Temporal perspectives can help us understand what it means to be a fisher – including the importance of social contexts for entering the occupation and how non-fishing identities shape the unfolding of fishing lives. Recent studies have observed difficulties in recruitment of new generations of ‘fishers’ in many fisheries around the north Atlantic. Such recruitment challenges have raised concerns about the future sustainability of the fishing industry in these places. Previously, there had not been enough research on understanding the temporal dimensions of the lives of fishers and how fishing lives are embedded in intergenerational contexts of linked lives which shape the opportunities and constraints of existing and prospective fishers.