Ocean waters once swarmed with cod, sole, and snapper. Today they're almost all fished out. Now fishermen are plunging their nets into deeper waters, and dredging up strange creatures by the ton. Broiled Slimehead anyone? In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, what will deep sea fishing do to the ocean ecology? Also, how six fishermen battled the century's worst storm.

SEGMENT 1

Science writer William Broad tells Jim Fleming about some of the deep sea species now turning up on dinner plates as traditional fisheries collapse. Broad writes for the New York Times and is the author of "The Universe Below: Discovering the Secrets of the Deep Sea." Also, Mark Kurlansky talks with Judith Strasser about catching, cooking and eating cod. Kurlansky is the author of "Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World."

SEGMENT 2:

Sebastian Junger is the author of "The Perfect Storm," which chronicles the fate of the Andrea Gail - a 72 foot sword-fishing boat caught in the worst storm to hit the New England coast in a century. Junger tells Steve Paulson that the boat and its six person crew were all lost in the 1991 storm.

SEGMENT 3:

Lyla Foggia is the author of "Reel Women: The World of Women Who Fish," and editor and publisher of the newspaper Women's Reel News. She tells Anne Strainchamps that the first treatise on fishing was written by a nun and regales her with heroic tales of fisherwomen from the last few centuries.

Distribution dates:

• week of 07/20/97 - hour 2
• week of 05/10/98 - hour 2