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Dave Aripotch getting ready for another trek out to sea. (Photo credit: Jeremy Garretson)

Commercial fishing is one of America’s most dangerous jobs. In 2019, commercial fishermen suffered work-related deaths at a rate more than 40 times the average worker, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Regionally, the East Coast has a full third of all commercial fishing fatalities in the United States, more than any other region in the nation. Only logging work kills more Americans than commercial fishing annually. Still, the tempestuous North Atlantic, ripe with some of the world’s richest fisheries, beckons one generation of South Forkers after the next out into its waters…

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