In the years prior to the arrival of the Europeans the Renapi Indians settled in the Ramford Bay area. They hunted deer, duck, bear, among others. The Renapi used seines and weirs made of reeds to catch fish. The haul seines were often up to 475 feet in length and had stones tied along the bottom and sticks along the top to keep them spread. Herring were the first fish caught in the spring,  followed by sturgeon and shad. The fish were sun-dried so it could be stored for the winter in deerskin bags.

The Renapi also harvested oysters and clams from the shallows. The shells of these animals were used as knives, scrapers and other tools. Clamshells were used as money,  known as wampum, and ornaments. Later, colonists adopted wampum as currency and used it into the1700’s. The Indians also used fish to fertilize crops.

At first, early Colonists adopted the Indian methods of fishing. Later, during the 1600’s and 1700’s hemp was used for seine nets and fyke nets. The efficiency of the nets increased the hauls of fish. The abundance of fish in the Bay made fishing more lucrative than farming, and it became a full-time industry into the mid 1900’s.

Haul seines was one method of catching fish. A crew of seven or eight men was necessary to set and haul the nets. The nets were set in water depths of six to eight feet during the incoming tides. During the spring huge hauls of shad were not uncommon as were hauls of striped bass, weakfish and other species.

Dutch settlers introduced fyke nets in the 1600’s. The nets were in the shape of a hoop using bowed twigs. They were four to six feet in diameter and tapered to lead the fish into a small opening. The nets were set inside each other so the fish, after entering, found it difficult to escape. Typically fifty to one hundred pounds of fish could be harvested per day with this method.

Eel pots were made of oak splints formed into a cylinder shape with a small door at one end. Bait was placed inside, and eels would enter the pot through the door. The eels were most abundant during the fall and spring and in muddy shallow areas.

Oysters and clams were harvested using long handled rakes and “oyster tongs” The tongs were two rakes hinged together to form a clamp. The tong would be lowered into the sand or mud with the rake spread; after hitting the bottom, the handles would be drawn together clamping the oysters and clams in the teeth. Shallow draught boats were designed for harvesting in the tidal flats and oyster beds. Larger oyster schooners were developed in the 1800’s. The huge oyster beds were over- fished, and the decline in production started in the early 1800’s. However, to meet the demands, seed oysters from other areas, particularly Chesapeake Bay, were brought to the beds where oysters grew to harvesting size. Schooners would make trips to the Chesapeake and bring back as many as 125 bushels of seed oysters. 

By the mid 1800’s a new technology was introduced into the Ramford fishery, the pound net. These nets, worked at depths of 25 feet, were very efficient in trapping fish and allowed fishing beyond the shoreline. These nets were so efficient that up to one thousand bushels of fish per day could be caught. Sport fisherman of the day demanded restrictions on their use believing that the pound nets were depleting the fishery.  After many court challenges , pound nets remained in use.  

The 1940s were a pivotal decade, during World War II, commercial fishers who had been struggling economically through the Great Depression began to make more money, and many fisherman as well as farmers received exemptions from the draft because they were primary food producers.  However, after World War II ended, the G. I. Bill funded large scale education and trade school programs, enticing many young men to pursue more high paying lucrative jobs, leaving the commercial fishing industry under-peopled, especially in the pound-net fishery.

After World War II, new technologies opened the door to the modern era of fishing.  Otter trawls were introduced and quickly became the most efficient gear for bottom fishing in the River and the Bay.  Purse seines on boats using airplane spotting and depth recorders to locate schools of fish and rocking-chair dredges invented in the 1946 to harvest clams contributed to the phasing out of four fisheries in the Bay - haul seining, gill netting, fyke netting, and soft clamming.

What the fisheries lost in numbers, they made up in efficiency.  At the peak of the Porgie fishery in the mid 1950s, a ten-minute trawl could easily bring in 300 pounds of fish, with longer trawls landing up to 500 pounds.  Eel fishing and blue crabbing also continued as active commercial pursuits through the 1960s and the 1970s, but declining numbers forced the fleets down and the prices up.  Lobstering grew during the 50s, 60s, and 70s as important changes in the claw banding, baiting, and trapping revamped the trade.  The fleet expanded from three boats in 1941 to fifteen in 1965.  Clamming continued until several cases of hepatitis were linked to the polluted shellfish, and the industry was abandoned until treatment plants were developed in the late 1970s.

As leisure time increased in the post-World War II era, sport fishing expanded; large numbers of bluefish, stripped bass, mackerel, and porgies were caught. Technology also improved this market: low-power outboard motors replaced muscle powered row boats; aluminum or fiberglass building materials replaced wooden boats, light weight synthetic fishing rods and reels were developed; and fibers such as Nylon quickly replaced cotton lines.  Local bait and sport shops sprang up around the Bay to meet the increased demand of sport fishing through the 1950s, and revenue increased drastically from the sale of permits and equipment.

As the population in the area  grew and the Bay and River became the dumping grounds, the quality of the water deteriorated. Species began to disappear or became unhealthy to eat. Even migratory fish, such as striped bass, eels, and shad were effected. Not until modern times were laws passed in a effort to clean the Bay and River, with subsequent   improvement in water quality and resurgence of fish. Never the less, residual contamination in the sediments of the Bay and River have resulted in health advisories, consumption bans, and restrictions of commercial and recreational fishing  for certain species. Concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons, PCBs, and heavy metals increased until conservation efforts stabilized levels in the 1980s.  Over-fishing and vessel traffic has adversely affected populations of commercial fish species.  However, the commercial and recreational fishery continues to provide millions of dollars of revenue annually. 

In 1982, regulations were placed on the harvest of stripped bass, a main stay of the fisheries, and the pounds of fish caught dropped dramatically from a peak of over 12 million pounds caught in the mid-1970s to nearly 0 in the mid 1980s.  As stripped bass populations rebounded, restrictions were removed although consumption advisories remain in effect.  The recreational fishing industry bounced back,  by 1998, almost 7 million pounds were being caught annually.