WELLFLEET — When Dave Seitler got up at 5 a.m. on Sunday, the first thing he checked was the temperature. Through nearly all of February, low temperatures had stymied his attempts to go oystering.

It’s not just that it’s been too cold for any right-minded person to be out on the water for hours: local regulations prohibit wild shellfishing when it’s below 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Any colder and the bivalves’ shells can break too easily under pressure or pop open in the cold air.

The sun was bright on Feb. 23, though, and by 8 a.m. the temperature had reached 34 degrees — warm enough for Seitler to pull his oilskin overalls over two hoodies and head out. Normally he’d be alone, but today he’s in the company of this reporter and a photographer who can’t help but notice the red sticker displayed on the console describing the “1-10-1” rule for avoiding hypothermia: one minute to catch your breath, 10 minutes of meaningful movement, and one hour until unconsciousness arrives.

The winter’s unpredictability makes it nearly impossible to employ a crew, Seitler says. At least that saves some money during the lean months.

Seitler, who is 39, says he is one of only a few who still drag for wild oysters in Wellfleet Harbor. Most people who harvest in the wild pick along the shore, and the majority of those in the oyster business in town are aquaculturists, farming oysters at low tide on the flats.

Seitler both farms and wild harvests because he “was dealt a weird hand” with the two grants — plots of bayside bottom — he leases from the town. One is close to the sandbar, and too often dry. The other is a deep-water grant off Indian Neck, where the bottom is eight feet underwater at low tide.

He works from his not-very-romantically-named 26-foot dragger, the F/V CCB11 — after the state’s designation of the Wellfleet Harbor shellfish classification area.

The dredge, a sort of chain-link bag, is small, fitted for oysters with a toothed rake. But before he drops it, he has to navigate the ice sheets that cover the surface close around the pier. From the helm, Seitler sees a channel marker well out of its proper position — a casualty of last week’s storm, he guesses. He blasts the hip-hop beat of OutKast on his console radio and heads toward Smalley Bar off Jeremy Point.

Searching for wild oysters is about “having an understanding of the way this water can carry spat,” Seitler says, referring to wild oyster larvae. “You have to know where these oysters set,” which, in turn, means having an idea about the wind and tides that will push them around the harbor.

Seitler started out as a wild picker. Ten years ago, he got his boat and a deep-water grant. Even so, this winter was only his second of full-time shellfishing. He used to join Provincetown scalloping crews, and earlier in his career, he worked on clamming boats out of New Bedford — an experience he likened to working in a “floating prison.” Hunting wild oysters from his own boat is, he says, like “a reprieve.”

Seitler had prepared the boat two days earlier in anticipation of the weekend break in the weather. “You’re constantly thinking about getting fuel,” he says. Do you have enough baskets, shucking knives, oyster rings, bags, tags? “Do you have your comforts, like your favorite gloves, your water, snacks, dry clothes?”

Oystermen must harvest in daylight hours — from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 before sunset. And there are the tides to consider. While the farmers out on Indian Neck on Sunday were confined to working during the afternoon’s low tide, going out on a boat gives Seitler some flexibility. “Today’s a 2.2 tide, so those areas probably aren’t going to come out of the water much,” he says, referring to the water’s depth in feet during low tide.

Seitler tends his grants in the warm months, but those oysters are pitted in his back yard for the winter. Even in summer, he estimates that three-quarters of his revenue from oyster landings comes from wild fishing.
About 45 minutes after departure, on Wellfleet Harbor’s west side, Seitler guns the engine and hauls the dredge up, then unfurls the puckering knot at the bottom of the bag and dumps the seafloor’s contents on a wooden culling table.

Wild oysters are larger than farmed ones, he says, adding that a bushel of wild oysters can weigh five times as much as a bushel of cultivated ones. In winter, Seitler says, “they’re dormant but have full bellies from nutrients, like bears in hibernation.” He scoops a bucket through seawater and begins inspecting the load with a ringed oyster gauge, measuring each shell against the gauge’s three-inch diameter line and tossing the larger shells in the bucket. The others are returned to the water.

Given their larger size, and the fact that the wild-dragged catch limit is five bushels, Seitler will bring in fewer oysters today than he would if he were harvesting farmed oysters. He aims for a thousand, which at a market rate of 50 cents per oyster would amount to $500, from which he mentally subtracts his costs: fuel, permits, insurance, dockage fees, and equipment and boat repairs.

Ice is one thing Seitler doesn’t have to think about on this outing. From May to October, shellfishermen have to abide by Mass. Div. of Marine Fisheries regulations and ice their market-bound oysters within two hours of harvest. That’s to prevent any vibrio bacteria from concentrating in them, but that’s not an issue in winter.

“You really have to know what you’re doing to make a paycheck in two hours,” he says. But because February is too cold for vibrio to bloom, Seitler can drag all day, limited only by the tide and temperature.

He continues working at the culling table. Occasionally, the sea floor yields stray vestiges of aquaculture grants — white chunks of discarded shells, smaller oysters whose grooves mark the edge of a grow bag. There’s other debris: surf clams, bay scallops, boring sponges, and blood clams. After sifting through the 12 bushels he’s collected today, the usable oysters for market fill only four. He sorts them into bags of 100 oysters each, and by 6 p.m. he’ll have sold them wholesale. He’s taking these, along with the blood clams, to Wayne Shuman, whose wholesale effort at Holbrook Oysters in Eastham has become Clearbrook Oyster.

But winter dragging isn’t all about money. After speeding away from Billingsgate Shoal to calmer waters, he cuts the engine and the radio. Silence fills the boat and the air. “Did you hear that?” he says, grinning on a cloudless day that in July or August might otherwise be punctuated by motors of recreational boats. A pair of seals bark near the CCB11’s port side.