b'Chapter NineDig John Pappalardo, all 6 5 and 275 pounds of him, sits motionless in a lazy wicker arm chair, listening intently to his two visitors on a late morning in January 2003. Seasoned commercial fishermen, John and Dick have come for his counsel. They could hardly have come to a better man: when he isnt fishing himself, he is putting in a tote-full of hours as policy analyst for the Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermens Association, lodged in a building on Route 28 in North Chatham. Still wearing his tight wool cap, hes been at his desk since 5 a.m., when he came in to plow through fat reports on the uneasy state of rule- bound, supply-threatenedcommercial fishing off the Cape.John and Dick want Big Johns help drafting a presentation on the outlook for the striped bass fishery. As they talk, fragments surface, fragments that every commercial fisherman on the Cape lives with:Too many people in our fishery. 2 a.m. you cant even get into Ryders Cove. an over-abundance of yahoos.Were creating our own glut. Weve got to do something about the number of commercial licenses, up from 3,200 to 4,000 in the last two years .How about a Monday-Thursday fishery?. We should be able to sell the bycatch. The data we always use is two years old .Teople are looking to get a better quality of life, a cleaner life.After an hour and a half, the meeting dissolves. Big John agrees to look over draft documents that John and Dick have brought with them, to help them shape up their presentation. The two visitors leave, but not before one of them takes out his billfold to pay for an associate membership in CCCHFA. Then Pappalardo is out the door, on his way to sign papers in Dennis. As a member of the Massachusetts Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission and an appointee to the New England Fisheries Management Council, as a fisherman himself, as a board member of trade associations, Big John is a man deep into his job for much of his sixteen-hour days. So are most of the six other full-time staffers (plus one half-timer) of the Hook Fishermens Association. In a new century, the troubled realm of the Capes commercial fisheries demands no less.151'