Bear Grease - Ep. 218: The Waterman, Luke McFadden

Episode Date: May 29, 2024

Luke McFadden is a 27-year-old, first-generation waterman on the Chesapeake Bay. In this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast, Clay Newcomb invites Luke to tell his story of how determination combined with a love for the outdoors, fishing, and the water, propelled him down a one-way path to becoming a crabber. His experience shows how he embraced challenges, and with thinking outside the box, created a whole new way to engage with customers and create a social media empire. Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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In this episode, I'd like to introduce you to a waterman from the northeast United States. He's a native of Maryland in the Chesapeake Bay. His name is Luke McFadden, and he's a first-generation crabber. Through heck, high water, boat fires, and pure grit and wit, he's built a direct-to-consumer crabbing business that's changing the industry and impacting his community. And through the process, he's built a social media empire. You're going to be entertained and inspired when we hear Luke's life story. I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one.

You are a craver. And you will be a craver if you die broke or if you die rich, if you die out there trying to be a craver. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight and unlikely places and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Luke McFadden is probably not what you'd picture if you thought of a New England Waterman. The average commercial fishermen in Maryland is in his mid-50s. Probably a little taller, probably a little heavier.

And Waterman just means someone who makes their livelihood on the ocean fishing. And to be more specific about Luke, he makes a living, catching Chesapeake Blue Crabbs. He overcame an incredible stack of odds forging his way into a difficult, and dying way of life, but it won't be dying if Luke has anything to do with it. This episode of Bear Grease is a little bit different. I'm just going to let Luke tell his story. That's right, his life story, from the start to the present. I would like for you guys to meet Luke McFadden. So, you know, my mom is originally from Seoul, South Korea. She was adopted by my grandparents. My dad is a Irish guy with red hair and freckles, so I'm a little bit of a mutt myself.

I was originally born in Morgantown, West Virginia, and then shortly after, my parents got a divorce, and my dad stayed in Morgantown, and my mom and I moved to Maryland. We lived with my grandparents for a little while, and then my mom met my stepdad. shortly after the divorce, I think I was about three, so a couple years between. And we actually moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for a couple years. We lived there when I was really young, and then we moved back to Maryland in Pasadena. That's really kind of where my story starts. I was always sort of a loner as a kid.

I didn't have a lot of friends. I was the last thing you would consider cool. I was a lot smaller than all the other kids. I don't love to include this part of the story because I don't want people to harp on it, but there's not a lot of diversity in Pasadena. It's primarily white folks, which is fine. I'm half Irish.

But when you're the only odd one out, it doesn't make it any easier, especially when your kid, very anxious, very shy, to make friends and things like that. So I found a lot of comfort and kind of tinkering. So I was always taking things apart, you know, building things, learning how things worked. I just always wanted to know why do things do what they do.

So I spent a lot of time doing that. You know, I would fix people's lawnmowers and cut grass. I was hard-headed and entrepreneurial even at a really young age. So I was always trying to kind of make up jobs and businesses to get a couple bucks here and there. We didn't have a lot of money. My stepdad was a pastor. My mom was stay at home, and, you know, we lived in an area that was relatively expensive to live in. So, you know, we didn't, we weren't dirt, floor, poor.

And my parents did the best they could with what they had. It was just we certainly did not live a life of any sort of excess or, you know, anything like that. So it was sort of the mentality of like, if you wanted it, you had to figure out a way to get it. My mom and stepdad, they're not into the outdoors. They could kind of be less interested, you know, aside from my interest in it. So I didn't have like, it's not like I was going fishing with my stepdad every weekend or every day after school. You know, I was door knocking on people's doors when I, you know, down the street offering to cut their grass to get permission to fish on their pier.

You know, so I kind of had this mentality of like, all right, nobody's going to give it to you. You got to figure out a way that works within the boundaries to be able to do what you want to do. You know, my biological father, he's lived in northwest Pennsylvania my entire life. does and you know we we do have a relationship and he's a very avid outdoorsman you know especially in his younger years so you know when I was younger pretty much all the time we spent together was in the outdoors I just wasn't with him all the time so it's not like he was the one picking me up from school you know but when I did get to see him we were fishing we were hunting he always had boats and got me into deer hunting and squirrel hunting and you

know anything I think I was just kind of born with this like desire to be outside and kind of have that freedom. I grew up in a, you know, a relatively sheltered home compared to a lot of the other people I was around, a lot of the other kids. So I was always just trying to find any kind of access to the outdoors that I could get, whether it was fishing or hunting or anything, but especially when I was younger, you know, I was really into fishing because that was the most access I had. I could walk quarter mile down the street with a fishing rod after school and go catch bait and go fishing. So I was 11 years old. I bought my first boat out of the penny saver. Actually, it was an eight-foot

fiberglass rowboat. And I named it the Mary Rose because I just read this book about this little kid that his dad was a lobster fisherman in Maine and he had built his son this little wooden skiff called the Mary Rose. I wanted to live vicariously through that book. It was like, I ever, you know, I just had such a desire to be out there. So I ended up buying this boat, and that was kind of my, like, real access to, you know, to the water, kind of like, that was sort of a pivotal moment, you know, I didn't, I didn't have ores, I didn't have a boat or I'd have anything. My grandmother, Gene, got me. I set a five-foot feather-light oars for Christmas one year, and I was off. I had issues getting the boat to the water because I didn't live there,

So I remember I built a like a little thing that stuck over the transom of the boat that had wheels off of my parents' old grill, like Weber Grill. So I had these little plastic wheels with an axle and I cut these little triangles of wood that my parents had done some work to the deck. So they had these pile of deckboards in the backyard forever. And so I had built this little contraption that you could stick over the transom and then I could flip the boat upside down and then I could carry it down the street. And it, I mean, it was uphill both ways. It really is that kind of how it was. We kind of lived at the top of this hill, and you had to go down and then back up to get the boat to the water. So it really was uphill both ways.

And so I would, you know, I'd carry the boat down. And then I'd walk up and I'd grab my oars and I'd carry them down. I'd walk back up and grab my fishing rods and carry him back down. And by the time I got there, I had a couple hours of daylight. But it was all I wanted to do. I wasn't like at friends' houses every day after school. I just didn't have a lot of friends. You know, all the cool kids, all the neighbors, they all had dirt bikes and four-wheelers,

and they're going to race on Saturdays with the dads and this and that. And, you know, my stepdad is a great guy. He just wasn't into that kind of stuff, you know. I mean, like I said, you know, he's an awesome, awesome guy. I love him, and I can't, you know, thank him enough for everything he's done for him. It took me a while to realize all that. But all that to say, you know, it was basically me. So, you know, I'd go out and then really, really.

really the first kind of introduction to commercial fishing. I didn't even know what I was doing at the time, but, you know, I would row around and I'd dip up these little grass shrimp off piers and pilinges, and then I would salt them in little mason jars and then put them into little bags and sell them as bait, you know, to the guys that there was a yacht club at the end of the street. So that was kind of my thing, and I was like, I just really liked the idea that there was this natural resource that the only thing between you and kind of making a lot of, a couple bucks to be able to go fishing and do whatever is just work you know and I was like well I have

time you know I've been working for you know working in some way or another forever this it's kind of perfect and I just loved being out there it was kind of it was awesome I would go catch the shrimp salt them sell them I mean literally for nothing but just to have a couple dollars to be able to you know go out on the boat fish and whatever else but yeah I mean I you know that was my goal every day was to how can I spend the most days on the water outside fishing doing anything I could. You know, I rode every crevice of that creek. I know that creek like the back of my hand. One year my Aunt Jill actually got me a old outboard motor she gave to me, which to me my whole thing was like I was trying to make enough to get a motor. And I just, I could never

seem to figure out how to make enough to be able to get access to an engine. And she gave it to me. She had a friend that lived on the water, you know. I know now it's, you know, I see motors like this all the time that are like rotting in somebody's like woods that, you know, they're looking for somebody to take it away. But, I mean, it was, I was beyond excited. It was an old like an 1982 or something. Mercury, maybe a 72. I don't know. It was the old tower of power like total piece of junk.

And when I got it, it was missing like half of the parts. I didn't even know it, though. You know, I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get running. You know, and my stepdad, he's not in the engines. You know, he's kind of like, I don't know. You know, and so he had a friend that his boss actually had come over one day, I remember. I said, Mr. Bill, can you come look at this engine? You know, I don't know.

He was a gearhead. And he looked at it. He pulled the cowling off and he said, son, there's only half a motor. Like, all you have is the cowling, basically, you know? He was missing a spark plug, a coil pack, like everything. It could not run. That was my introduction to kind of mechanics 101, you know, and I never had any money. So it was always like you have zero option, but to figure it out.

yourself. Then I learned engines a little bit and I got into fixing people's lawnmowers and this and that. You know, eventually I had a series of kind of little bigger boats, aluminum John boats and things like that throughout high school. I actually built a boat one time. This is a little insight into who I kind of am a little bit or who I was. I don't know. The same deckboards that they had in a pile. I built a six-foot like little skiff. I just took a two by 12 and stacked up. like a two by three on top, nailed it from the top. And I had a bandsaw that I had bought my own money because I was getting into making duck decoys on one of my entrepreneurial side quests and desires to go in the outdoors with zero money. So I cut the curves and I got a piece of plywood and, you know, caulked it around and nailed the plywood onto it, put a little deck on the front, little cleats.

I made a set of oars. I remember I made a lathe in my bedroom with this old, turn of the century, like corded drill, you know, it was either on or off. And I had a vice in my room, like literally my room looked like a hamster cage. I had this little workbench I would sit on and a loft bed because my room was itty-bitty. And I would work under, that was my workshop, you know. So I would sit on this workbench and I had a little vice, you know, in a drawl knife. And that's how I would make my duck decoys and everything. I'd sit on this thing and carve them. But, you know, I had converted that into a lathe to turn these oars, you know, out of this old junk set of oars somebody had given me. I like cut him down, turned them down, put little leather handles on them. I used it,

but it was, you know, it was sketchy. They say crabs, crab cakes, and football is, you know, kind of what makes Maryland. And there's just a lot of rich history around the crab in Maryland. Culture is based in crabs in Maryland. I know it sounds crazy, but if you, if you're more familiar with something like South Dakota, you know, what do you think of when you think of South Dakota? pheasants. It's the same with, you know, the same sort of association Maryland has with crabs. You know, it's, it's the place, the hub, the crab capital of the world, is in Maryland. You know, I've never seen anything quite like it, really. You know, people love the Maryland flag, and they love Maryland crabs. It's like a cult-like culture,

really, around this Calenecta sapis, the beautiful swimmer, the Maryland-chesapeake blue crab, the bounty of the Chesapeake, you know. Fast forward a little while. My parents had a friend, a seat named CJ Camby from church, actually. It was a Waterman, a crabber. I just wanted to do anything to get involved, you know. So I would beg this guy to just go over his house. I just wanted to see what it was like.

My only exposure to Waterman before that was an old Kevin Fleming black and white coffee table book at my grandma Jean's house, you know. And I had seen these picture of these guys working on the water, hand tong and oysters on these old wood boats and doing stuff like that. I just thought, like, I don't know what they're doing, but, like, you know, I want to end. So that never left me. And then when, you know, they met CJ, I was just like, I got to do anything I can to, like, just get involved here. Of course, he didn't want some 12-year-old kid run around his yard and whatever.

But eventually, you know, persistence is key. Sometimes you just have to be the squeakiest wheel. And eventually, I was 12 years old, he said, you can come grabbing. So a trip actually, my stepdad went with me. I remember wore a life jacket. and took me out on the boat and I just witnessed crabbing. I remember it so well. I think I slept on, I fell sleeping, and slept on the way home,

but I mean, I just remember the smell of it. I remember the feeling of it. I remember the feeling the sun beaming onto my face and like the, like, through the humid air, you know, and like just makes the hair stand up on my head, tapping into that memory. But then, of course, you know, I'm an obsessive person, and I just like, I couldn't let it good.

like I couldn't let it go. And so from there on out, I was just bugging. I was probably the biggest thorn in his side just to like let me do anything. And so first kind of job, I guess, was going to his house and putting zinc bars, you know, sacrificial anode bars in the corners of crab pots, which I know now is like the worst job ever. It's hard to pay people to do that job. I remember, I was a little older than 12. I don't remember how old it was, but my mom would drop me off and CJ, he would pay me $5 an hour. He told me that's what minimum wage was, which it was not. I was some dumb kid.

I was probably wasting more time than I was helping him. I worked a whole spring for him doing that to buy an iPod Nana, which is a lot of twisted hundreds of zinks at $5 an hour to buy this little green iPod Nana, I remember. But yeah, and then, you know, when I got a little bit older, I just started helping him more and more on the boat, and I was just kind of hooked. And it was weird.

It was like the only thing that I did, I didn't necessarily enjoy it all the time, but I kept going back. It wasn't because it was like easy money. It was just because it just felt like what I was supposed to do. And even when you do what you love, there's days you don't want to do it, you know. So I helped him and, you know, I ended up helping him for quite a while. And then my junior year of high school, my stepdad trip took a new job in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And, you know, that was crushing for me because I was, I just loved the year. areas, it's where I'd made friends, it's what I knew. You know, the water was there. There was nothing of

of corn and Amish in Lancaster, you know, so I thought, I spent most of my high school career doing vocational school, you know, so they would put me on a bus and send me off to this, to Votech, Cat North, you know, I did masonry, I did carpentry, I did, I really like cabinet making, like, finer work, you know, I made the whole, like a whole, this jewelry box and all the pieces of a combination lock out of wood. And so they would have this jewelry box. You'd put this coat in and then turn these dials. It would pop the lid. So I was always into like the fine tinkering, you know, so I didn't spend a lot of time doing that. But anyway, you know, I needed one, like one or one and a half credits to graduate from Chesapeake High School. And my parents were moving. And when

we got to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, you know, they told me I needed nine credits to graduate because none of my vocational credits conveyed. And so, you know, I was righteously upset, you know, I didn't want to be there. And I was just at that age where it's, you know, you can't tell a 17-year-old enough. You know what I mean? So, you got a high school equivalent, diploma of sorts. And, you know, I moved back home at 18, back to Pasadena, Maryland. I lived on my grandmother's couch for a couple months because I didn't have any money at all.

I actually had my car, I think at the time, I had a 1967 Volkswagen Beetle. So that's not your average car for a craver. I was ill-prepared to say that. the least and I was doing a lot of growing up. I moved home to be a crabber so that was always my trajectory but being an 18 year old guy on his own and just not a lot of direction a lot of rebellion a lot of you know anger my relationship with my parents wasn't very good at the time because we had moved and I took a hard road for a while you know I made a lot of lot of what I did not see as then is mistakes. I see now I know that they were, I mean,

you could call them mistakes, but I don't, you know, it had to happen for me. I'm that kind of guy. You know, I got to learn hard lessons. It's the only way I learn. So, you know, I worked for CJ and then, you know, I ended up getting a hold of this boat, this old boat, it was 32-foot, dead rise that was from the 80s. It was a plywood and fiberglass boat was his typical construction for Chesapeake Dead Rise, but those boats are built with a service life, and it's about 20 years, so when I got it, it was about, you know, it was twice past its service life, essentially. And I worked at a, I was working at a granite countertop shop in the wintertime, making countertops, and I was building this boat, and after my job, I launched the boat,

got some crab pots kind of on the arm from CJ, these old junkers, you know, that was like, pay it back when you can. You know, my biological father had helped me out getting the boat, getting, you know, that kind of stuff started a little bit, because I didn't go to college. It was a tough time in my life, you know. I launched the boat at Ferd-Germar House Marina in Pasadena in Pasadena on his hydraulic trailer.

And, I mean, it was a disaster from the very beginning. The first time they launched, I mean, the thing was leaking like a sieve. And the guy that I had bought it from was like, oh, it's a wood boat. It's just got a swell. You can't swell shut a hole on a plight. would boat that you can stick your fingers through you know what I mean like it was just it was leaking through the keel I mean the motor wasn't running it was just I had done some pretty work you know it was pretty handy I put a whole floor in it I replaced some stringers I built the cabin it had a granite

countertop in it because I was working at the shop I mean it also get pictures that it was really it was pretty work but I mean it was a disaster from from the very beginning I had built this prop cage out of steel around the propeller so I wouldn't suck up gear into my prop and I remember the first time I ran the boat from Bodkin where we launched it up to CJ's house, which is like one river up a couple miles. And by the time I got there, every piece of rebar on that cage was banging around the wheel. And the whole thing, I had to jump overboard and swim under and pull the rest of it off because it had just come apart. I didn't, I'd never touched a welder in my life. You know, I borrowed one from somebody and nothing stuck. It was just, I didn't know what I was

doing. You know, I was just trying things. So the craft. grabbing went about the same. You know, I got these crab pots. I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying to do every, experience everything I thought I was deprived of, mostly partying. And the crab, at the same time, well, being 18, still broke. You know, I'm working basically to make money to be able to go crabbing. And it's a cutthroat industry, you know. And they don't, the guys out there have worked hard, I know now, you know, to be out there. So they don't want some other guy, some first generation outsider out there crab and catching the crabs that, you know, is going to ultimately feed their family. So I didn't have a lot of allies, to say the

least, you know, I got, my gear would get vandalized all the time. They would, they just basically, I put my gear out and it became their gear. They would just help themselves all the time. You know, stuff would get smashed, my floats were cut, you know, so not only was I fighting a lot of personal, you know, growing pains, you know, I was also trying to run a business, which I had less than zero idea how to do. I mean, nobody in my family is a business owner. I knew nothing, you know, and I was, I was not aware of any of the economic challenges that the industry was facing. You know, I was young, dumb, and hot the trot, and I just wanted to go crabbing, and that's all I knew, and I figure I'd figure everything else out later. So that's what I did,

and I tell you what, that was misery. It was a hard way to go. Because if you can catch every crab in the world, which I wasn't doing, but even the crabs I was catching, if you don't have any market to sell them or any place to keep them, they're no good. I mean, I remember catching crabs. You know, you think, oh, everybody wants crabs, right?

No. That's not the case at all. I now know that the market is just so, there are so many aspects to just selling the crabs. And that's ultimately kind of the hardest part is what Craver says. Like, catching them's easy. Having markets the hard part. You know, I couldn't get bait.

I couldn't, I didn't have any. I was living with my grandmothers or in this apartment. I didn't have a walk-in. You know, I actually didn't have even a walk-in refrigerator for like eight the next eight years either. But, like, I think CJ just felt bad for me a little bit, or he was just trying to shut me up or whatever. So, you know, he helped me out a lot with those kinds of things. And I got really desperate, trying to help me move some crows. of course, but I had no idea what I was doing, so I was probably doing once again, doing more harm than good.

It was a tough way. It was a tough way to go. I had a really hard time for a long time. I remember one time running over eight of my own traps in one day. And I used to work by myself. I was the only one of the boat, which I now know is very dangerous, if you have no idea what you're doing, which I didn't. You know, every time you run something over, you've got to jump overboard and cut the line out of your wheel. And when you're by yourself, you know, and, you know, I remember jumping overboard one time. It was rough and the boat come down and cracked me right on the top of the head. To this day, you can say what you want, but I get panicky and nervous underwater. You know, I don't love to swim. I'm a decent swimmer, but that just kind of like jarred me so bad that, you know, then it just kind of was like, oh, one more thing to deal with, whatever.

But I remember, you know, just being livid. I mean, so angry. I had such a hot temper. You know, I used to break gaffes and throw things all to, I just lose my mind. And I remember one day calling my parents, you know, while I was out there, I just run out, I had this horrible day. And just, I mean, I blacked out. I mean, just one of my first experiences with Rock Bottom.

I mean, I was so angry. I ripped the door off the hinges on the boat. You know, I mean, everything on the boat was in the water. Every gap, every crab was smashed. I mean, it was just, I just, it was my limit, you know. And I'm, I've never been good at resting or anything like that. that so it was always like I would just push myself to the bitter end find my limit and then you know I can kind of figure it out from there so that was like when it you know it was getting tough and I don't

remember if it was that same year or the next I think it was that same year you know I got caught in a very bad storm in that boat the widow we called it the widow maker because it was it was about dangerous as a fire in a nursing home you know it was not safe by any means I It was October, and in the bay, October is a very volatile time for weather. Got stuck in this very bad storm. The boat cracked, basically, the hall in half. I remember seeing the glass, fiberglass crack all around the doorway on the back of the cabin. And I found out later that the hall had actually cracked, basically, you know,

had a big structural crack that we ended up fixing, you know, before I ended up selling it. but the boat actually called on fire. I got pounded so badly that I had a wet exhaust elbow. Anyway, it had broken. So there was water coming into the boat and then no water cooling the exhaust. So ended up catching the plywood motorbox on fire and the boat was sinking. I got it into shore. You know, it was, it was scares.

The only time I've ever had the Coast Guard on the VHF and the only time I ever told my crew to put on lifejack. I had like two of my friends out there helping me, you know. and we had life jackets sick because I really thought there was a good chance you know we're leaving this boat be you know behind I you know after that it was kind of like all right it was like I was just getting hard lesson after hard lesson after hard lesson after hard lesson until I was I was done I was ready to surrender I was like I'm broke my boat's broken I'm just not living right you know just everything is just in peril and that was a pivotal moment and I remember my gear was still out there. And I, you know, I was like, CJ, you know, you got to help me get this gear in. He was like, you got yourself into this mess, buddy. He was like, you got to figure it out. So, you know, I had to prepare basically jerry rig the boat together to go get my gear back and, you know,

whatever else. So that was one of my first faces with like, no option, figure it out. You have to clean this mess up. There's no option. There's no safety net. There's nothing. Like, figure it out. Dummy. You know what I mean? So wrapped up that and it was sort of the end of a chapter in my early adult life. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping day and there was a pool of blood.

Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness.

Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. So after the widow almost sinking, kind of like, you know, I was starting own real estate and rock bottom. It was becoming a familiar place for me.

You know, relationships were going sideways. I was beyond broke. beg, bargain stealing to basically exist. Basically, he was like, this boat just every day was a struggle. I was either getting it running or, I mean, I sank that boat like three or four times at the dock, and I had to rewire it, pump it out. I mean, just, you know, it was just every day I was fighting my equipment, you know. And so, you know, decided, like, you know, I had to talk with some, you know, relatives, and they, you know, it was kind of like, I want to give this a go.

And I don't know why. This is when, you know, my biological father, you know, he showed a lot of faith in me. He believed in me to be able to really make it. You know, I don't know why because I felt like, you know, there's some Bible story. I don't really remember it well. But, you know, the son that gets his inheritance early leaves, squanders it, comes back. You know what I mean? And they kill the lamb.

forum or whatever, you know what I mean? It wasn't quite that dramatic, but it was like to me at the time, it felt like there's no reason anybody should believe in me at all. Like I don't believe, I didn't believe myself, you know? I was just, you know, there was nothing. So I ended up getting the Southern Girl, which is the boat that I have now, through many ways of convincing and promising and vague and bargaining, stealing, scraping together everything I had and whatever else. And I knew nothing about buying a boat and like a true idiot, even like CJ, who's basically, you know, he's a father figure to me, you know, and even was at that time. Like, I never even called him to go look at this boat, you know, because I was, I mean, it's just, that's just a good example of like how just hardheaded I was, honestly. Anyway, the Southern girl and, you know, that's when it basically was like, okay, there's debts to pay, you know, like, there is zero option.

for this that not work. You know, and it was kind of the beginning of a mindset change for me, where it was like, this is it. There is zero plan B. There's no safety net. There is nothing. You are a crabber, and you will be a crabber if you die broke

or if you die rich, if you die out there trying to be a crabber. You cannot consider failure. It's not even an option. There is nothing but this. people ask me even now like you know what would you do if you weren't a crabber nothing i i do not consider a plan b i've never considered it i don't think about it because if you do then you're not going to be 110 percent committed to what you're doing all the time every day to me yeah it's not

a healthy way to live but you know that's the way that you know i have to get it through my thick skull you know so that was like all right it's time you need to take this seriously So, you know, that was kind of when I started to dial back the partying, the fast living a little bit. I learned a lot of other hard lessons, you know, but it was still tough. Even after, you know, getting this boat, it wasn't new. You know, it still had issues. I blew the motor up in like a year or two, you know, and it was like all the money I had been, like, trying to make and save. And, you know, I was starting to just, like, begin to break even.

I wasn't having to work to go grabbing, you know what I mean? like it was like boom engine blew up all the money you know what I mean gone and then I remember after that the transmission blew up you know it was like every year for like three or four years or whatever it was after I got that boat everything on that boat broke and I was doing my best to keep up on maintenance do this and that you know and whatever and and it was like I was like all right I'm really giving it 110% truly and I just kept it was just getting kicked down curb stop after curve stop you know with this thing and it was like I'm trying here you know I'm getting my stuff together on I'm trying to be better you know and whatever and it was still it was like no you still need to learn lessons here

you know what I mean so it's just one after the next so it was still hard for a while you know I had a lot of problems with market you know selling the crabs I remember it was like I was getting hit at every angle. There was the boat, you know, I was in debts. I was trying to build my crab pot rig. I was trying to maintain relationships. I was trying to grow my business. You know, I was trying to buy more crab pots, hire people, find better markets, you know.

And if it wasn't the engine blowing up, I was getting cut from a market or another craver was sabotaging me. You know what it was literally like, I mean, it's gut throw it out there. You know what I mean? It's, it was one thing after the next. And I don't really know exactly. exactly when it changed, it just kind of became every day, you know, and life was, was, I didn't love life, you know, I was doing what I loved and, you know, to other people, it seemed like this awesome life, you know, they're like, oh, you're on a boat every day. You've always wanted to be a crapper. You're a crapper. You got a new boat, you know, new to you, you know, you're making it happen. But it caused a lot of struggle within myself that ultimately, you know, led me to learn a lot about who I was as a person and how other people are. You know, you, I got to, screwed more times than I can imagine from giving people the benefit of the doubt or trusting people I shouldn't have or or something like that. You know, it was, it was, you know, some hard,

hard living. You know, eventually I kind of started to get my feet under me a little bit and, you know, I was able to grow the business a little bit more. I decided if you want to be in this, you got to play the long game. I've always played for the long game and I've never chased dollars that I didn't just need to survive, you know, which is probably. probably one of my best and worst things. But I was like, you know what? I've made it this far. I've worked this hard. Every day when you put that much effort into it, it makes it that much harder to give it up, you know, because you've already made it that far. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to be in this forever. I need to be the guy that sells my own craps. You know,

I need to make all the money I can off of what I'm doing. And so I was looking for a way to set myself apart from the flooded crab market in my area. And I was looking to move from selling the wholesale retail to direct a customer. And, you know, that kind of starts the next chapter. So, you know, I was trying to find a foothold in the flooded crab market. You know, I was, I'm still young, but I was young, and I was looking at the, around and you know all these other people they have all the resource you know it seemed like you know they have their established markets they have they own the boats they they have good crews

they have uh they own crab houses you know where they can sell their crabs directly to the customer and make all the money cut out the middleman you know and craving is is a lot like farming where you don't set the price for your own product um you're you are told what they're worth when you hit the dock and and it's commodity market you know it works it shouldn't be but it it's based on commodity market. So it's like the more you have, the less they're worth. The crab market, Waterman and the crab's buying and selling market is dominated by older folks, typically. I mean, the average age of a Maryland Waterman, you know, state license holder is 58, I believe. So I'm in my 20s, you know. So it was like, they've been around a long time. They've been in the game.

There also happened to be big haters of the internet. Lucky for me. And so I, I, I, I, I, I was also a big hater of the internet. You know, this is kind of what you did. You were a crabber. You didn't mess with that. Well, I was trying to see, where do I fit into this market? How can I make it work? You know, with the limited resource that I have.

And so I'm of the generation where, you know, most people spend the most of their day on their cell phone, unfortunately. You know, it's just the way it is. And I thought, you know what? I drive down the highway. Half the people driving are looking at their phones. and you drive past five crab stores that are these multi-million dollar operations with signs and whatever.

Also, side note that I did this winter project to try to keep myself from slipping into this deep, dark depression that I usually did every winter. I built this like origami tri-folding, like, cabinet door kind of thing just as this trick project, and I ended up putting it on, uploading the video to TikTok just for whatever. You know, just I thought it was neat, whatever.

Well, that video ended up giving it. getting some traction. You got like a few hundred thousand views and you know so I put up another one and it got a million, you know. And so I thought, I had all I have a cell phone, you know, I didn't have, I still don't really have a computer or anything. I'm not tech savvy whatsoever, but I was like, there's a lot of power here, you know, to get in front of a lot of eyes. So I was like kind of searching, you know, looking around. I was like, there's no crab people on the internet. You know, it's a wide open market. And so I was like, I started making some videos. about what I do and crabbing.

I just decided I'm going to treat this as part of my job. And so I just started grinding on that. And, you know, it was growing. I'm so soured by, you know, all the work that goes into making this happen. But everybody else has zero concept

of how crabs get to your table. People are always asking questions of it like that. You know, people are always asking me questions about my job before the internet. So I thought, you know, what if I just start kind of making gearing the content more towards like answering questions, just kind of showing the life that it is, you know, to be a crabber.

Because it's, I mean, it's a lifestyle. You ask any fishermen. It's a lifestyle. You're married to it. You're either in or you're out. And my theory was be the biggest fish in the smallest pond. The crab market was wide open on the internet. And it was nothing, it was the same as when I was a kid, you know.

There was nothing between me and what I wanted but work is the way I saw it, you know. And I'm sort of a. creative, you know, guy, I guess, you know, I'm an artist, you know, I've done a lot of, you know, I've done a lot of ceramic clay sculpting, you know, I've always been an artist so that I need sort of a creative outlet to keep my head about me, you know, and so this kind of gave me enough creative outlet while also building a business. But I did, you know, find out pretty quickly that, you know, being online and being consistent, which is the most important part, is a job. It's a whole job.

You know, I was trying to make the switch over, but it's very risky, you know, because once in the industry, once you go to selling direct a customer, you can't go back. You know, you're basically blacklisted from, you know, selling to wholesalers or picking houses for the most part, getting any kind of prayer of any real money for anything. So, you know, it took a lot of guts for me to make the jump, but, you know, I thought with the social media thing that I had started and I was building, you know, you know, I thought with the social media thing that I had started and I was building, you know, you know, You know, I had a lot of interest. You know, people were constantly messaging me, how can we buy your crabs, this and that. And there was this little lot in town that I would drive past that was completely full of garbage that popped up on Zillow one day.

And I bought for $26,000 cash in Glenburnie, Maryland. 73, 33 East Furnace Branch Road in Glenburny, Maryland. And that was kind of my run at it. And I thought, this is like every other chapter you've done. There's no option for failure. You know, I catch crabs Monday through Friday. I sell crabs money through Friday, but in terms of my roadside stand, I catch crabs Monday through Friday. And then I have a refrigerated trailer that I hook up and I go up to my lot and I set up a roadside stand.

And I sell all of my crabs from the whole week. So I'll sell people a crab that they saw me catch on a live stream. I partnered with a restaurant called Jimmy's Famous Seafood and when the social media thing was really just starting and they have a whole facility where they pack and ship crabs all over the U.S. So anyway, I'll run these live streams with a link in the live stream and people watching. If you, you know, you press the link, order the crabs, I'll write your name on a crab. And then you can get that crab two days later, the actual crab. And, you know, it's the real crab.

There's a lot more work involved for me to get that crab to you two days later in freaking Arkansas, you know, than it would be for me to sell it at my stand. But, you know, a lot of times I feel like to be successful, you need to be willing to put in the work that others aren't. So, you know, I have found myself in a really strange position here with the social media that was completely unseen where, you know, people start to associate me with the industry, whether I like it or not, you know, especially online, where everybody spends most of their time. So I've kind of been put in a position where people are coming to me looking for answers or solutions or things. things like that. In reality, I'm just a grabber, you know, that has a big presence. But with a big presence online comes a certain amount of influence and representation within such a niche occupation or whatever. The lane that I'm best in, I'm just trying to work on being the best

example of a waterman that I can be in terms of like considering the longevity of the resource and the fishery, you know, standing up for the fishery, you know, like, you know, people, everybody association with a waterman was like some old guy that's on death's door telling you some story about how it was and now he hates the government you know what I mean but I have an opportunity now to be a little bit of a brighter light in terms of what people think of when they think of a waterman you know because whether you like it or not I have a big following on the internet and most people when they think of Maryland or blue crabs they think of me they just associate it because that's what they've seen so I know that there's a lot of other people in the industry that know far more

but I'm trying to show people that we're still here, you know, that we matter, that the choices you make at the grocery store truly do affect me and the people around me. There is still people dependent, you know, because the whole kind of view of Waterman has been that they're kind of in the way. We like to market their story, but we don't want to take care of them, and they're dying. They're all old anyway. They're almost 60 years old. You know, we just need to get them through the last couple generations. they're telling their kids not to do it, then we won't have to deal with them.

We can get seafood from other places. So I'm now basically standing up against that just by existing, you know, and I'm telling people, you know, this is not the end of Waterman. Not only not the end, you know, a new beginning for Waterman. It's just, it's very important to me

that we can continue to do what we love and feed our families and that we matter. You know, we're still here and we're not going anywhere. and that we are conservation-minded, you know, like this new generation of Waterman. I mean, one of the things that I talk to other Waterman about is like, we don't have an option but to be conservation-minded, you know, as somebody dependent, directly dependent on the resource,

we have to be the most interested, and I am, and the most invested in keeping the resource around. And that's not what you think of when you think of commercial fishermen, typically. That's not your, you think of a pirate that just takes, takes to, it's gone. And that, unfortunately, has been the mentality of a lot of commercial fishermen all over the place because they're constantly being choked up with regulation and they don't have a say. They're not well represented. There's corruption within the system. With foreign seafood becoming so available and cheap, people just want a lower price point. So watermen are not, have not been, fishermen everywhere have not been well represented.

And a lot of them have had a bad mindset. You know, they have not had a conservation. They have not even considered it really because they're being told that they're the last ones and nobody will defend them, stand up for them. You know, there's no representation. So, you know, I kind of see that, you know, my presence online is sort of bring it to light and make a difference where I can, you know. And so I think right now I'm just trying to be a better example of what people think of when they think of commercial fishermen.

And I think that if I just stick with that, you know, I give it 110% every day. Like that's kind of how the mentality that got me here, I'm hopeful that I can start to make a difference. Not only for myself, I have a rising tide mentality. I realize that the issues that we're facing political and ecological are a lot bigger than myself. So just trying to fix the problem for myself is not an option to me. It needs to be a rising tide. There's no space for us to be, for Waterman to be divided within our community or any outdoorsman, I believe, you know, in this day and age. We have to stick together and we have to be better examples.

It's time to walk the walk, not just talk to talk. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece. Be sure to tell your family and friends about the incredible, gritty American stories that you're hearing here and here and on Brent Reeves, This Country Life podcast, also on this feed. And be sure to check out our friend Luke McFadden. He's all over the place, man. He's got a huge YouTube channel. got millions of followers on TikTok, Instagram, he's everywhere. Thank you. I hope you have a

great week. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the true. Truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards.

Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.