As a kid, growing up there was nothing like your daddy waking you up telling you to get dressed and get down to the dock. I would jump up, grab my favorite Gordon’s (Net Works) shirt, jeans, and my shrimp boots that my grandfather bought me. I’d jump in his truck and we would ride. Getting there was always so much fun. I would run to my grandpa to tell him “good morning” and he would smile real big when you came in and tell you “go ahead and start getting ice and boxes made.”

I would take off out the door to help my daddy and uncle. There was just something about taking in that smell of freshly caught seafood and being with the family that captivated me. While packing shrimp, I would always sneak off… I had to climb on every boat at the dock. I wanted to check every boat out and talk to each captain and crew member. I loved hearing their tales from sea. I admired every single one of them and their hard work. I told my daddy as a little boy that I was going to be a captain someday. He would always smile.

Now here we are, years down the road, and I have my very own boat that I captain and named after my grandfather. I have a beautiful family of my own and it’s everything I ever dreamed of. But, to say it’s not what I thought would be an understatement. Sometimes, it’s draining trying to make ends meet — between repairs or fighting fuel and market prices. But we grin it and bear it, we always make it. However, over the last years, it is unsettling that our government wants us gone after all the hard work we’ve put into building our fishing communities.

It is always blamed on the “bycatch” or claims that “we are destroying the bottom” which is not true… but people that don’t know any better believe it. I think what the state should focus on is the overbuilding going on amongst our rivers, waterways and beaches. When it comes to our rivers, our heritage has already been taken. Our rivers have been closed due to pollution. What used to be full beds of clams and oysters, fish popping everywhere — are now things of the past. That didn’t come from the commercial fisherman, it came from the overbuilding of golf courses, overdevelopments being built on our waters and from chemical runoffs. But you never hear anything about that, just continue to see more trees being pushed down on our riverbanks for someone’s waterfront view.

Our beaches have become just one skyscraper house looking into another with no land left to build on, while we watch the erosion wash the beaches away. So what do we do to fix the erosion? We pump every bit of the bottom of the ocean floor that used to feed and keep our beaches plentiful of shrimp and fish onto the beaches to renourish it. That is what has killed our fisheries here in Brunswick County.

After doing this, detrimental impacts on inshore fish and shrimp has happened. However, when this is brought up, you’re wrong, they say its because of the commercial fisherman overfishing. I, for one, can vouch… as a young boy, you could go from dock to dock and spend hours climbing from one boat to another, meeting all kinds of fisherman and admiring the beauty of their boats and hard work.

Now in Brunswick County, you could tie up the entire commercial fishing fleet to one dock. You could listen to their frustrations that each face trying to make an honest living. It’s time to start stating facts and not false claims. The commercial fishing industry has taken a hard blow over the last decade. Our industry has been scraped clean of fishhouses, boats and a dependable workforce. With the few of us left, how can we be a threat to the environment with all the rules and regulations we have to follow to bring you fresh, local-caught seafood? We are constantly cleaning up trash left from tourists, debris from hurricanes and cultivating the bottom of the ocean floor for our next crops, without a thank you from anyone, yet we are the problem… instead of putting blame on a commercial fisherman, why not say thank you knowing the hard work they’ve put forward for days/weeks away from their families searching the ocean for a plentiful catch to make ends meet and provide your seafood platter that you so much enjoy.

With all this being said, I think it’s time to put the blame where it should go, instead of on the shoulders of the commercial fishermen. Over the next few days, please reach out to your congressmen regarding House Bill 442.

Sincerely, an eighth-generation fisherman.

Corbett Holden is a commercial fisherman. He lives in Brunswick County with his family.