The Fisher Queen (8 page)

You pulled in the gear one line at a time so the other tow line kept fishing and to avoid a gear-tangling catastrophe. Normally, an experienced fisherman could go through all the gear, both sides, in a half-hour or so, but this session was a two-hour slow-mo' event as I absorbed every piece of action and instruction. The latest installment of Gear Setting 101 came rapid-fire but sequentially, and I vowed to myself that I would learn faster and more accurately than any other deckhand he'd had. I watched and nodded in profound, silent concentration. I relished the vertical learning curve, but I was restless for an action curve.

It was too rough and wet for me to write notes in my rapidly expanding Sylvia's How-To Book right then, but I would as soon as I could. I took notes as much as possible while Paul instructed and demonstrated. Some of the instructions became large-print bulletins that soon papered the cabin walls:
How To Start & Stop the Engine
,
How To Call A Coast Guard May Day
,
How To Light the Stove
,
How To Set the Pilot
. He delivered his calm, pedantic sessions like daily doses, prioritizing the must-knows, good-to-knows and maybe-later-knows. I mostly curbed my natural inclination to see and understand how everything fit together and tried to interrupt him only to check my notes and bullet-point lists with him. If not then, later in carefully chosen quiet times. Mistakes were costly in time, money and temper tantrums.

The odd grey wall I had noticed in the distance two hours ago seemed closer whenever I looked up from my marine classroom, and with a sigh Paul confirmed that it was one of the north end's infamous fogs. When the weather lowered, you had wind or you had fog. And this one was like something out of a Hollywood horror B-movie. I watched in shocked disbelief as it moved, eerily dense and soundless, across our deck to shroud us, then the water, then the land. We couldn't even see the pigs riding only 20 feet off our stern. Not an experience for a claustrophobic. Even I began to feel uneasy when I no longer saw land. The only thing we could still see were the six-foot waves still pounding our starboard side. Instinctually I became hyper-alert and spoke in whispers.

It was just as well the pilot broke down: I would have had to hand steer in the fog anyway, my eyes glued to the glowing radar sweeps that showed a vague representation of the coastline and, hopefully, other boats we might run into.

I kept one eye on the radar and the slowly thinning fog and another on a guide book to BC salmon I'd picked up at the Bull Harbour library. In the office, I learned the multiple names and life cycles of the fish I longed to get up close and personal with. I had heard so many different names I had to figure out which was what. It turned out each one had a Native name, a Canadian name, an American name and any number of nicknames.

All five species started out by hatching in the early spring in freshwater gravel stream beds up to 1,000 miles from the sea. They took from one to five years to travel downstream and through the ocean and then return to the exact spot they were hatched to lay and fertilize the next generation of eggs. The strangest part was that most of the species' males dramatically changed colour and even shape, growing fierce hooked jaws and humped scarlet backs to ward off competing males as they journeyed through the return of their cycle to spray their milt over the eggs in a nest the female had made by squirming in the gravel. After their struggle to reach their stream and emerge the alphas, the couple's mating was passionless and heralded a quick death.

In the royal court of Salmonry, the chinook was revered by the coastal First Nations as the king of salmon, the names it is known by in the US, though it is spring and smiley by current BC fishermen. They were the biggest, the showiest and the first to arrive on the fishing grounds. The early-season princely sockeyes, or sox, vied for the crown and won it: these second largest of fish became a focus when the much smaller cohos and pinks began to decline in the '70s. The average sockeye, which started running early in the season and could be taken with the springs, could bring in $10. A holdful of those beauties could make your whole season. Cohos, or small-sized bluebacks, were the dukes and couldn't be taken until July 1. The hefty chums, or dogs, were the servants of the court. Running late in the season and taken by net, they were destined for the canned market and institutional use. When canners wanted to glamour them up, they labelled them Fancy Keeta.

The lowly pinks—also known as humps, humpbacks or distasteful slimeballs—were small and hard to dress and worth pennies a pound, not considered worth a troller's time, and were left for the netters until they earned their new name in the early '80s: Desperation Fish. With runs of all the other species at record lows from 1980 to 1983, trollers would scramble for the pinks to save their season. No one knew just how bad it would get. Record-low runs and 18 percent interest rates, competing users and tightening restrictions on seasons and areas were moving in to form a crucible of their own.

For another three hours we rolled and bounced until the engine began to overheat again and about noon we had to pull in the gear, turn around and run back to Bull Harbour. We'd caught one 20-pound red spring that brought us $55 at the fish camp for five hours of rolling our guts out in the fog. At least we didn't come back skunked, but it was a grim ride back with Paul fuming about the Taylor Curse, which basically amounted to everything he touched turned to shit, according to him. There was nothing I could do to jolly him up, struggling with a bit of angst myself.

So what do you do when you're stuck on a boat and you have to
get away
before you come undone? Some people are adept at leaving
internally
: their spirit is elsewhere. It is certainly more efficient than having to leave physically. There are very few experiences more powerful and unnerving than trying to engage with someone who is so Teflon-coated that nothing sticks to them. Mighty handy for long periods on a boat, especially in isolation. Personal boundaries are a luxury, and so people go inward to find space. It is also free, instantaneous and infinite. But for those of us who are deeply engaged in the world and Velcro-skinned, detachment is illusive. What do we do? The irony of boat life is, though you're surrounded by limitless space, there's nowhere to go.

Paul and I were dying from constriction in the midst of endless space. I knew he was upset by all the boat problems, no fish and looming boat mortgage payments, but I had to get away from The Dungeon banging and didn't have anywhere to go but the 40-foot float.

I noticed the skiff was still tied to our midships cleat where Paul had used it to inspect the intake valves for obstructions, and I got the brilliant idea to get away by rowing around the bay. I poked my head through the floor opening and told him my plan. He grunted in reply. I strapped on a life jacket and told our dock neighbour that I'd be rowing around. I knew better than to go out in the wilderness alone without taking precautions.

With every pull on the heavy wooden oars I felt lighter, like leaving the gravitational pull of some dark planet. I imagined myself as a water bug, skittering weightless across the surface, then a swan, gliding and elegant. It was so blessedly quiet and calm, the air so warm and gentle, and I couldn't tear my eyes from the ripple of my wake. My bones and tension softened like putty. I couldn't remember what I'd come out here to do and what had driven me here. My hands dozed in my lap as I drifted and drifted on the incoming tide.

It seemed the most natural and sensible thing to slide down onto my back. I knew I'd be perfectly safe in my gently rocking cradle, as certain as an infant, as I watched two eagles in a love dance high above me.

Suddenly, the silver blade of a jet bisected the sky. I smiled at this odd intrusion, smiled as the eagles' ballet continued in spite of it and wondered which was the greater miracle.

I breathed back into myself and patted my skin into place before rowing back across the silver bay. Our neighbour gave me a little wink and wave as I tied up the skiff and clambered back on board. He reminded me a little of my dad and I had the feeling he understood what I was doing drifting around the bay.

A few helping hands and sympathetic suggestions determined the engine alternator was the culprit this time, which meant another run down the channel to Hardy to get it fixed. With luck we would be fishing again in a couple of days. In the meantime I knew to lay low and keep myself occupied.

How do you dress a salmon?
In fishnet stockings, of course.

Dressing a salmon is kind of a misnomer. Getting dressed usually means you add something to something—clothes to a person or sauce to a salad or stuffing to a turkey. But when it comes to salmon, you take things away: all their guts and gills.

With trolled salmon, it's not so much a disembowelling as it is a surgery. It is performed with as much skill and precision as a tossing deck will allow, because one false move costs you, literally. Any mark or cut or incorrect technique will downgrade the fish and you'll get paid a lot less for it. And when you're talking large red springs, the smileys, you're talking big loss. Not that we got much for our fish. By the time consumers buy it at the supermarket, everybody has taken their cut, so to speak.

Trolled salmon is the only fresh fish that is dressed before it's sold. They are caught on individual hooks, treated very gently and hygienically and preserved carefully in crushed ice 'til sold at a fish camp. Only second-grade fish are frozen, as the meat gets mushier when thawed.

Gillnet and seine boats catch their fish by net, and by the time the fish are dragged in and dumped on deck or in the hold, the fish are pretty beaten up by their own frantic thrashing and being dragged through water en masse, mashed together and thrown around. Those poor carcasses go to the canning market, and, in worst case, become fertilizer or pet food.

The minute a troll-caught fish is pulled into the boat, it's dropped into wooden bins in front of the cockpit in the stern where you stand to pull in the gear. Hold the thrashing tail and hit the fish hard with a gaff or club, hopefully just once, where its neck would be if it had one. It is merciful and necessary, especially if it's a big spring. They are very strong and can create havoc, flinging other fish, gear and sometimes themselves in all directions, including overboard.

Unless there's a fish on every hook, which hasn't happened since Christ was a cowboy, wait 'til all the gear has been pulled, then dress the whole works at once. Sometimes it's a few, sometimes it's none.

After it is definitely dead (some people dress them when they're still slightly twitchy—a foolish and barbaric practice that wracks up some very nasty karma and results in lots of dressing injuries), prop the fish on its back in the four-foot V-shaped metal or wooden trough with the tail pointing toward your knife hand.Then the surgery begins.

Holding the head steady, with the thumb and forefinger of your other hand in the gills, insert the tip of the long, narrow, exceedingly sharp dressing-knife blade in the anus and make a smooth straight cut up to the throat, if it had one, stopping about an inch before the V-shaped patch where the bottom of the gills meets the throat. Reaching into the throat, cut away the membrane holding the entire gut ensemble.

If it's done right, you can grab the top of the membrane and pull out the whole business like opening a zipper and pitch it into a bucket. Pitching it overboard often costs you the dressing knife if you lose your grip. Undoubtedly there are a million pounds of stainless steel blades lying on the bottom of the ocean.

Inspect and dissect the internal organs later for personal interest or to see what goodies the fish have been eating and try to match the gear accordingly. Hours of scientific fun.

Next, cut the large blood vessel running along the spinal column and carefully scrape out all the congealed blood. Old blood is notorious for degrading the flesh. Then lift the gill flaps and with a circular motion cut through both sides at the same time if you're good, and one side at a time if you're not.