Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.co.

That's audible.co.uk slash Wondery.

It wasn't so long ago that America's fisheries were in a state of collapse, with cratering fish stocks and

well-meaning but impractical government regulations threatening the livelihoods of 1.6 million

people and a $180 billion fish industry.

But then an unlikely alliance of environmental activists and commercial fishermen kind

of miraculously turned things around, leaving the nation's 4 million square miles of

fishing grounds healthier and more profitable than they've been in decades.

Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dan Morrison, and today is Friday, November 7th,

2025. Here to talk about this crazy, hard one turnaround.

I'm now joined by Buddy Gwinden, a commercial fisherman on the Texas Gulf Coast,

and Scott Hickman, a charter fisherman who once saw Buddy and his ilk

as ruthless competitors for ever more elusive fish.

Now the pair are traveling the world, talking about how cooperation and a new system of

catch shares saved their livelihoods.

That collaboration is the subject of a new book, Sea Change, by Environmental Defense

Fund Executive Director Amanda Leland and author James Workman.

Buddy, Scott, thanks for joining me.

It was our pleasure. Thank you for having us. Appreciate it. Scott, let's start by explaining

exactly what changed here. How was fishing being regulated before this new system was put in place?

Before our new management system, we fished under what we called a derby fishery where we raced for fish.

We ran in and out catching whatever the government told us we could catch at that time.

...