Chesapeake Bay has always supported the inhabitants who lived along her shore. Long before English settlers arrived, native tribes fished the Bay as part of their livelihood. In colonial times, fishing villages sprang up where working the water was an everyday part of life. When Elijah Reed arrived in the Northern Neck shortly after the Civil Was, he established menhaden fishing as an industry that attracted entrepreneurs and employed generations of Northern Neck residents. Nearly every Northern Neck family has been touched by the Bay and its fishing industry, in one form or another - from crabbers, pound netters, oystermen and menhaden fishermen. This is their story.