The commercial fishing industry is how Reese Hair has been making a living for more than 30 years. Tuesday afternoon, he was at the dock because 15 foot waves were keeping him from doing his job on the ocean.
“You just don’t go out there and play no more,” said Hair.
“When the wind kicks up it makes the ocean very rough and you know once it gets over 5-6 feet, it’s very uncomfortable and starts to get pretty unsafe out there,” said Wayne Mershon, the owner of Kenyon Seafood.
Typically, Mershon said commercial fisherman will stay on the water for days and they will try to make as many trips as they can. But since January, they’ve only been able to go out less than a handful of times because of the waves.
“You go over the top of them and every now and then you have them crash on you but it’s just, it’s just brutal,” said Hair.
And recently, Mershon said commercial fisherman in Murrells Inlet are lucky to get a 24 to 30 hour window on the ocean.
“You’ve only got a few hours. You’ve got to hope that when you get there the fish are biting, you hope you go to the right area, it’s very stressful,” said Hair.
Because they aren’t able to catch fish, seafood distributors like Mershon are also taking a hit and that means restaurants aren’t getting local product.
“If we can’t get this we have to get something else because you know they have to be able to have the seafood in their restaurants,” said Mershon.
Mershon said the big problem is while commercial fisherman in the Inlet are stuck on the docks, other fisherman from North Carolina to the Florida Keys may be catching the quota in calmer conditions.
And fisherman like Hair are left waiting for a chance to get back to work.
“It’s making it hard to pay bills but we hope there is a change here shortly,” said Hair.
