Commercial Fishing, Once A Great Lakes Way Of Life, Slips Away

Reporting from Milwaukee— It's mid-April, and the gray-haired fisherman and his gray-haired son are not headed out for just another day of hoisting nets from the depths of Lake Michigan.

For decades their workday has always started before dawn. But today the men don't climb aboard their battered commercial fishing boat until noon, because they aren't hustling to get to their normal fishing grounds three hours out in the middle of the lake — a place that, from the view out the little round windows of the wheel house, is still as wild and lonely as any on the globe.

The men have always started their day wondering whether a load of fish is straining the nets that they set the day before. Today their compass doesn't point them toward any nets at all.

The boat's rumbling 855 Cummins diesel pushes them down the muddy Kinnickinnic River and under the Hoan Bridge.

To read the rest of the story, please go to: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel