Ever wondered how Skipper Otto fishermen catch your fish? A lot of them (including Otto himself!) are gillnet fishermen. This means they use nets that lay vertically in the water like a fence. Lead weights at the bottom of the net and floating corks attached to the top of the net keep the net in place. 

Fish swim into the net and get stuck at the largest part of their body, just behind their gills. They can’t swim all the way through the holes in the net, and their gills prevent them from swimming back, so they stay in place until the fishermen bring up the net. 

Each net targets a specific fish, based on the size of the holes. Fish that are too big for a specific net will bounce off and have to go around, while fish that are too small will pass through the nets with no problems. Gillnetting can even discriminate between specific species of salmon. For example, a 5-inch mesh net is good for sockeye salmon in the Nass, as most other species of salmon will not become ensnared when using that mesh size. The mesh size varies depending on the run; anywhere from 4 ½-inch in Barkley Sound up to 5 ⅛-inch in the Skeena. 

This method of fishing allows fishermen to catch only the size/type of fish they want to catch, drastically reducing the by-catch that is associated with other types of fishing. In fact, gillnetting is the most targeted fishing method used on the BC coast. The gillnet is laid specifically to intercept the path of migrating salmon, so it is incredibly rare to catch any other species of fish or marine life. Not only is a gillnet set in a specific place with a specific mesh size, but it is also set at the depth that the target species tend to swim at. 

When we’re fishing for one species of salmon, occasionally, we’re not allowed to retain another type (for example, coho or chinook, which, in some areas, might have poor numbers). When this happens, the fish is put into a revival tank where the air is pumped through to ensure the fish is strong and healthy before it gets put back into the ocean.