The oldest industry in the Carolinas involving small watercraft is the fishing industry. This industry encompasses several different forms of fishing including commercial fishing, oysters, whaling, and more recently recreational fishing.
Commercial Fishing
The fishing industry is known to have existed here before European arrival because Thomas Harriot recorded the methods of fishing in the region using dugout canoes. The Native Americans were noted using by Harriot as using long rods as a sort of harpoons and weirs, a form of fishnet/fish trap (Harriot 1590:70-71). However, fishing by Native Americans has been proposed to date back thousands of years and would have led to the development of fishing technology such as seine fishing nets (Heath 1997:31-39).
When Europeans arrived in the region in the 1600s, the settlers quickly adopted the native methods for fishing. This led to the development of a subsistence fishing industry along the coasts of the Carolinas. However, this industry slowly evolved as more and more settlers moved into the region. By the 17th and 18th centuries, weirs, scoop nets, shovels, cast nets, hand seines, and drift gill nets were being used to support the growing fishing industry. In Antebellum North and South Carolina, the fishing industry began to develop into a large-scale commercial industry. This resulted from the various plantation owners investing in the industry as a way to increase their revenue. During the Civil War, the profitability and security of commercial fishing were no longer guaranteed and the industry became focused on subsistence once again (Heath 1997:81-100).
Following the Civil War, the fishing industry quickly took off once again, this time as a result of the introduction of pound nets (colloquially known as ‘Dutch Nets’) to the region. These nets were efficient, cheap, required fewer net handlers, and needed a smaller area of water. By just having two to three people in small watercraft, fishermen were able to catch large amounts of fish using these nets. The introduction of these nets also saw the introduction of the ‘Albemarle Sound Boat’ or shad boat (Heath 1997:101-107).
The early 20th century saw the introduction of gas-powered engines for boats. These new engines allowed vessels to start using less crew for large nets, and also opened up deeper waters to fishermen since they were no longer constrained to areas with wind or areas that could be easily oared. The development of gas-powered vessels also introduced large-scale commercial fishing enterprises. This industry began shipping large amounts of shad and other fish to larger cities. Since the vessels required little crews, these ships became very profitable and also would be run by small groups of people such as families. Despite the introduction of commercial fishing, there remained a declining number of subsistence fisheries (Heath 1997:107-114).
Following WW2, the desire for shad and other Carolina fish began to wane and fishermen were forced to diversify the types of fish they harvested. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the demand for sea trout, flounder, crabs, and other shrimp increased. This led most of the full-time fishermen to begin looking at these species to increase their income. Despite the decline in fishing for shad and herring, these fish remained important for the area until the 1990s when the state implemented catch limits on these fish since they had become depleted. As a result, many of the fishermen who caught these fish have either left the industry or have moved into other fishing industries (Heath 1997:146-151).
Oysters
Oyster fishing began similarly to other forms of fishing in the Carolinas: i.e. primarily a subsistence food source for the locals. However, this changed following the Civil War in the 1870s. In this decade a man from New England moved down to North Carolina and brought with him a local New England vessel called a sharpie. In 1874, George Ives created an oyster fishing industry in Carteret County that shipped fresh oysters up north. This business quickly expanded and by 1880 there were 1000 oystermen in Carteret County which were harvesting around 60,000 bushels of oysters per year. The growth of the industry also led to the widespread adoption of the sharpie by other oyster fishermen in the area (Taylor 1992:24-25).
Although the oyster industry took off in the 1870s and early 1880s, large-scale commercial oyster fishing started in 1889 when oyster dealers from the Chesapeake Bay established branches and canneries around the Pamlico Sound. This led to a very interesting period of history known as the ‘Oyster Wars.’ Since the oyster beds of the Chesapeake had been depleted by northern fishermen, the fishermen of Virginia and Maryland traveled to the largely untapped oyster beds of North Carolina and extracted the oysters. This led to a confrontation between the local and non-local fishermen to the point where cannons and rifles were carried on the fishing boats and the fishing boats would intentionally interfere with the nets of other vessels. As a result of the ‘Oyster Wars,’ the number of oysters extracted increased dramatically: 100,000 bushels of oysters were extracted in 1887 while 2.8 million bushels were extracted only three years later in 1890 (Taylor 1992:25-27).
This sharp increase in oyster fishing led to the rapid depletion of the North Carolina oyster reserves. By the early 1900s, the number of oysters caught declined from around two million a year to half a million a year. This decline continued through the first decade of the 1900s and by 1908 only 210,000 bushels of oysters were extracted by the oyster fishermen of North Carolina. Similar to the fishing industry, the oyster industry became severally regulated in the first half of the century which limited the number of oysters caught. This limited fishing amount subsequently led to a decrease in the number of oyster fishermen in North Carolina (Taylor 1992:27-31).
Recreational Fishing
Despite modern fishing being dominated by commercial fishing operations, small-scale fishing still occurs in the forms of recreational fishing including charter fishing. Charter fishing began in the Outer Banks in the early 1900s. This industry began when waterfowl hunters began hiring locals as fishing guides which were met with great success. This desire soon began to spread with fishermen began modifying their commercial boats to be used as charters. In North Carolina, the boats used in the northern Outer Banks tended to evolve from shad boats while those from the southern Outer Banks tended to evolve from sharpies and Core Sounders. However as this industry continued to grow, the need for specialized craft for charters became apparent. Starting in the 1940s, several North Carolina boatbuilders began the construction of square-stern boats with large cabins. These boats became know as sportfishing boats or cockpit boats (Conoley et al. 2007).
By Caleb O’Brien