Do you know why eating with the ecosystem is so important to Skipper Otto and our members?

At Skipper Otto one of our most valuable guiding principles is eating with the ecosystem. This means matching our seafood consumption with the rhythms of nature and respecting the seasonality of each species of seafood. This also means expanding our tastes and enjoying a wider variety of seafood, to ensure we are not overfishing a single sought-after species.  

We knew there would be some challenges to the 2019 fishing season, but we also knew that our members are accustomed to eating with the ecosystem and enjoying whatever seafood nature provides in abundance any given season. We were warned that sockeye on the Fraser River runs would be low, and they were. Sockeye was scarce throughout BC this year and, as a result, there wasn’t a lot of it for our members. The DFO also postposed most chinook salmon fishing until late in the year to protect vulnerable stocks and resident orcas. Despite those precautions on some areas of the coast, the chinook runs on the west coast of Vancouver Island came in stronger than expected and chinook was able to be enjoyed later in the season.  

Spot Prawn Season with Skipper Otto

This year’s spot prawn season was strong which gave some of our fishermen a good start to their season and our members plenty of delicious prawns to enjoy.  This year we were also pleased our fishermen did well with halibut, lingcod and July chum fishing–all species our members were able to enjoy in more abundance this year than other years.  

Fishing with the Ecosystem

We’re so grateful for the flexibility of our members who enter into this agreement to enjoy the bounty of seafood that the ecosystem provides on any given year. Rather than putting more strain on just a few globally-sought-after species, our members are happy to support our fishing families for the catch that makes the most environmental sense this year.