Dead in the water

"It isn't all that big a deal," he adds, counting the wraps he makes around each loop of the net before tying a knot.

Maybe so, maybe not. Or maybe, compared to fighting government regulators and corporate shrimp farming and the multimillion-dollar Gulf fishing fleet, there's some comfort in being faced with nothing more than a ripped net. Fixing a net, after all, is something a self-sufficient fisherman can deal with.