Henry Schulman / San Francisco Chronicle

LAKE WORTH, Fla. – The inlet is narrow, a spillway that links Florida’s inland waterway with the Atlantic Ocean near this small town between Palm Beach and Boca Raton.

When the strong easterly winds kick up the surf, the inlet can make for treacherous passage. Even experienced boaters dare not pass.

When the weather is calm, though, and the winter sun dips below the horizon, Felipe Alou, usually alone, kicks on the 200-horsepower outboard that powers his 22-foot boat and leaves the marina. Guided not by lights, but by feel, he squeezes through the inlet and into the ocean. Not far from shore, he turns south for the shallow reefs where he knows the lane snappers feed this time of evening, this time of year.

In Alou’s mind, it’s not whether he will bring the snapper home, but how many. He knows these waters. He knows the fish. He is not a doddering old man who likes to while away his leisure time kicking back in the boat, a brew in one hand, admiring the scenery.

His purpose is pure and simple: catch the fish, eat the fish.

It is genetic.

“My dad used to fish to eat,” Alou said, his mind journeying back to the Dominican Republic. “I say now that I fish, and I eat the fish and my children eat the fish. Obviously we have some other food to eat, but when I was a kid my dad used to fish to put food on the table. It was not commercial fishing.

It was not sport fishing. It was fishing to eat that day. If he didn’t catch anything, chances are we were eating white rice only, or bread only.”

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