Fishing Newport shores GALLERY: Snapshots of History Balboa Pavilion McFadden Square The Piers The Arches Restaurant Red Cars The Dory Fleet Newport Harbor High Jamboree Road Other landmarks    RELATED STORIES Suburban Legends A home to celebrities A community remembers Fun Facts Test your Newport knowledge    COLUMNS Publisher's Note From City Hall Editor's note Ending note NB100 Magazine (PDF)               By Andrew Edwards For more than a century, the Dory Fleet’s fish market near Newport Pier has been a local source for fresh seafood. Especially for people who don’t mind getting up early. Open every morning, the Dory Fleet is about as old-time as Newport Beach gets. The day’s catch is sold out of weather-beaten boats that function as sales counters and table tops where fish are beheaded and cleaned before customers’ eyes. Seafood lovers line up at the fish market around sunrise and leave with bags of fresh fish, crabs or even sea snails. “The traditions are still the same. You catch the fish and bring them in,” said Carrie Beck, who has worked around the fleet for about 40 years. “You take what you get and like it,” she added. As an institution, the Newport Beach’s Dory Fleet is older than the city itself. The fleet was founded in 1891, 15 years before Newport became a city. There have been some changes over the years. Modern dory fishermen use motors that were not available to their forerunners. The fleet has gotten smaller. Fleet member Steve Escobar said in the past, the fleet had about 20 members. Now that number has dropped to six or seven anglers. Over the decades, there also have been some choppy waves for the fleet’s anglers. Wartime restrictions prevented fishermen from taking their boats out to sea during World War II. In 2002, an emergency fishing ban almost fried the fleet’s business. Newport officials lobbied federal regulators with the Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service to ease the prohibition to save the fleet. The fleet survived to continue selling fish through 2005, but for anglers, the increase in fishing regulations is one of the most significant trends that has affected the dory fleet. “They’re closing the ocean, that’s what they’re doing,” fisherman Marcos Voyatzis said. “They’re turning it into one big aquarium.” Still, Voyatzis said, the fisherman’s trade remains a viable business in Newport. “If you’re willing to go out there and catch the fish, it’s pretty good,” he said.