The lines have been mended, the hulls painted, the diesel tanks capped, the engines oiled, the ice packed and the sandwiches sliced.
About 280 independent gillnetters moored at the Steveston Harbour Authority docks are ready to set their lines for a rare commercial salmon opening on the Fraser River — a window that appears to be an exceptional run of sockeye salmon.
These fish are predominately the offspring of the Adams River-led 30 million salmon run that returned to the Fraser in 2010, in what has otherwise been a dying fishery for the past two decades.
On board the 35-foot Trendsetter II, semi-retired fisherman Ken Yoshikawa is hoping to cash in on a big catch.
“This year there’s a lot of hype as it’s the same cycle year of the big Adams run. But even DFO (the Department of Fisheries and Oceans) can’t get a handle of it. They’re saying it will be anywhere from seven to 73 million. But it’s sounding like there’s a lot of fish coming now.”
The Fraser River Panel and DFO will meet today to set an opening on the river after all indications from commercial test fisheries indicate an abundance of sockeye.
And the word around the docks is getting gillnetters excited; they’re expecting to be on the waters this Monday, for an opening anywhere from 12 to 18 hours long. Meanwhile, First Nations fisheries opened Thursday.
“We’re going to catch some fish here; I’m quite confident we will,” said Kit Taggart, owner and skipper of the 35-foot Rumours I vessel.
Sockeye boon expected
On a hot, sunny Tuesday afternoon in early August, the harbour’s property was buzzing, just as it had been for weeks leading up to this weekend.
“Three weeks ago this place was just full, packed; everyone was busy; the welder’s were going crazy,” said Yoshikawa.
The harbour’s manager, Robert Baziuk, said the following weeks will be some of the busiest he’s experienced in the past four years.
“Majorly. There will be people crawling.”
He’s expecting big returns, judging from the information he’s gleaned from the catches up north.
“All indications from the test settings are that there’s a bonanza of fish out there. The public will see a bonanza of public fish sales,” said Baziuk.
Harbour preparations (SEE HD VIDEO BELOW):
Prepping the Lines
But preparing for the salmon run is hard work and also requires financial investments that would make any sound-minded investor wary, considering how unstable the salmon fishing industry is.
The grizzled Taggart, a fisherman of more than three decades, said he just sunk $65,000 into his boat for a new engine, exhaust system and fish tanks, among other things to keep it tip-top.
“You can’t have a breakdown on the Fraser. You lose a day, you could lose 500-600 sockeye, maybe more. The last time we had this run we had some big days,” said the 55-year-old veteran netter.
And you can chalk up another $10,000 on nets, said Taggart, showing off his war chest of equipment in an old wooden building within the harbour’s property.
“You’ve got to buy your web, attach lead line, the weed line, and cork line,” noted Taggart.
The cork line is in reference to the small, typically white, bulbs that float on top of the water, indicating where the lines are set in the river.
Then there are other essentials fishermen need to prepare, like fuel and ice, although these are the “cheap” items, relative to everything else, but ultimately equally important.
Taggart will fill his tanks with about four tonnes of crushed ice, costing him a pittance of $160.
On Monday, he said he’ll likely burn through about 200 litres of diesel fuel, costing about $280.
On the waters, being fuel efficient is being penny wise and pound foolish; if you’re not in the right spot you need to gas the engines and get out of Dodge to find the salmon highway.
On another dock, Terry Taylor and his son Travis prepared their line drum, spooling a 600-foot net from the dock to the boat. The net snagged on a nail hanging out of a log boom, forcing curses out of both of their mouths. The hole may let a few fortunate salmon escape the holding tanks of Taylor’s impressively outfitted Just Travlin Too vessel.
His boat will be loaded with eight bins that can each hold 250 fish. Anticipating a big catch, he moved his drum to the back of the boat to accommodate the bins and make room for his deckhands. Everything comes down to a practical science.
Not only do the fishermen have to prepare material aspects of their boats, they have to prepare mentally.
Taylor and Yoshikawa will work as a team with four other boats, collectively known as a “pool.”
They will talk with one another to determine the best places for fishing, as every moment counts when the DFO shotgun sounds.
“You want everyone to do well but you want to be top dog,” chuckled Taylor.
Netters also need to assess tides before going out and read patterns as to where others are catching, or not catching, fish.
Exactly how much fish will be caught will depend on DFO counts through August and into September. If there is an abundance of fish it could drive prices down.
“The thing is with a big run everyone gets plugged with salmon and the price falls,” noted Taylor.
A lot of the fishermen think the salmon purchasing monopolization of tycoon Jim Pattison’s Canadian Fishing Company (Canfisco), which buys the salmon for processing, is unfair, noted Taggart.
“How many fish do you have to catch at a dollar a pound? 10,000 sockeye at six pounds on average at a dollar a pound. That’s just $60,000 for working your tail off,” said Taggart.
Presently, fish being sold near Campbell River, where there was a commercial opening this week, was selling for $1.75 per pound. A sockeye salmon is typically five to 10 pounds.
“When the fish prices go down, it infuriates me because for us to go out and catch the fish, it’s expensive,” added Taggart.
At any rate, the fishermen say it’s a buyers’ market at Steveston’s Fisherman’s Wharf.
“It’s a good time for the public to buy fish at a reasonable price, probably $20 a fish. These fish are still full of oil, it’s a beautiful fish,” said Taggart.
Red fish, red tape
Selling the fish requires a licence, one of many pieces of paperwork needed to fish. Growing paperwork is something that fisherman Randy Fraser says has become a trend over the past five to 10 years.
The 53 year-old pulls no punches at the federal government and DFO, claiming the bureaucratic red tape is ultimately designed to be prohibitive and force independent gillnetters off their boats.
Take, for instance, the VHF radio licence.
“Twenty-five years ago I took this course and the government said it was good for life. The only reason why they made us take it again is because they put a little red button on the radio (to automatically call the Canadian Coast Guard) instead of calling (channel) 16. So now you gotta take a new course to push the little red button and there’s another $180 and two days of (expletive) hell,” said Fraser
Every fisherman requires the following papers: boat registration, a commercial and sport fishing licence, an operating licence, a boat safety certificate, a logbook, a First Aid certificate, insurance papers, moorage documents and validation numbers for the packing boat.
New to this year, the latter is something Fraser says is one of the straws that broke the camel’s back, for him; fishermen must now call Ottawa while unloading their fish at a packing boat, in order to obtain a number to report to the boat.
“Wouldn’t you love to run a business where nobody had to walk into their store; all they had to do is go online and they give you their money. You never had to talk to them, help them do a single thing for them? …Isn’t it good to be king?” scoffed Fraser in reference to the closure of DFO offices in Vancouver.
All the paperwork requires time the fishermen don’t have in an extremely time-sensitive environment.
“I was thinking about hiring a secretary,” chuckled one fisherman, named Walter.
Another preparation for skippers is finding suitable deckhands, who also require more and more paperwork, said Fraser.
This month Yoshikawa will take on five employees, two of whom are greenhorns.
“Based on this run you may only get 30 days to make up for what we’ve spent and invested in. So I’ll go out and, also, I’ve got to hire five guys and two of them are green,” said Yoshikawa.
“I’ve had some pretty good deckhands but they’ve all moved on, working for BC Ferries or something. You can’t expect a guy to make a living working one month every four years,” added Yoshikawa.
Moonlighting on the Fraser
Longtime Steveston resident Yoshikawa has moved on from decades of fishing in his family business to working full-time as a homebuilder.
“I saw the writing on the wall,” he said, noting the fleet of about 280 was once counted in the thousands.
“Any young kid couldn’t afford it, let alone make a living out of it. You’ve gotta buy your boat, your gear, your papers,” he said.
At the Rumours I vessel, Taggart said he has had to take on work with a fish farm up north.
“I’m kinda of on both sides of the fence. A guy has to do what a guy has to do. I’ve always been on the water, it’s all I know,” said Taggart who says he’s taken some flack from some people since the farms are known to breed viruses, a leading theory as to why fish stocks have been declining.
Most fishermen the Richmond News spoke to are semi-retired and reaching their senior years, if they’re not there already.
For instance, Fraser said he’s independently wealthy and otherwise retired and Taylor’s son Travis is a realtor while his other son, who fishes crab, is a chartered accountant.
“You gotta do everything you can to make a living,” said Taylor.
Baziuk said despite poor salmon returns, the fishing industry on the whole is doing well, with catches such as herring, crab and halibut giving fishermen opportunities to run their boats nearly year-round.
But what lies in store for salmon gillnetter’s is anyone’s guess. Will the salmon populations rebound?
