Sonny Beal

Thank you for having me.

We're usually pretty secretive on what we catch, you know, because if somebody finds out that you're doing good, they might move in on your territory and stuff.

So we try to keep it kind of hush-hush.

The catch was down a little bit this season.

It was down about 30% statewide.

We can't have record years every year, so we kind of just take it for what it is.

The price was down a little bit from last year, but last year was a record price.

So we're still chugging along when we have good years and bad years, and we take it as it goes.

Yes, that's correct.

Twenty years ago or so, we had to switch from floating ground lines to sinking ground lines.

The ground lines are the lines that are in between your traps on bottom.

And also, you know, the rope doesn't last as long, whereas chafing on bottom.

So, you know, it's rope that we have to buy every single year.

We have to buy breakaway devices for our buoys.

So if a whale gets caught in a buoy, you know, the device breaks, the buoy pops off, the whale doesn't get entangled.

We now have to put breakaway links, plastic links in our lines.

So, you know, if the buoy doesn't break, then the line will break.

And actually they said that now that we have the link in our line, we don't need the link in our buoy.

So it's just, you know, they're going, going right around Robin Hood's barn, kind of a deal.

We also have to put a colored traces in our lines, like where I fish, I have to have a purple tracer and then