If he lets out too much chain, it becomes a ponderous mudplow. If the towed dredge fills too quickly, it will skip on the bottom. He fills the dredge’s gullet, a rectangular metal basket lined with narrow mesh, for precisely one minute at a steady pace of about three knots. From the cockpit helm station, he adjusts his speed as the dredge’s six-foot-wide maw skims the soft bottom of Eastern Bay. The winch’s steel chain unspools noisily, shivering water, until it jerks to a halt at Morris’s command. After aligning Mydra Ann on the proper coordinates, he steps outside into a frigid February morning to deploy the boat’s big dredge. It’s a routine he’s honed, in one form or another, over four decades on the Bay. From the warmth of his workboat’s cabin, Roger Morris checks his GPS and begins the drill he’ll perform nearly 900 times this winter.
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