No. 142 The sounds coming from "The Sound" (Back Sound)

(Back Sound)

Long Haul Boats working the "Pollywag" of Back Sound

Throughout the longest days of summer, it was not uncommon to be awakened on a "slick cam" morning by a din of hollering coming from well beyond the shore at the Landing. Sometimes we would run down the path to look toward that distinctive yet familiar sound. Frequently, out towards the Island channel, could be seen a host of small dories heading out from a much larger fishing vessel. 

The voices that had pierced the morning were the sound of crewmen, mostly African Americans, working on a "shad boat" that had found a school of menhaden in the deeper water that was just a few hundred yards from the shoreline. Almost always, after their catch had been surrounded by their net, the “chanteymen” would morph into a musical chorus of brilliant harmonies even while they tugged on the heavy nets they were charged with hauling aboard. Their ringing voices would echo across the calm water so clearly that it sounded as if they were as near as the foaming water line that marked the incoming tide. “Shad boating” was done on an industrial scale in nearby Beaufort, down the southeast coast to the Florida Keys, and then back along the Gulf of Mexico all the way to Texas.  But it required more organization and capital investment than the Islanders of my youth had to offer. Watching the large and coordinated crews of experienced seamen work from a distance was the closest that most of us growing up on the Island ever got to being part of that culture.

"Shad Boat Dories" working for Menhaden Fisheries
(photo property of Saltwater Fisherman)

The men of Harkers Island were another kind of fishermen. For the most part, they worked hard -- just as hard as those who tugged on the giant purse seines that were carried on the shad boats. But they worked at their own pace and at a rhythm set by their internal clocks rather than by the beat of work song. They deliberately chose to be unshackled by the constraints of bosses, foremen and time clocks