My Fishing Summer

My name is Oliver Strobel. My parents are Sonia and Shaun, co-founders of Skipper Otto. And my grandfather is Otto (yes, the Skipper). According to them, mom came up with the idea for Skipper Otto about a month after I was born, so I’ve literally grown up in this Community Supported Fishery. If you’ve been around for a while, you might have read blog posts about my early fishing trips when I was five years old (“Slippy fish, slippy fish, I’m not giving up on you!”) and eight years old (“Thank you for giving your life for us, fish. There are a lot of nets out here and you could have swum into any of them, but you chose us and we’re grateful.”) I don’t exactly remember saying those things, but my parents insist they’re true. And it’s definitely true that some of my earliest and best memories are from fishing trips with dad and Opa.

This year marked a big occasion: I turned sixteen this spring which meant that I could officially get my own fishing license. That makes me legally a fisherman, not just a kid fishing with his dad. I also thought this would be the summer to write my own fishing blog post (thanks mom, I can take it from here!).

This year, the BC government announced a bursary program for people working in food production who are going back to school full time. I looked into it and found out that fishing qualified, as long as I got in the minimum number of hours fishing between my 16th birthday in May and Labour Day. Dad and I sat down and figured it out – I’d have to work my butt off but if I did all the prep work like painting the boat and racking and sacking nets, and fished every opening, I could probably get my hours in. I’d earn my deckhand wages based on the catch and I’d also hopefully get a bursary to put towards my savings.

So, the day after my 16th birthday, the hard work started. Even when I wanted to sleep in or go to my volunteer work at the Burnaby Central Railway where I’m a member of the BC Society of Model Engineers, sometimes I had to work in the rain getting the boat ready for fishing. I don’t mind that. I like hard physical work down at the docks. Everybody knows everybody and we all look out for each other. I also got to take some pretty cool courses like “Safest Catch” where we learned marine emergency duties and some basic radio procedures.

Pretty soon, the first sockeye fishing openings were announced, and it was time to get the boat over to the west coast of Vancouver Island. School was still in, but I really wanted to go fishing so I talked to my teachers and explained my situation. They agreed that if I got all my projects in (and they meant good quality work, like I couldn’t just hand in garbage) I could miss a couple of days of school at the end of June to go fishing.  That was awesome! So I worked really hard and got everything done and I’m glad I did. (My mom brought my teachers all a piece of sockeye from that first catch with my Skipper Otto label on it, which I thought was kind of embarrassing but mom insisted was the right thing to do.)

Dad and I fished all summer. It was exciting, challenging, and rewarding. And I'll admit, a little sleep depriving. But I only got seasick once! And I love the scenic views being out there fishing: early morning sunrises and late night sunsets are highlights of my days. Like all the fishermen say, the view from my office is always changing! I can’t imagine having a job where I had to sit at a desk all day or take orders at a burger joint. Ugh. Plus, I love knowing that every one of those fish that I catch is food on someone's plate, somewhere, and that they are eating quality salmon straight from the clean, beautiful waters of BC. It’s one of my favourite foods and I like being able to share that with other people.

(Photo credit: Shaun Strobel. Image: Oliver shovelling ice slurry. Image 2: Oliver watching the response vessel tow the Eldorado.)

Over this season of fishing, I've learned many things like how to change the oil on the boat, why it’s important to coil the emergency tow line neatly, and how to read radar and charts and tell our position even if we’re totally socked in by fog or night time. None of my friends know how to do that stuff. I also found my limits in physical work and my need for sleep. Dad is definitely still better than me at both of those things. Well, all of it really, but I’m getting there! Dad says that when my little brother goes fishing, he’s mostly there for good luck, but when I’m there, I’m a real deckhand.

I’ve been out fishing with my dad for a lot of years and just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, you sometimes learn the hard way that you don’t. One day early in the summer when we were setting the net we stopped to fix a backlash (when the net gets wrapped back around the drum). When we were done Dad asked me if the stern was clear of the net. I thought we were but when I gave the thumbs up and he put the boat in gear, there was a horrible sound as the net got wrapped around the propeller. Next thing I knew, we were dead in the water. Luckily the spill response vessel, the Coastal Sentinel, was coming around the corner. Talk about learning on the job. Just that morning we had made some repairs on the boat and had to re-stow the emergency tow line that we keep on board. Dad made me straighten and recoil the line. He said there is no time for kinks and knots when you need a tow line!  I just thought my dad was being picky, but, as if he’d planned it, there I was standing on the bow of our boat tossing that neatly coiled line to the guys on the Coastal Sentinel so they could tow us safely into port. We missed an afternoon of fishing, dad had to dive under the boat in the icy cold water with a knife to cut the net out so we could move again, and we had to get the net repaired before the next opening. Dad said he made a lot of mistakes when he was learning to fish, too. But the lessons you learn fishing are lessons you never forget.

(Photo credit: Shaun Strobel. Image: Oliver enjoying Hot Springs Cove)

But it wasn’t all hard work. A highlight of the year was when when we took the boat from Port Alberni to Nootka Sound and made stops in Tofino and Hot Springs Cove. Nootka Sound is about halfway up the west Coast of Vancouver Island and it’s really remote. Not many people in the world ever get to see it. In Tofino, we met plenty of tourists coming from all over Canada and the US, each with their own stories of their journeys and adventures coming to Tofino. But I think ours, as fishermen, are the best because we had to work so hard and learn so much along the way to get there. We didn’t just charter a float plane and go on a vacation! I was very proud to tell people I met that I arrived by fish boat and they were all very impressed and wanted to know more about fishing.

As I’m writing this, it’s the day after Labour Day, the first day of grade 11 for me. And that bursary? Well, I did my reporting on the weekend and was happy to find that I got in enough hours so hopefully I’ll be getting that bursary to start saving for post-secondary. (I want to go to a trades school like BCIT.) It was a lot of hard work, but I love being out on the fish boat with my dad. And I feel like I learn more out there than in any classroom.

But today is also a fishing day and it was hard saying goodbye to dad at seven o’clock this morning when he left for fishing and I had to get ready for school. But it’s ok. I know that dad and I will spend some weekends this fall and winter cleaning up from fishing, doing some work on the boat, and getting ready for next summer. And I hope my teachers this year won’t mind if I miss a few days in June to start the fishing season off again. Because I’m definitely doing this again next year.

Written by: Oliver Strobel