when RI made the big jump in the shellfish license fee ..we were told that we would see the increase of monies going to help the shellfish industry …..… more transplants were the big [thing] . it went down & it,took a few years to find out it went to the General fund . .
We get/got paid .10 per pound or to make it easy $5 a bag & we loaded some large boats that carried & dumped them . along with a few paid one where were volunteer ones …& the diggers went out in force for free because it was there benefit ^ also a ball to to bar short your bull rakes in seconds & long minutes .
when I was in my prime & still one of the few tongers left _ I dug 62 bags in 5' of water /ya can only guess how well the high liners did .
yet like everything else / there is always guys that just watch . the digging & the follow the boats to watch were they were dumped ………… don,t have to worry about that much anymore …………………………….
