Support for Catching the Codfather comes from Rogers Fish Company, founded by Roger Berkowitz,

offering an array of New England seafood and entrees shippable anywhere in the U.S.

More at RogersFishco.com.

And also from safety insurance, offering a variety of home insurance products to cover your home's increased value.

You can ask an independent agent about safety insurance.

Safety insurance will help manage life storms.

Every weekday morning at dawn, the harbor here in New Bedford, Massachusetts, fills with returning fishing boats as skippers bring their catch to auction.

For generations now, the port of New Bedford has been organized around a daily ritual.

The moment when all the key players converge and everyone's

economic fate is determined. The fish auction.

Ten. Thirty two. Ten. Three three, ten. Ten. Ten. Ten. Ten. Thirty five. Ten.

Back in the early eighties, the auction took place in a small city-owned building right at the dock, called the

Warfinger Building. It was so small that the fish dealers would stand shoulder to shoulder,

and the haze of cigarette smoke was thick enough to catch the morning light coming in the windows.

At the front of the room, there was a railing to hold back the crowd,

and behind that a giant chalkboard divided into columns.

It listed the catch from each boat broken down by species,

so many pounds of cod, so many pounds of yellow-tail flounder,

so many pounds of dabs, and so on.

But this was not anything like the kind of auction you might expect.

It was much, much more confusing,

because instead of going down the list and auctioning off the species one by one,

...