Silver Harvest
On Ihe Chowan
The river, Ihe people. an<l Ihe world's
biggesl herring ealeh.
By STEPHEN MARCH
Every year during iheir annual
spawning season, which begins in late
February and lasts until the middle of
May, millions of herring migrate from
the Atlantic Ocean to the relatively
shallow waters of the Chowan River,
where the female fish lay their eggs.
During the spawning season, as the
first glow of dawn appears in the sky
above this Northeastern North Caro¬
lina river, the fishermen arc already
out in their boats, on their way to un¬
load the shining herring from the nets.
The fishermen take their fish to
Perry-Wynn’s Fish Company which is
located on the river near Colerain, and
unload them into steel vats on the pier.
Perry’- Wynn’s, which handles from
eight to 12 million pounds of herring
a year, is the largest herring fish com¬
pany in the world.
The Chowan River fishermen say
that they cannot make as much money
as they once did. Because there are not
enough people available to clean and
process the fish, a fisherman can sell
only two boatloads of herring a day to
the company. Perry-Wynn’s is current¬
ly using only half of its facilities be¬
cause of this labor shortage, due mostly
to the seasonal nature of the work.
A good fisherman can gross S400 a
day, but his expenses are high. Nets
cost as much as $500 apiece; his boat
and engine costs about $3,000; and.
too. he must pay his helper and buy
gasoline and oil for his boat.
Russians May Hurt
Most American fishing for herring is
done off the coast of New England,
But, recently, Russian fleets have been
fishing for herring off the North Caro¬
lina and Virginia coasts. Although the
Russians are restricted by treaty to an
eight million pound limit of herring,
they may be exceeding that limit, ac¬
cording to information gathered by the
crew of the Dan Moore, a research
vessel of the state fisheries division.
A steady decline in the number of
herring caught by North Carolina fish¬
ermen over the past three years has
alarmed state fishery officials who be¬
lieve that the decline may be caused by
the Russian fishing fleets exceeding
their limit. But in all fairness to the
Russians, the decline could be due to
the cyclical nature of the fish’s breed¬
ing habits. The 1969-71 period may be
a low spell in the herring’s spawning
cycle.
Leo Wynn, one of the owners of
Perry-Wynn's, doesn't think the Rus¬
sians’ off-shore fishing has hurt his
business.
"If it has," Wynn said, "we haven't
been able to tell it."
Wynn, whose experience in the her¬
ring fishing business goes back 30
years, can recall other herring spawn¬
ing seasons — years before the Rus¬
sians began fishing off the Southern
coast — when herring were very scarce
in the Chowan River. Wynn remem¬
bered one year in the early I950's
when herring were so scarce in North
Carolina’s rivers that he and his men
had to move their entire operation up
to Connecticut where the fish were
more plentiful.
Production Line
The air at Perry-Wynn's is filled
with the pungent smells of vinegar,
brine and fish. The colors, muted and
soft, bold and bright, and the intent
faces of the workers, most of whom
are black, provide endless subjects for
a photographer’s camera. Employees
were warm and friendly and quite will¬
ing to explain their work.
From the vats out on the pier the
herring travel by conveyer into the
"rendering room." where their scales
are removed in a huge scaling cylinder.
The herring are then carried on by
conveyer and deposited into one of two
enormous wooden tables. Surrounding
these tables are about 50 black women.
Working with razor-sharp knives these
women behead and clean the herring
with lightning speed. ’Ihe women put
the roe, or fish eggs, into metal buck-
lobovcl "Shimmering and lloshing, the herring
'pitted into I he boar, thousands of them. . . .”
i below) Her hand in motion, a cutter hurls a
cleaned fish to the metal basket. Buckets re¬
ceive the fish row. Heads and organs are thrown
into a basin of the table, and a conieycr carries
them to the processing plant, to be mode into
fish meol.
THE STATE. JULY 15. 1971
