gobble up the resources for themselves while disguised as environmentalists.

“The Coastal Conservation Association can deny their involvement with the ban bill all they want,” said Hatteras fisherman Rob West, who traveled to Raleigh with other Dare County fishermen to the press conference where Richardson unveiled his bill. “But explain this to me. We didn't have a copy of the bill. Heck, even the legislators from coastal counties hadn't seen the bill, but the president of the CCA was in front of us and he had a copy. I asked him if I could see it and he hugged it to his chest and said no.”

Sandra Kellum saw a big picture emerging with the CCA’s involvement. “Throughout the history of this country, oppression by certain groups has dominated and controlled other groups unjustly,” she wrote to the reform committee. “Now that we look back on these episodes in history, we see how awful they really were, and we wonder what type of leadership and what type of mentality allowed this to occur. We as people lament our past mistakes and wish we could change history. Please do not allow the results of your actions and decisions to go down in infamy.”

By the time the Raleigh meeting rolled around and committee members were set to vote, fishermen saw the threat of a net ban and the reform effort as two sides of the same coin. “If we don't pass this reform package,” Bob Lucas had warned again and again, “You can expect a net ban.” And in 1997 Representative Frank Mitchell, a poultry farmer from Iredell County, introduced another net ban bill just as legislators were taking a look at the reform package. The lesser-of-two-evils approach in selling reforms to fishermen couldn't have backfired more.

“The protests in Raleigh was the best show of solidarity the fisherman ever had,” declared Clammer Bob. Fishing families from all along the coast lined up and slowly marched around the legislative block. They filed into the legislative building and filled the meeting chamber, joining the other public observers -- a small knot of cheerfully attired sportsmen with their “Vote Yes to Reform” buttons pinned to pastel Polo shirts and button-down Oxfords

Even the children of fishermen seemed too large for the room of formality, decorum, and dark-suited legislators. The fishermen, with windburned faces and pale foreheads, stood in the back of the room with their caps in their hands, fingers tracking back and forth as though reading a message in the caps’ felt. Lawmakers fidgeted with the proposals as an ear splitting silence fell over the room

“That's when we asked if that preacher from Cedar Island could open the meeting with a prayer,” recalled Clammer Bob. “So they went ahead and let him.”

After Reverend Carpenter prayed the deliberations began -- albeit with awkwardness and hesitation. Until that morning, lawmakers had assumed that the public supported the proposal before them. They had heard support from the largest sportfishing club in North Carolina, as well as the only commercial fishing trade organization. Environmental groups supported the proposed reforms. No massive displays of disapproval had been evident in a series of public meetings, except from the “Freedom Fighters,” a group representing part-time fishermen who policymakers dismissed as hotheaded radicals.

“They felt us breathing down their necks. They saw our faces and just couldn't approve the reform package that morning,” said Clammer Bob. “But they only postponed the inevitable. They didn't have the guts to do it in front of us so they passed it later when the fuss died down.” Citing an audit that showed the Division of Marine Fisheries to be in a state of disarray, the legislative committee postponed passing the reforms until the Division was running on track.

“Right after the meeting we got the runaround,” Clammer Bob said, placing another clam in the bucket. “I talked to a legislator. She told me to go see so-and-so. I go see so-and-so and he tells me to go see the person I had already talked to! You get verbiage and no answers,” He sighed.

“That was a long, cold day. I'm sure the people in Raleigh get plenty of money to be there – salary, per diem, mileage, who knows what all. But me? When we got home to Beaufort, it was dark. Do you remember it snowed that night” We saw the flakes falling on the ride home. So I have to get on my bike, 15 degrees outside, snow-ride back through Beaufort to Nasty Harbor. The tide was way high. I had to take off my boots and pants and wade bare-assed to my boat Walk across the deck leaving footprints in the snow. Got in my cabin and put a brick on my stove to try and warm up.” He surveyed his half-full bucket of clams. Clean, deep lines were raked all around him in the sand like a Zen tranquility garden.

“The legislators and policymakers and bureaucrats make like it's all so complicated,” he said. “I say, quit pretending to be confused. There's nothing complicated about this -- it's all about money. Does the simple clammer make himself clear?”