Two days before, Agustin and Perla Martinez and their 14-year-old son, Yahel, took their boat,out on Galveston Bay. Father and son checked oil levels and kept an eye on the engine temperature, making sure everything was ready for Agustin to get back to work.
Bills in recent years stressed them. Last year, they took no vacations and Christmas presents were few. Sometimes Martinez got work on privately leased reefs. He took a job with an oyster farm off Bolivar Peninsula, but the pay did not make the long drive worthwhile. When the season began two days later, only three of nine areas in Galveston Bay were open, by state order. Martinez and other fishermen arose early to stake their places in the two best spots. Parks and wildlife officials had sampled the areas and found these were the only ones with enough oysters to be fished relatively safely.
Agustin Martinez, left, and Javier Martinez, harvest oysters with a dredge on the first day of oyster season. “It’s the job,” he said.circled at a distance, with Alex Gutierrez head-to-toe in rain gear. He was working with two hired deckhands.Adrian Gutierrez was at home, waiting to hear if he would get an interview for a construction job his father wanted him to consider.The Gutierrezes and Martinezes, fathers and sons both, were in Austin on Nov.
In a family photo, Alex Gutierrez stands in front of his first boat with his wife and daughter Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, at his home in Galveston. Gutierrez said he started fishing 36 years ago, and he took his son Adrian on the boat starting when he was 8 years old.Adrian Gutierrez works to sign people up to speak as several hundred oystermen and supporters attend the Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission hearing at TPW headquarters Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022 in Austin.
Many of the fishermen had been here in March to press the same fight with commissioners, asking them to leave more reefs open during the season. Arch “Beaver” Aplin, III, chairman of Texas Parks & Wildlife Commission, awaits the start of a meeting as several hundred oystermen and supporters attend the commission’s hearing at TPW headquarters Thursday, Nov. 3, 2022 in Austin. Nearly all the protestors work in the oyster fishing industry, and they attended to discuss the closure of oyster reef areas and temporary closures of oyster restoration areas in Galveston Bay and San Antonio Bay.
L: Misho Ivic, right, and Johny Jurisich discuss their plans to testify at a commission hearing in March. R: Agustin Martinez and his son Yahel protest at the Dickinson Marine Lab. Ivic, 72, headed across Galveston bay on a skiff one recent morning, his 32-year-old son Joey at the wheel. Three of his six kids work for his oyster business, and he worries about their futures.
"The whole fishery agrees that the sampling now is inaccurate," Jurisich said."We all agree there are harvestable oysters in boys that are being kept closed. Focusing so many boats in so few areas is wrong and irresponsible."