FLORIDA’S FORGOTTON COAST: LIFE ON THE APALACHICOLA BAY
WORKING THE BAY
Melaine Cooper Covell
James Hicks
Monette Hicks
Monica Lemieux
Carl McCaplan
James & Betty McNeill
Charles & Rex Pennycuff
A. L. Quick
Henry Tindell

TOOLS OF THE TRADE
Wes Birdsong
Corky Richards
Bobby Shiver
Charles Thompson
Genaro “Jiggs” Zingarelli

PROCESSING THE CATCH
Terry Dean
Grady Leavins
Lynn Martina
Fred Millender
Janice Richards
Anthony Taranto
Tommy Ward

THE SWEET SIDE
Donald Smiley
George Watkins

VINTAGE APALACH
Seafood & Honey

WHERE TO EAT
Apalach Eateries

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Interviews & photographs by Amy Evans

This project sponsored by the St. Joe Company.

Carl McCaplan’s family has relied on of the Apalachicola Bay for generations. Born in 1968, Carl practically grew up on the water. He remembers going out to oyster with his father when he was just eight years old. As a teenager, Carl moved away, looking for a different life. But the people and the place drew him back. He returned to Apalachicola and invested in his future. In the late 1980s Carl worked with the Oyster Association to replant the oyster beds. Twenty years later, oystermen are now harvesting those areas. The bay has provided for the McCaplan family, and it provides for Carl’s family today. He spends five days a week oystering. The other two days a week, he drives a truck for Leavins Seafood, delivering oysters throughout the state. It’s work that he loves in a place that he loves.

Listen to this 3-minute audio clip of Carl McCaplan talking about his first time out on the bay and what it takes to be a good oysterman.
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What follows is a portion of the original interview that has been edited for length. To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.

Subject: Carl McCaplan, oysterman & driver for Leavins Seafood
Date: March 20, 2006
Location: First Pentecostal Holiness Church – Apalachicola, FL
Interviewer: Amy Evans

Amy Evans: This is Amy Evans for the Southern Foodways Alliance. I'm in Apalachicola, Florida, on Monday, March 20th [2006], and I'm at the First Pentecostal Holiness Church on the west side of town, and I'm with Mr. Carl McCaplan. Carl, would you mind saying your name and briefly telling me what you do and how—well, how would you describe [what you do]?

Carl McCaplan:  Well, I'm Carl McCaplan—Carl Eugene McCaplan—and I harvest oysters, you know. I see both sides of it. Like I was telling you, I deliver the product. I've been doing it all my life, more or less, as I was a kid brought up in it and born in this [Franklin] County, raised, and I—you know, ask me the questions, and I'll give them to you.

Can you tell me your birth date, first of all?

It's June 3, 1968.

And you said you were born right down at the end of this road where the church is?

Yes. No, I wasn't born there. I was raised up there. I kind of started out in Eastpoint but by teenage—I was raised up down there when my daddy bought a piece of property.

How long has your family been in the area?

It goes back to my grandparents. They was actually born in Cottondale, my grandparents was. And on my daddy's side, they was from here, which I never got to know. They had passed away when I was—before I was even existed. But as far as my daddy, my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts—they survived off this bay. I mean, the women shucked them; [the men] caught them. It is a nice little history. As far as now you know it's—I work five days a week on the bay, and I drive a truck two days a week. And I might you know—on Sunday I go to church, so it—depending, four to five days on the bay, you know. I roll out of bed at five thirty in the morning, and I walk in the door around four o’clock in the evening, and my day is finished. That's what, you know—most working oystermen’s day, you know—life. They get up early and get home late.

So what was it like growing up here?

Well, I tried to move away. As a matter of fact, I moved to Bayou La Batre, Alabama, when I was young, and I stayed there a month-and-a-half. Couldn't stand it; I come back home. [Laughs] So there ain't no place like it. You know, everybody helps everybody here in this little community, which it's getting big now. Things is changing. And you can see that every day. Land has gone up [in value] and just don't know what the future is holding, that's for sure.

When you moved away, how old were you?

I was I think seventeen. I was young.

Anxious to get out?

You know, yeah. I quit school at shoot, fifteen. And because I was kind of—lead into health problems with the parents and helping them, income and you know—it all worked out, you know, because I provide for my family and built a house in [nineteen] ninety-eight, so I don't regret nothing. Actually, my wife, she shucked oysters up until I'd say [nineteen] ninety-five. She kept telling me, you know, “I want to do something different.” And she had her GED because she went back to school to get it, and so she's into realty. So but, you know—you know, the future, that will be there. Me, as a truck driver, that will be there. So we got our—you know, I got that to fall back on. But I see oystering going to be here—I think they want to, you know, keep some of the history here but for the people to see. I don't see it just going completely away, but it is getting smaller. The generations coming up, [thery’re] not doing it.

Did your father work on the bay? Did he oyster?

He oystered when I was young, when I was a kid, and then he went to work for the County Road Department.

Was it just a better opportunity for him when he took that job?

Yeah, he retired in it so, you know, retirement—[in] oystering, you're self-employed. The only retirement is if you put your money up, you know. And that's me—my truck driving job, that's my benefits. That's retirement. I locked it in two years ago. And that's the reason, you know, you—people is spoiled on the oystering because they don't have to, you know—they're their own boss, but they, you know—the benefits is your [responsibility], if you want to manage it.

Do you remember your first time out on an oyster boat?

It was with [my father]. Definitely with him because my parents separated when we was young. So my mama, you know, she never forced us to work, and my daddy got us when I was about seven [years old]. And right then—he worked out—out west, oil rigs and stuff on land, though. So he moved back here, I'd say, when I was probably—well, I was in first grade, and that's how I remember it. So I'd say I was probably eight. And when he got to come back here, he went oystering so—. Which my grandparents, they never moved from here. They oystered when I was a baby, which he oystered before that, you know. I just hear stories. My uncle will tell me how, you know, how my daddy was a great oysterman. And, as I say, it's interesting.

What is a great oysterman? Can you describe that?

Well it's just grit, and it's a lot of, you know—I've seen people move down here and become oystermen when they wasn't, you know—they couldn't never do what somebody who was born and raised here [could do]. But you know, for them to adapt to it, you've got to give them credit, you know. Somebody come here, a grown man who never done it before in his life, and he adapted to it, so I give them credit. But you know, they couldn't never do what somebody did local that was born and raised. And there's some better than others. You know, a good oysterman is just somebody that protects the bay you know, don't catch the little ones, cleans it up, get the spats off of them, and leaves them out there to grow and they—there's a lot of little things, you know, that—you got somebody that's concerned about the future and the little ones, the spats…And you get somebody that's interested in that, you know. That's a great oysterman. It ain't just about—only about quantity. And, you know, and volume. And we have the relaying; the Oyster Association replanted the bay. We have that during the summertime. You know, one day a week, and that's really been a big help because this year we seen where—I was a kid planting with my daddy, my step-daddy, and they used to have us on the film that you had to watch to get your harvesting license every year—and relaying and—. But anyway, we relayed probably twenty years ago. I figured it up the other day. I believe it was twenty years ago, maybe a year or two difference, but this year was the first year we've been able to harvest there.

The place that you planted?

Replanted twenty years ago…So it did, you know—it took that many years but it—actually, it paid off. So the state, you know, they like seeing that. That way they know the money is going to used that they used to move oysters.

Can you describe the relay process and how it is that your step-father was able to be the person to take part in that?

Well, it was—it's about going in secluded areas where you ain't allowed to harvest and that's none—year-round and moving them in open areas—why the area is closed at that time of the month. And that way you don't harvest polluted oysters, and that gives them time to clean. And if you do go back and harvest them, you know, which these areas right here was [planted] making new bars. It wasn't like you'd haul them to a bar that was already developed. And they were just [in] used boxes, and we'd harvest them, and we'd tong them, and we moved probably five loads a day. Back then, I forget—it wasn't much money but, you know, it wasn't much oysters, so you had to just do what—to provide for the family.

So but the re-harvesting was the thing that your step-father was hired to do? It's not something that he just volunteered to do?

As—with your license, you know, it's an option. I mean as long as you've got a harvest license you, get to do it. Some do it and some don't because it's very—it's hard work. You take some of the older men, and they won't go out there and do it because it is physical.

But it's a reinvestment in your future.

Yeah, absolutely. But like I say, some of the older men they just—it's hard work, and it's a little too much on them. They'll still harvest oysters, but they don't participate in the relay. You know, this year I done [the relay]. I believe I made five thousand dollars this year in the three months that we harvested. And I probably had a thousand dollar expenses so—not even counting wear and tear. But the thing is, it's the future. You know, down the line it will pay off.

I've interviewed a few people, and everybody is talking about the regulations and the licensing, and, if you let it lapse, you can't get it back and all these different hurdles that one needs to jump through to work the bay. Has that weeded a lot of people out, or has it made it kind of more regulated in a positive sense in any way to protect the bay?

They did that to protect the local—I heard a survey the other day [that] it's like the licenses each year has went down, but it went back up, you know, because a lot of people use it for fallback. If they lose their job they can fallback. So you see, out of a hundred-percent, fifty-percent only the ones on the bay. The other fifty-percent just got them in their pocket in case they need them. They get them—because if they don't get—I don't know if they changed the law where it's going to be, if you don't get them, it will overlap where you have to go through a process. Right now I think all you have—the locals—if you're from the State of Florida you have to watch a film—a three-hour film which they say is necessary.

What does the film consist of?

Well it shows the safety—all the safety equipment—and it shows the areas of the bay—the legal harvesting areas and the closed areas. It gives some pictures in there where you can see, like I told you, me and my step-father over there relaying years ago. They still got film of it, you know. It's kind of neat. And it just—it kind of schools you on where you don't get in no closed areas and the FWC, they—that's the Florida Game and Wildlife Commission—they make the safety equipment that you've got to have per foot of the boat.

Do most oystermen know how to swim? Do they have to know how to swim these days?

I know some that don't, and I know some that do. And I got a guy I went to school with that got in a situation—I think it was the year 2000, right there around Christmas—got the anchor rope in the wheel and got turned stern, and both of them lost their lives on the bay. One of them was older than me, but the other guy I knowed well, went to school with him. I knowed both of them, but the other one I went to school with. But we usually lose a life out there about every five years, you know—some waterspout [water tornado]. That's where oystermen have to use their judgment. And my judgment is, if it's bad weather and everybody goes in, and I look around, and it's only me, it's time to go, you know. You've got to know—it's good to have somebody, if you get in a situation you can have help, which I've been in—I mean right after that happened, I got in the same situation. I lost both of my anchors. My friend next to me loaned me an anchor and it was rough, and I tied off. And we had to use a lot of line because we lost two anchors, and we replaced it with one. And we pulled up and got the rope in the wheel and got turned stern to sea, and I was just fixing to cut the rope, and I was able to get it out of the wheel and—which if something did happen there, my friend was right beside us. I mean we had—but I—you know that's one of the things I look at. If there ain't nobody out there, and it's rough, it's time to come in. They didn't use that judgment. And if they had to do it all over again, I know they would, but that's grit. I mean sometimes you grit, you know, and you carry it too far. They call this grit-water.

So is the community of oystermen pretty tight or is it pretty competitive or a little bit of both?

Well, it's narrowed down to the biggest dealer now is Grady Leavins, the one I work for. And then the new one come—you know, that's come in the business, which he bought Allen Brothers out is Water Street; that's pretty large and Barber Seafood over in Eastpoint. And you know, it's competitive, you know, because I see the price of the oysters they're getting now. Because they used to compete and couldn't get no price and all it was—was a battle back and forth and, you know, the company can't grow like that. And my boss [Grady Leavins], he invested in that frozen half-shell with his—it's really probably the smartest thing he ever done in his life.

That is amazing technology; he took me on a tour of that.

You know, I go there and I told him—he wants to put me in sales, and I said, “Well let me go out there and see what I can do,” which I've done picked him up customers on fresh [oysters]. And I landed the first one I went to.

How did you sell it?

Ah, well, I went to the guy years ago for fresh and couldn't never get into his door. He was dedicated to the customer, but they didn't have his product, so really—he absolutely—he said, “I remember you.” And that's what really paid off. He knows I worked hard. I went in there three years in a row and talked to the guy—didn't push, just, you know, I just let him know I was still working for this man. I told you he's a good man, and if he wasn't, I wouldn't still be here with him.

So when did you start working for Grady Leavins?

Eight years ago. I'm working on eight, so actually, seven and a half.

Did you go to him as an oysterman and then worked up to driving trucks?

I was a logger. I would drive a log truck. I've done that for two companies, two years. One year for one company and one for the other, and I drove routes, you know, seafood routes before for other companies. And I went to [Grady Leavins] and told him I wanted to make—you know, I've jumped from job to job, and I said, “Hey, I'm ready to make a foundation. I want to get somewhere and stay.” And right then you know that just—because he didn't know me, and I didn't—we just—I knowed him because he's a big company man. But, you know, I told him about five years after I was there, I said, “See, I told you.” You know, so he believes me. He said that I'm an honest man, and I tell him something and he's just like him, you know. You communicate better when you got an honesty relationship.

So when you quit school when you were fifteen, you were helping to support your family. Were you oystering? What were you doing back then?

I was oystering…My step-father, he was struggling with his heart, and it just, you know, he—he's still living today, but he's had open-heart surgery, he's had a knee replacement—kneecap replacements on both legs. He's a good man but like him, he—I'll give you a little bit of his history. He didn't grow up here. He growed up in Southport over in Panama City—next to it—but as long as I've known him, he oystered. But, you know, actually I got on that bay right by myself at that age. I'd say thirteen or fourteen years old, you know. I quit school close to fifteen, but when I was thirteen, fourteen, on the days out of school, I'd oyster and give mama the money.

Well, how have you watched the industry change, since you've been in it so long?

Well, I just watch the land value go up, watch the—you know, the buildings, furniture, you know, for realty—vacation realty. The furniture stores is going over in Eastpoint. Where there used to be woods there ain't nothing but buildings now. And I bought my land at eleven thousand dollars. I believe they're selling that right now for eighty thousand dollars, and it's just—you know, I can tell you, you know, just things like that. There's a big change. I just wish I invested in property around here. People who got property got gold.

Well and it seems like a lot of people are selling right now, too. Do you know where they're ending up?

Well, you know, where I'm at, they just told us that they're fixing to build a government house in between in an area, which we're not happy about. So that means our property will be—the value will go down and the poor, they try you know to put the poor in an area, because you know all the trailer parks is getting bought up—being developed into something else—condos or whatever, so they just—mainly it's a little town called Sumatra. It's a lot of them moving up there in Liberty County, north of us twenty-five miles. And I got some friends up there. But right now, as far as the people that's getting, you know, in the trailer parks, they ain't got nothing for them. Actually they're living with neighbors, parents, you know. I don't know how it's working out, actually, but they're looking ahead right now at building government housing.

So tell me about working at Leavins Seafood and what that's been like for eight years.

Well, it's real professional. You know, I've worked for seafood companies that wasn't, and when I went there, that's the first thing I seen. I seen a guy that had things in order. He had people in positions that did their job. He didn't bump, move, or nothing, you know. He'd tell you something, you'd take it to the bank. And I never had that in a job—at a seafood industry [job]—and that's one thing that kept me there. And, you know, I had a young man ask me, you know—he's my nephew—he had asked about a job, and I said, “Well what's wrong with your job?” He said, “People.” I said, “Well, there's people at every job.” [Laughs] And I said, “Unless you don't want that, you're going to have to get your own business and you be the boss.” But I matured at that company. You know, you go through them battles—people you don't agree with, people that might make it a little hard for you. And you know, like I told him, I said, “You know I had that same issue at my job. And you got to learn how to deal with it.” But the boss you know, he's a man that he—I could work for him. I don't know why, at a lower payroll, you know. It's just that's the way he is. You could work, you know, because it's professional. Your job is easier because he's got people in the places that don't make your job hard, and that's the reason he is where he's at today—able to be successful.

About how many oystermen does he have?

He's got more now than he ever had because of little places going out of business. He's got now—my estimate, I believe, he's probably bringing in three hundred bags [of oysters] a day—just say three hundred, three fifty a day. So, you know, an oysterman averages twenty [bags of oysters], you know, and some less, but he has to have probably about twenty, twenty-five oystermen.

So the oystermen that he buys from, is it a loyal regulated group of people, or does that switch up? Because it seems like some of the people I talk to, like they'll go one place one time and one place another time.

Yeah, that's where, you know, they spoil and, you know, they get crossed, you know, and get mad, and they'll go to work for somebody else. I watched a guy throw his oysters in the truck and go back—you know, go to another place, and that's where you get that. That's where that young man, I was telling him [that] you're going to have issues. You got to learn how to work through them. But I got friends that's hot-headed and [have an] attitude and [go from] job to job, and they look at me and shake their heads and say, “I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you put up with it.” Don't know. And it's all maturity. You can't—I mean, that’s the reason, you know, I've been saved two years at this church we're at now. And one thing I didn't have but, you know, God forgave us and, you know, why can't we forgive somebody?

So how long do you think you'll be oystering?

Probably, you know, I'm going to do it as long as I can for sure. You know actually, this past year I was looking into buying my own truck and going in my own business, and I seeked God about it, prayed about it. And I said, “Well, if it goes through, it goes through.” And it didn't go through, so I felt like it meant for me to stay here longer, you know, because if I ever quit Grady Leavins, I won't be working for another seafood company. I probably won't be on the bay. But my main job, my main, you know—is driving that truck. Because they might call me up tonight and say, “Hey, you got to go out tomorrow.” And I can, you know. So oysters won't be caught. But I do well oystering. You know I believe I brought in thirty thousand dollars [from oystering] last year—the year before. And plus, hold that job there driving [for Leavins Seafood].

[Driving the oysters means that you’re] shipping fresh oyster or the flash frozen oysters to his customers all over the region?

Just South Florida…I mean, he's got trucks that goes north, but I'm a Florida boy. [Laughs] I run out to Louisiana and Texas—no, I don't—I actually don't like going to Texas, but I go out to Louisiana every now and then. And I went through where [Hurricane] Katrina went through and went out there last year and seen it. Sad. I just wonder where all the money is going to come from to put it back together. But as far as that, I don’t like going. I don’t like it.

What do you like about driving the truck in general?

I was kind of raised up in that too. I was fourteen years old—right after I quit school, right around fourteen, fifteen, in that area—and a guy asked me would I help him unload a semi. He runned Daytona, Florida, and South—a little bit South Florida, down to Sebastian on the East Coast. I said, “Yeah,” you know, “I need income.” I was working in the oyster house a little bit and got in that truck, and I've been helping drivers up 'til, you know—see, I worked for that lady, and she sent me out to Alabama, so I was seventeen [years old] out there, so that was about three years on them routes and working in the house—oyster house. And I come back from out there, and she put me back on—in the truck delivering oysters, helping drivers. And I was just born in that, too. As far as handling customers and—I do a well job with people.

So tell me more about oystering and what you like about it and what a day is like for you out on the bay.

Well the best way to describe that, I reckon, is going to, you know, the feel of the bottom, you know. Like I say, somebody that ain't here—ain't been here and come to try this, ninety-percent of them wouldn't work out. And it's just, you know, it's something I was born into. The manual tonging, folks you say you use them tongs and you feel the bottom—some bottoms is sandy and some muddy. And if you find a good spot, and [you are] getting the volume that day, and then you come in and you meet your goal, and you brag to your wife when you check it in, and you wait and give her that check. But it's just mainly just something that I was born into just like the truck driving. It's just—I growed up in it, love it. I don't believe I'd do it, if I didn't love it. But a lot of people ain't like me. They drive a truck, they ain't going to oyster. If they oyster, they ain't driving no truck. I believe I got that from my daddy. He, you know, seven days a week he's finding something.

So there are parts of the season when you're not on the bay at all and you're in the truck all the time?

No. Year-round I'm on the bay doing something. Like I said, the relaying, I probably made five thousand—I bet I made five thousand dollars. To give you an example, my brother, he works for the road camp. He couldn't get it on it until daddy retired because they wouldn't—if you've got the same last name, they don't hire you. He retired and my brother replaced him. And my brother, he worked Monday through Thursday, and he oystered Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monday he'd go back to work on the road camp—at the county—and he'll oyster them three days [on the weekend]. To give you a little—now that will give you [an idea of] the way we was brought up.

So what would you want people outside of Florida—and people who don't know the area and don't know anything about oystering—what would you want them to know about what you do?

Well actually, if you love oysters, feel comfortable and safe [eating them]. And I’d like to see [oystering] go onto the generation of my son and see another generation come up—a group of oystermen—because I think, you know, things is changing, and I think maybe the managing your money and managing your income and—you know, it's liable to be Grady owns the oyster boat, and they just work under him. You know, a big business—a company man. So I'm looking for something different where they have something—something, you know, retirement or something. Some kind of benefit in line.

The way the bay has worked is so unique because other places dredge for oysters instead of using the hand tongs…Do people here have a sense of how unique all this is?

I do. I don't think some of the older people like it because they just—they're old-fashioned, you know. They don't like seeing change. And as far as the dredging, now I worked Grady's dredge boat, and I've seen both sides of it. And they—you know, people don't want—you mention dredging our bay, and they have a fit. But actually, I think it would help. They probably wouldn't like me if they heard that, but Grady, he's seen—you know, he showed me, and he talked to me. And see, [with] the turning of the bottom, the oyster feeds better. Right now, as an oysterman, there ain’t nary a one of us that ain't smiling because I don't know why, but this year here there's so many spats and—that's baby oysters—we see a future of a good season coming up. Even after the hurricanes hurt us in July—Dennis—we thought it's going to be, you know, one of them years. And it was tough, but [the bay has] come back, and it's coming back strong. It's coming back real strong.

Would you attribute the hurricane and kind of the regeneration of the bay to that?

I really would for the spats and the growth of the spats. It has all the ingredients. The freshwater is coming from up North; everything has just fell in place for, you know, the best crop. Which we had a good one before Dennis, but actually, we had it so thick on the west end of the bay—on the east end it—it took every—all the burrs—the burrs are where five and six oysters grow together—and just rolled them off the bar. It left more of the single oyster that was heavy that laid on the bottom, and the oyster is of more quality. That's how the hurricane really helped…It seemed like it hurt us, but actually it's going to—for the future, it's going to help. It's going to put out a more of a quality oyster. And at the dealers, that's what they want.

To download the entire transcript in PDF form, please click here.