Tim Obert has been hooked on fishing since landing his first fish as a young boy with his father off the Santa Cruz Wharf on California’s Central Coast.

By the time he was 12, he was working and sleeping on charter boats in the town’s harbor.

It was an early start to the dream he’s been living for the nearly two decades since, as a captain and commercial fisherman.

The sea has provided Obert a stable life, allowing him to raise a family and invest in his business. But in fishing, there is always a risk. 

Sometimes the fish are biting, sometimes they aren’t. There are good days and bad days. Sometimes those bad days turn into bad years. 

It’s a salty old truth that long-time fishermen know how to plan for a rainy day.

Recent state regulations aimed at saving whales and increasing the salmon population have kept fishing boats like the Stacey Jo, which Obert captains, stuck at the dock.

Obert has stepped up to help his fishing buddies, running the Santa Cruz Commercial Fishermen’s Association and serving as a member of the Dungeness Crab Task Force to work with California’s environmental agencies on behalf of his fleet.

But it’s a role that comes at a cost, and not just financial. The most important trade off for Obert is time spent away from his family.

“I’m on like ten boards right now. Not a dollar am I making for it,” Obert said. “Being on a six-hour call is excruciating sometimes. The time away is horrible.”

In Finding Balance, Obert speaks candidly about the struggles of being a good husband and father while also working to succeed as a commercial fisherman, and how that’s been further complicated by the leadership roles he shoulders while stuck on land.

Obert and the other fishermen who have braved such regulatory storms before believe it will pass and they’ll again be pulling their catch from the ocean.

Obert believes both sides must work together to consider conservation interests alongside those of the fishing industry, just as he works to find the right centerpoint between his family’s needs and those of the industry he loves during his fleet’s long, rainy day.

It’s all just a matter of finding the right balance.

—- 

This story was reported by four workshop participants in Santa Cruz, CA for the MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop in early December, 2023.

If you would like to support to fisherman you can email scfishermensassociation@gmail.com

You can also send a check to:

Santa Cruz Commercial Fisherman Association

145 Morningside drive

Ben Lomond CA 95005

Regulations in California aimed at saving whales and salmon are taking a toll on the state’s fishing industry.

In this playlist accompanying the film Finding Balance, commercial fishermen Tim Obert and Jim Rando, along with bait shop owner Todd Fraser, discuss the toll regulations are having on their businesses, as well as the broader fishing industry.

Obert, who is the main subject of Finding Balance, speaks candidly about the difficulties of being a husband and a father while also being a fisherman, and how this is further complicated by the leadership roles he takes on to help represent his industry by working with regulators as they evaluate conservation needs and industry interests.

Obert believes these efforts can be solved by finding the right balance, just as he seeks to find the right centerpoint between his family’s needs and his work in the industry he loves.

We are always open to story suggestions. 

Do you know someone whose story needs to be told? 

If so, we’d like to hear about them.

Our stories tend to focus on a single person, and we try to go deep.

Our company motto, after all, is Stories That Matter. 

To learn more about what we consider a successful story, take a look at: Elements of a successful documentary story

And, please do share your story suggestions.

In the Making of Finding Balance, the staff and participants of the December 2023 MediaStorm Storytelling Workshop review the decisions they made during the production and editing of Finding Balance, a film the team produced during the weeklong workshop in Santa Cruz, Ca.

Director Brian Storm walks the team through the film’s editing timeline, discussing the footage the group gathered in the field as well as the techniques used in post-production to turn their coverage into an intimate documentary. 

In the film, commercial fisherman Tim Obert describes how his journey began and how regulations aimed at saving whales and salmon in California have left him struggling to find balance between his dream, his family’s needs and the industry he loves.

The workshop team spent multiple days in the field documenting Obert as he worked, as well as conducting an in-depth interview with him on the “Stacey Jo,” the boat he captains.

The team’s challenges and successes during their reporting process provided fertile educational ground to discuss best practices for all stages of the documentary process.