It is hard not to agree with Virginia Jones’ commentary Menemsha Mourning Comes to Port (Gazette, June 23). Menemsha is not what it used to be. But there is something more to be said.

Yes, years ago the little port in summer was filled with draggers and the commercial sword fishing fleet. The greatest portion of Dutcher Dock was reserved for local boats like Bozo, Dorothy and Everett, Christine and Dan, as well as ones that hailed from Point Judith and Fairhaven (Natator, Jennie-M, Barracuda, etc.). Now they are all gone.

And yes, the little public beach is now crowded in summer, parking is hard to find, and the “summer people” as we were called them, are greater in number than ever — some who rent, some who have bought or built their summer homes.

But the renters, the summer people, did not drive the commercial fleet away. Overfishing did. And not just swordfish disappeared from our waters. So did most of the ground fish. Once from Menemsha on almost any summer day you could see half dozen draggers off Lobsterville and in the Bite. Now to see one is a rarity, and if you do it is likely the Little Lady, the last of the local draggers, scratching out its small daily quota of fluke.

If you go back 80 years, there were fish traps off the North beach, and when they hauled and landed their catch at the harbor’s head — mackerel and scup and dog fish and sea robins and puffers (blowfish) — the discarded “trash” fish were dumped into the harbor to rot and stink. Among them were what the trap fishermen called “ugly fish,” a grotesque form of angler fish with a huge teeth-filled head and a slender body. It is known today as monk fish. Julia Child called it “the poor man’s lobster.”

The traps are gone from local waters, the ugly fish too.

But if you go back 80 years, only one Menemsha boat was lobstering, and bluefish and sea bass were rarities. Today there is a robust lobster fishery, sea bass are in the fish markets almost every day, and a half dozen charter boats catch bluefish and striped bass in local waters. Menemsha fishermen help make conch Massachusetts’s biggest marine cash crop. And in addition to quahogs and bay scallops scraped from its bottom, there is oyster farming in Menemsha Pond.

Overfishing is not the only culprit. There is nature and climate change. Warming waters caused some species to move away, others to move in, but the qualities of stubborn independence and self-reliance that characterizes successful fishermen stood in the way of the collective action that might have made our fisheries more sustainable.

So, Virginia, change is the story of time in Menemsha. We may remember fondly what was, we may even bemoan what we find today, but more than many places, Menemsha is a busy harbor and the sons and daughters of the Mayhews, Flanders, Mannings, Cottles and Larsen’s etc. are keeping it alive and kicking as a fishing port.

Lament what we may, we can all help keep it that way. Don’t curse the summer people. Donate to the Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust.

Peter McGhee

Chilmark and Cambridge