Caught off guard at sea by a January storm, 130 miles off Portland, fisherman Tom Roth of Buxton and his crew almost never made it back home.

“We were on the roof with ropes tied around us,” Roth said, “knocking ice off the top of the wheelhouse.”

The trip home took 27 grueling hours – 11 hours longer than in normal conditions. Luckily, they made it back safely. But that same storm claimed the crew of the “Lady of Grace,” which sank in Nantucket Sound. Unlike the unfortunate crew of the “Lady of Grace,” the hours spent battling the storm cost Roth only valuable time from the days he’s allotted yearly by the National Marine Fishery Service for harvesting ground fish.

Days at sea are a valuable commodity. Fishermen are allotted only a certain amount of days per year to fish. Travel times to and from fishing areas are counted against the allotment – and that is the rule Roth and his wife, Kelly, think needs changing. According to the Roths, restrictions on traveling times to and from fishing areas are endangering the lives of fisherman. They want to see regulations changed, encouraging fisherman to vacate fishing grounds when storms are brewing without being penalized.

“The government and the conservationists are so concerned about saving fish, how about saving fishermen lives?” Kelly Roth wrote in a letter earlier this year to congressmen and news media.

A committee of the New England Fishery Management Council, an advisory agency to the National Marine Fishery Service that regulates fishing, met recently in Connecticut to discuss a variety of fishing-related issues. But the question about traveling times to and from fishing areas wasn’t on the agenda and no one brought it forward for discussion.

Roth is a long-line fisherman. His boat, “Kelly Sea,” is 42 feet long and 18 feet wide. At the fishing grounds, Roth lays out 12 miles of cable, which has 2,000 hooks, on the ocean floor. He starts each day at sea before breakfast at 6 a.m. and finishes at midnight. He fishes for cusk and hake. He sells fish to the Portland Fish Exchange.

Roth is permitted to catch ground fish for 48 days a year. But, according to the federal rules, if he fishes within an approximate 80 miles of land in the Gulf of Maine, he would be assessed two days for each day spent fishing. The rules tend to force fishermen to travel farther out with small boats. Hours traveling to and from the fishing grounds also count as fishing times.

James “Bud” Finley, 86, of Windham, owns a fishing boat but hires a captain and a crew. They fish for cod, haddock, pollack, hake and cusk.

Finley’s 44-foot boat, a gillnetter, was permitted for 51 days of groundfishing this past year, but he said days are being cut back. He once was permitted for 145 days. On May 1, he’ll be assigned his days, but doesn’t know what to expect. Finley said his crew fishes 100 miles out.

Vessels are required to have a monitoring system and the federal National Marine Fishery Service can keep tabs on the location and speed of each boat. Fishermen have to declare whether they’ll fish in the two-for-one area or farther out. “The minute you leave, they know where you are all the time,” Finley said.

Because of the government’s ability to monitor boats, the Roths feel travel times, especially in storms, shouldn’t be counted against fishing.

Pat Fiorelli, a spokeswoman for the New England Fishery Management Council, said that complaint has been raised before, but the council hasn’t voted to exempt what she called “steaming times.”

“We haven’t come up with a good solution,” Fiorelli said. “It’s a tough one to be fair to everybody.”

The U.S. government imposes fishing regulations to protect the fish stocks. Fish numbers the federal agency is trying to rebuild in the Gulf of Maine include those for the cod, yellow tail flounder and white hake. “We are desperately trying to rebuild cod stocks,” said Fiorelli.

If traveling times were to be exempted, it would have to be considered as part of an overall management plan amendment developed by the New England Fishery Management Council. Any individual change would have to be officially requested to the council and work its way through government bureaucracy.

While cusk is unlimited, Roth’s catch of hake is limited to 1,000 pounds a day, according to federal regulations. He has to release hake once he has met the limit, but he said they die.

To increase time at sea, Roth also has permits for tilefish and scallops. Roth invested $30,000 to rig his boat to harvest scallops. “Versatility is what makes it work,” he said about his profession.

Terri Frady, a regional spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said fishermen could lease days from other fishing boats to increase their times at sea.

But days at sea might not always be available. Roth and Finley both lease days from other fishermen, who find it more profitable than fishing. Finley said leasing a day goes for between $100 and $500.

In an effort to protect stocks of ground fish, the government bought boats and accompanying permits for ground fish twice in the last decade. Federal fishing permits are free, but tough to get. Permits are worth more than boats, said Finley, who is willing to sell his permit, boat and equipment.

A new fisherman wanting to get started would have to buy a boat with a permit from a fisherman willing to sell. Roth said just the permit could be valued at between $100,000 and $120,000.

“There’s no dream now for a young guy,” Roth said.

And, as the January storm showed yet again, fishing is dangerous work. At sea before the storm blew in, Roth said, the weather was beautiful. “The fishing was good. You try to stay as long as you can,” he said.

But, Roth said, winds changed from calm to blowing 30 knots within three hours. “We knew it was going to hit, but it came in sooner,” Roth said about the storm.

When Roth headed for port, the boat began icing up 100 miles out. The air temperature was 33 degrees below with the wind chill, and ice was 14 inches thick. “It was one of the worst icings I ever went through,” Roth said.

He stopped three times en route to Portland to chip ice. The life raft was encased with ice and an emergency beacon that sends distress signals was buried in ice on the roof.

Roth said he grosses $400,000 a year; pays each of two crewmembers $50,000; and his share, including a return on his investment in the boat and equipment, is about $100,000 a year. He pays $420 a month for a berth for his boat at a Portland pier.

Roth and his wife have a 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Sea, whom they adopted from Russia. Kelly Roth said the regulations make safe fishing difficult for those supporting a family. She said fishing is one of the most dangerous professions in the country. “I lose a lot of sleep when he’s gone,” she said.

Roth moved to Maine in 1991 after fishing out of New Jersey. A couple of years ago, he was rescued from a life raft by a whale watching boat after his earlier fishing boat sank 35 miles off Portsmouth. “It’s not what I ever want to go through again,” he said.

When her husband is on his way in from a storm, Kelly Roth is afraid for him. “I don’t sleep at all,” she said.