New England Fishing Culture

New Bedford is an industrious town about an hour south of Boston that has the distinction of being the nation’s largest fishing port. With a population of nearly 101,000 people, according to 2020 census data, New Bedford is a mix of historical colonial houses converted into dentists’ offices, upscale seafood restaurants dotted along the waterfront and boxy brick buildings, reminders of the town’s industrial past. 

And many, many piers—an out-of-towner should never agree to meet a fisherman at the pier without specifying which one first. There are four municipal ports in town, according to the Port of New Bedford. Piers are veins of gravel that stretch from parking lots out into the ocean, and boats dock on either side of them, sometimes stacking up so a person must climb across one scallop boat to get to another.

The scallop industry is the lifeblood of the New Bedford economy—Mayor Jon Mitchell calls scallops the town’s cash crop. As of 2022, the scallop industry was worth $488 million a year, according to NOAA Fisheries.

The first thing anyone needs to know about the scallop industry, according to Mitchell, is how to say its name correctly.

“Don’t say scallop,” Mitchell said. “I would say scallop prime. This is the only place where that’s pronounced. That way, it won’t betray that you’re not from New Bedford. If you say the word scallop, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. There’s a whole set of lingo around the industry.”

Scallop boats account for 80% of the landings in the town’s ports, helping support the jobs of 7000 people, Mitchell said. The money draws fishermen to the port of New Bedford from all over New England as well as keeping families in town.

“Fishing and the people that work in that industry are fascinating, and they tend to have great stories,” said Will Sennott, a reporter from the New Bedford Light—the nonprofit site that filled the news void in town after the local paper closed. “They also have a lot of conflicts. There’s a lot at stake; it’s a difficult industry to make a living in. There’s a lot of stories to be told there.”

However, fishing in New Bedford is about more than just the money. The family ties threaded through the fishing industry created a tight-knit community, magnified by the small-town closeness of New Bedford. Give a fisherman the name of someone in town, and they could play a game of six degrees of separation, connected by which boats they’ve worked on.  

“It’s not just an industry,” Mitchell said about the fishing culture in New Bedford. “There just still so many families out there with that very real connection. It makes for a very unique culture. People here are oriented toward the sea in ways that other places aren’t.”

Mitchell, who has been in office for 11 years, is proud to come from a fishing family. His grandfather, Alexander Mitchell, died aboard the fishing vessel the Anna C. Perry in 1952. He recalled growing up at family events heavily influenced by fishing culture, and those experiences helped him connect with and support his community.  

“There’s a certain common vernacular around fishing in a certain sort of connectedness to the sea that makes people feel that New Bedford has a very special identity through and through a seaport,” Mitchell added.

In New Bedford, fishing is more than a business—it is a way of life, passed down through generations of families like a tradition instead of an occupation.

Born into a family of fishermen, Tyler 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 was six.  His paternal great-grandfather, father and maternal uncles all earned their living out at sea—most of them by scalloping.

By the age of 16, Miranda stopped attending school to fish full-time. He could learn more and make a better life for himself by scalloping than by remaining in a classroom.  

“I guess the initial attraction of scalloping was, you know, the money,” Miranda said.

Like his friend Miranda, Chris Wright, whose tan and wiry muscles were earned from years of working on a boat, started fishing at a young age. He remembers going on his first fishing trip with his dad when he was 15. Through high school and college, he worked on his father’s boat during the summer to earn money.

Even though he now lives in Braintree—a small town 20 minutes south of Boston—Wright and his wife have strong roots in the fishing community.

“Me and her both grew up in [New Bedford]. Her dad and uncle are fishermen, and my dad’s fourth generation,” Wright said. “I actually run one of the boats that my dad used to.”

Using his college degree, he pursued a career in shipping management before returning to scalloping because it allowed him to become a better provider for his wife and daughter. Wright now captains two boats.

“Growing up, we didn’t have a lot,” Wright said. “I wanted to be able to provide certain things for my daughter that are infinitely greater than anything I had.”

Wright’s story is not an uncommon one.

As of 2021, 40% of fishermen in the United States had bachelor’s degrees, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some fishermen chose to leave the corporate world—forgoing engineering and finance jobs—to make a better living by fishing.

Kellen O’Maley, a fisherman from Gloucester, Mass., chose not to pursue opportunities using a business degree. (Gloucester, a town two hours north of New Bedford, is the second largest fishing port in the state.) Instead, he dove into the fishing industry.

“Some of my parents’ friends ask me when I’m gonna get a real job, but fishing makes me happy,” O’Maley said, “and I’m making more money than all of the people asking me when I’m getting a ‘real’ job.”

O’Maley often finds himself waiting at the docks after midnight for scallopers to drop off their catch—usually after closing time at Gloucester fishermen’s bar The Crow’s Nest. The ocean tide pushes an eerie mist over the land, as well as the wafting smell of fish. The boats approach the shore like soldiers; one by one and in silence. The waiting men, O’Maley among them, are in charge of weighing the catch and getting it on ice. One man on the boat hands over the bag to the other on the dock with a cigarette dangling from his lips. It seems as though those involved could do the task with their eyes closed.

“I got my degree in business marketing, but it was hard to find jobs, so I started fishing,” O’Maley added. “I never looked back after that.”

While most fishermen say they get into scalloping for the money, they find it comes with a cost. They lose time with the people they leave behind on land.

NOAA—the federal body in charge of climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration, and the supporting of marine commerce—currently allows each scalloping boat to go on four fishing trips per season. Most crew members work on two boats at a time to maximize their earnings for a season, and eight trips, each about 10 days long, can add up very quickly.

Time out on the water means time away from loved ones, making the job harder.

“[Scalloping becomes] something it’s like a love-hate thing once you get older and you have kids because you’re away a lot,” Miranda said. “You miss a lot of things. And my youngest son—I missed him being born because I was trying to push it to finish the trip. My wife went into labor, and I missed it. It affects your whole life.” 

Garrett Thorpjorn, a Maine scalloper who comes to New Bedford for higher earning potential, also struggles to find a good work-life balance while on a fishing trip.  

“Every few days, I get to call home using a satellite phone,” Thorpjorn said. “I have a wife and kids. It’s hard staying in touch.”