Feature Stories

Growing up in Gloucester, one of Massachusetts’ biggest fishing towns, Kellen O’Maley was surrounded by fishing.  His father, a school guidance counselor, and part-time fisherman, took Kellen fishing in the summers.  In early adulthood, O’Maley went on to college for a business marketing degree in Utah. After college, he came back to Boston to work. […]

GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts — “Some of my parents’ friends ask me when I’m gonna get a real job, but fishing makes me happy and I’m making more money than all of the people asking me when I’m getting a “real” job. “I love being free on the water and the ability to be my own boss.” […]

Lars-Erik Miller sits at the corner of the Crow’s Nest Bar in Gloucester, Massachusetts, made famous by the Hollywood film The Perfect Storm. Based on a true story, the movie depicts the fishing crew of the Andrea Gail meeting a ferocious and fatal storm in October of 1991. A memorial banner hangs on the wall for all […]

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts — One might say that the fishing industry got its hooks in Tyler Miranda at a young age. Born into a family of fishermen, Miranda grew up on the water, going out on trips in his father’s lobster boat—a wooden vessel about 14 feet long and half-covered in ocean-worn lobster traps—since he […]

As New Bedford began to rely more and more on the fishing industry as its dominant economic force, other parts of life began to follow. As the saying goes “life imitates art.” While in this case, it may be that art imitates life, fishing, and art have always been intertwined. Between shifts on a fishing […]

EAST WAREHAM, Massachusetts — “The fishermen work hard; they’re gone for weeks at a time catching fish and being away from their families. Guy said, “They catch the big fish and lobsters that I have at my restaurant.”  Lobster Pot is a popular and highly respected seafood restaurant in Cape Cod. The owner Guy Marino […]

As a 4th generation fisherman and starting his fishing career at 15 during the summers with his father, Chris Wright would work on the fishing boats while on break from school. Eventually going to college, Wright kept the tradition of fishing in the summers to support himself.  Wright now runs three fishing boats, one of […]

GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts — Lars-Erik Miller grew up right down the street from this harbor, where he started off fishing bass with his father.  And as his boat swayed on the water of the North Atlantic in the early April wind, he reflected on the culture this spot embeds him in; the worlds of fishing and […]

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts — Captain Alan Curtis is not a fragile man. He speaks with a strong raspy voice that always has a quick-witted response to what life throws at him. With a strong build created from years of serving in the scallop industry, Curtis gives valuable knowledge of what working in the fishing industry […]

EAST SANDWICH, Massachusetts — Ken Perry has been a tugboat captain for over 30 years. Throughout the decades, Ken has experienced the other side of the world, ‘The Perfect Storm’ and the loss of a fellow fisherman. He says, if he has learned one thing at sea, it is that family matters most. So, when […]

Lifelong New Bedford resident Andrew Bois found passion in serving his community through safety and scallops. For the last 30 of his 55 years, Bois has been working as a New Bedford firefighter. In 2012, he began managing one of the city’s most popular bar restaurants: Knuckleheads. “We have a lot of people that work […]

Knuckleheads is one of the last few remaining fishermen’s bars found close to the New Bedford harbor. Working men and women can be found eating and catching up with one another, often still in their work clothes and boots, fresh off the boats they fish on.   This was just the case for Benjamin Tweedie and […]