Salmon Fishing

Salmon Fishing

 Great Bear Reef

 Canada

 August 2004

I am on a 70-foot sailboat somewhere along the coast of the Great Bear Reef. It’s a gorgeous day. There’s not much wind which presents a challenge for a sailboat. So, Ed, our captain, decides to drop the anchor and spend the afternoon fishing. We are in water that is inundated with salmon fish.

I’ve never fished before so I don’t know what to expect and I’m not sure I’ll find fishing to be interesting. It always seemed a bit boring to me. But now as I have my reel in hand and I am standing at the edge of the boat, I am anxious for catch.

With nothing biting Ed suggests I pull in my line to see if my bait is still hooked. Sure enough it wasn’t so Ed secured a much bigger piece of bait in hopes that I might have some success. Within a few minutes there’s a tug on my line and like the fish, I’m hooked too. I’m filled with excitement and pride. I begin to see myself as a natural at this sport. I begin to reel the fish in but it is a struggle. Ed comes over and helps me.

“Shit it’s a big one”, he yells to me which fills my ego. “And he is feisty. Man, he is putting up a struggle. Get the net ready. I think you’re going to need the net”.

I scurry over to the equipment and find the net and just as I get back to Ed I see the fish emerging from the water. Ed instructs me to take the reel again and he grabs the net. As I pull in a little bit more, Ed bends over and scoops up the fish in this net.

“Look at this,” he tells me. “I bet this fish’s over 12 pounds”. The fish is squirming and fighting to get loose from the net. Ed grabs the mallet and kneels to the floor. With the fish still inside the net, Ed takes a few hard hits to the fish’s head. Blood trickles out of its mouth and I am repulsed by this. I am now standing in fish blood.

Ed releases the fish from the netting and it just lays there on the floor. Ed turns ever so slightly to find a fillet knife. And in that moment, the fish jerks itself and lets us know it is still alive. Ed gives it one more swift blow to the head. More blood streams out of the mouth and now out of the eyeball which is where the hook is. This mangled fish looks repulsive. Blood is everywhere. Ed turns yet a second again to find a cutting board and the fish jerks again. But this time it jerks with such force that it flips off the boat and back in the water, sinking so fast it immediately disappears from our sight.

I’m devastated. We mangled and mutilated this fish beyond what I had expected. There is no chance it will survive and in my mind this was shamefully wasteful. But Ed assures me not to worry because “in less than two minutes that thing will be devoured by another fish.” It’s a very small comfort to me but I take it because I know that is the harsh reality of the food chain.