Fishing Under a Rogue’s Moon

Sonia - October 29, 2015

This week, there were times the moon was so bright, Shaun could fish from it’s light alone and didn’t need a deck light to pick the net.

The pull of the moon also caused an extreme, 4 metre tide last night making for an eventful night of fishing! As the tide moves from ebb to flow and back, it rushes through the narrow passages of the Johnstone Strait causing what can feel like powerful whirl pools. Shaun encountered one of these early in the night when, thankfully, his net was not in the water. If it happens when the net is in the water, the net can become completely wrapped around the boat and it’s propellers often resulting in a shredded, tangled net and an end to the night of fishing! Instead, the boat was just tossed and twisted about and Shaun kept a careful grip on the wheel!

The rapidly moving tide can also send the boat careening along through narrow, rocky channels. With the net out last night, Shaun noticed a large Alaskan container tug boat on the radar moving toward him at 8 nautical miles/ hour. At first, he calculated how long he had to pick the net based on that speed but then realized his boat was drifting toward the tug at 2 nautical miles/ hour, meaning he had to hustle to get the net it before the tug got too close!

The extremely high tide meant that the sea collected drift wood and other debris from shorelines that hadn’t been touched by the tide in months. This outflow of debris became tangled in the nets and Shaun spent good chunks of time pulling bits of drift wood from his net in between picking fish from it.

After a long couple of nights of fishing at the end of a long season, Shaun looked up — 4 metres up — to the offloading dock, up a long metal ladder, and thought about unloading his fish in that extremely low tide. And then he thought better of it. Instead he took a nap for a couple of hours and, when he got up around 6am, found he could step right off the boat directly onto the dock, making offloading much quicker, safer, and easier.

We’re grateful for the patience and quick thinking skill sets of fishermen! Read this blog post from earlier this summer about my first time out night fishing with the family and my observations on what a challenging job it is to fish for local, artisanal, sustainable seafood!

Shawn&Chum

Shaun with a huge chum salmon a few seasons ago. Chum can be massive salmon like this one, or as small as a sockeye.

Sonia - October 29, 2015


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Fishing Under a Rogue’s Moon

Sonia - October 29, 2015

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