Maybe it’s an effect of the season, but lately I feel surrounded by unusual intersections of boundless innovation and drudging repetition. Why do we get bogged down in doing things the same way ad nauseum? This is one of the reasons I’ve always been a little nervous about the call for term limits in Congress. If you have to reinvent the wheel with every election season, then you’re doomed to repeat a good many mistakes, right? But then again, we find ourselves entrenched in the same old bad habits without limits.

It used to be my job to compile our Fishing Back When section. I was always intrigued by the patterns I saw, thumbing through those old pages. This month is no different. This single page (p. 4) of the magazine serves as a consistent reminder that whatever the industry is coping with at the moment is yet another stage of the cycle. Thirty years ago, fishermen and environmentalists teamed up to fight oil drilling on Georges Bank, and boatbuilders in Louisiana were getting creative to work around the oil slump. Ten years ago, regulators grappled with the appropriate distribution of fishery disaster funds.

This article first appeared in the June issue of National Fisherman. Subscribe today to gain access to the digital and print editions of the magazine.

Sound familiar?

So goes the cycle of politics, resource management, fishery management and building booms. How many times have you been in a meeting with an industry veteran only to hear them say, “Oh [expletive]! Not this again.” (Or maybe that was you.)

This is why it’s so critical that we combine the strengths of institutional knowledge with fresh faces in fishing associations across the country. The old-timers have the experience, but the younger folks have the drive to take the baton and run the next leg. Combine the knowledge with the energy, and we’ll get something done. If the established guard in the industry keeps itself entrenched without making any room for the young folks, we may run out of time for the transition. It’s best to hand off the reins when there’s still a horse in front of the cart.

That’s how you get to the radical new ideas that have the best potential to pull us out of the rut of pattern-worn repetition. Sometimes innovation is philosophical, sometimes practical, and sometimes — you might say the best of times — it’s both. That’s what Lowell Stambaugh discovered when he lost a net load of salmon in Bristol Bay one summer. His rudder just didn’t have the power he needed, so Stambaugh invented one — the Deflector Marine rudder. The concept and the execution are revolutionary. This design has improved the handling, turning radius, transit time, and/or speed of more than 300 boats in the last 20 years. Read the full story by North Pacific Bureau Chief Charlie Ess on page 32.

David Frulla and Kristi Wolff explore another groundbreaking idea in our Washington Outlook column on page 8. Though its name sounds like a technology that would shut things down, blockchain could actually open new markets for the seafood industry. As I wrote last month, increasing standards for seafood imports is putting emphasis on origin, sustainability and traceability of all seafood in the United States. Frulla and Wolff explain how this new technology could streamline consumer access to information and ensure its veracity.

So here’s to the new and the old coming together, whether they like it or not. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Stars are born from chaos and dust coalescing around the driving force of gravity. If you’re committed to the cause, you’ll do the right thing to ensure its future.