"From Fishing to Farmers Markets" ....news & events, issues & ideas

Sunday, September 18, 2011

 
Posting a short Video

Hopefully this will post as a video so that you can visualize how hard three men have to pull on this net to land 200 pinks, each weighing an average of 4.2 lbs.

Jack, Andrew, and Steve roll in over 200 pinks. They will slide over the deck and into the underwater tank to hold for delivery later.

- posted by Holly @ 9:54 AM

 
Views of the 4Way Reefnet Gear

The reefnet gear is an old Salish and Lummi Indian fishing method which traps salmon between two barges or canoes and pulls up any salmon that swim over the net strung between the two boats.

The nets and ropes used to be made of cedar bark. Compared to seining

and gillnetting, this old-time method is inefficient and requires alot of patience. The owner Jack calls it a working museum. The Seattle Times has a good article about it: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016197678_reefnet14m.html

Labels: Pulling the fish into a bag

- posted by Holly @ 9:21 AM

 
Fisherman on Vacation

Steve comes home for a vacation and two days later he is reef netting with the local fishermen for pink salmon: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016197678_reefnet14m.html

We have done business with Jack and his crew for two years for their sockeye that we use in our canned wild sockeye skinless boneless pack.
Now Steve was fishing alongside with Randy, Andrew, Jack, and John, first as a guest and then as a fill-in crew.
This was nothing new. Steve's great aunt Anna Hodgson had owned the Iceberg Point reefnet gear on the south end of Lopez Island. He was on the crew there in 1965 and the experience trained his eyes and patience as to how sockeyes and kings behaved. This type of fishing is ancient as all the lines and nets in the Salish Indian times were made of cedar bark.
The basic concept is the same however. I will try to post some pictures and diagrams later.

- posted by Holly @ 8:15 AM