Weekend America

Last Chance

FEBRUARY 3, 2007 Listen to this Story

Sorting oysters

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There are parts of American culture that our grandchildren may never experience. The Florida Everglades are submerging. Montana's Grinnell Glacier is receding. Some experts predict that well before the end of this century, most of our seafood will be farmed instead of caught wild, and the oyster industry is already getting there. Independent producer Lawrence Lanahan heads out with a waterman who catches oysters in the Chesapeake Bay, to experience a vanishing way of American life.

Fun Facts About Oysters and the Chesapeake from Independent Producer Lawrence Lanahan:

• One translation of "Chesapeake" from Algonquin is "Great Shellfish Bay"
• Oysters are filter-feeders. In the spring, they feed on algae blooms. Back in the 17th century, when the Chesapeake was clear and pristine, oysters filtered the entire bay in a week. Now it takes them a year.
• The "Oyster Wars" of the late 19th Century pitted Maryland watermen against Virginia watermen, and both against the marine police.
• It's true that it is better to harvest and eat oysters in months with the letter R.
• Archeologists have shown that the size of oysters declines with overharvesting and correlates almost perfectly with population density.
• Baby oysters, called "spat," are attracted to the chemicals in old oyster shells; that's why they "strike" there.
• Don't let the consistency scare you: no one should go through life without eating an oyster on the half shell.

Cooper's Creek isn't exactly a creek. It's only 1000 feet long, a jagged crack in the shoreline just before the St. Mary's River dumps out near the mouth of the Potomac River. For Southern Maryland waterman Bill Trossbach, it's more like a harbor.

"You can run the boat right ashore," Trossbach said as we eased his 50-year-old Chesapeake workboat back into Cooper's Creek after a day of oystering. "It's deep water here. Look at those piers. They're not very long, are they?"

One morning about forty years ago, someone told Trossbach about a lot going up for sale on a spot at the back of this creek where the water turns to mud. He bought it that afternoon. He cut down some trees, which he used to build his boats, and then he built a modest rancher-by hand-where the trees used to be.

Fewer and fewer of Trossbach's neighbors are watermen. (Two of his neighbors, in fact, are Ben Bradlee, Vice President At Large of The Washington Post, and Ted Koppel, former host of Nightline.) Trossbach estimates that there were 1500 watermen making a living off of the St. Mary's County tidewater when he started in the 1950s. Now, he says, there are about 75.

In his career, Trossbach has collected oysters every way there is to do it. He used to work with hand tongs, which oystermen have been using for over 300 years. Hand tongs are essentially two long rakes connected by a pin-you drop them down, squeeze, and pull up the oysters. He has also used a mechanized version of those called patent tongs, and he's even gone scuba diving to collect oysters. Now he works off an engine-driven boat with a hydraulically operated dredge.

Maryland watermen use many kinds of boats, all with local names like bugeye, skipjack, and bateau. Trossbach's boat is a v-bottomed boxstern. He built it 50 years ago and maintains it himself. The v-bottom makes for a smoother landing when rough water bounces the stern, and the square front of the boat-hence the name "boxstern"-helps him push the barge he uses to dump old oyster shells back into the river. (Trossbach does this to replenish the river's oyster population in the river, since baby oysters attach themselves to-or, in the local parlance, "strike"-old shells.)

The grace with which he operates his rig belies the bevy of skills stealthily at work. He has to watch the depth finder to see where the oysters are, use a hydraulic foot pedal to let a metal dredging contraption drop down to the river bottom, go in a circle to keep the dredge from rubbing against the side of the boat, use the pedal to pull it back up, and dump the dredged material on a wide metal table aboard the boat. Then he has to sort through-or "cull," as he says in his thick Chesapeake accent-a pile that is at least 90 percent empty oyster shells, make sure the oysters he finds are longer than the state-regulated three inches, hammer apart the oysters that are stuck to the shells they bonded to as babies, throw the good ones in a bucket, and knock the empty shells overboard, all while lowering the dredge back down, circling the boat, and watching the depth finder for the next oyster bar.

"And I'm talking to you, too," he added when I joined him.

Yes...about everything from the war in Iraq to the superiority of life in southern Maryland over New York City.

"I think they have a modern term for that: multitasking," Trossbach said, chuckling, as his rubber-gloved hands massaged the pile. "I'm a multitasking specialist."Each load from the dredge-or "lick," as Trossbach calls it-told a story. I saw crabs from half an inch to six inches wide. I saw oyster toads, which are little tadpole-like creatures that Trossbach calls "bar dogs." ("They lay behind the shell," Trossbach said, "and when something comes by, they're like a dog looking out of a doghouse.") There were bricks, tires, mason jars, and miniature liquor bottles.

The most amusing finds came when we dredged off the shore of my alma mater, St. Mary's College of Maryland: beer cans and a professional Frisbee golf disc. (Ah, college.) It was strange to look back at the campus from the river, especially with a waterman. I had spent so many hours on the shore looking out over the majestic river as an act of pure leisure, even as a way of deliberately forgetting about work. Here I was looking back at the campus from that river with a man whose livelihood depended on it. The campus, so familiar for so long, looked completely different that day.

At 1 p.m. on our trip, with 10 bushels lining the sides of the boat, Trossbach gunned the engine, and we sped south toward the distant Virginia horizon. I wondered why he was heading home so soon. Maryland regulations limit oystermen to 12 bushels a day and only allow them to harvest between sunup and 3 p.m. We had gotten an early start at 7 a.m., and he had two hours and two bushels to go. Then I remembered his answer when I asked that morning long we'd be staying out. "Today is Friday," he had said with a sly grin. "You can read between those lines."

"I love what I do," Trossbach said as we neared the mouth of Cooper's Creek. "I do all year round what some people retire to do or go on vacation to do.

"There's an old local saying," he continued. "'Once you get some of that mud on you, you can't get it off."

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