Small Business in Plymouth County: FRANK MIRARCHI

Fisherman Frank Mirarchi of Scituate Cleans Up (the junk in the ocean, that is!)

Professional fisherman Frank Mirarchi of Scituate loves the ocean, loves to fish and has learned to accept being part of a movement that's cleaning up the tons of junk in the ocean and making sure there is a future

of abundant fish for our dinner tables. No grizzled "old man and the sea" fisherman is he but instead an outspoken, well rounded and thoughtful man who finds himself enmeshed in the oceanic environmental whirlwinds of our time. A graduate of Boston College, he decided after school that a life at sea was for him. As he tells it: "When I was 18, I bummed a ride on a fishing boat. I was hooked, no pun intended. I fished my way through college, and then after graduating, I kept working on boats."

After five years learning the trade, Mirarchi set off on his own. "I thought I knew a lot, so I bought my own boat," he told me. "Had that boat till 1976, and we did very well. Fishing was totally unregulated prior to '76, so we just went out and we caught fish." The free-wheeling fishing - which included huge foreign fishing fleets not far from our shores - got even wilder for American fisherman when, due to severe depletion of fish stocks, a 200-mile fishing limit was instituted by the government. Foreign fleets could no longer fish off our shores. Frank remembers that time well, "When I started fishing, there weren't many boats. When the 200-mile fishing limit was instituted, others jumped in immediately. In Scituate, we went from three boats to eighty. Suddenly overfishing was a problem again and so strict government regulations were instituted. We've come full circle. Now there are eight boats out of Scituate."