fishing for school

Each year in the fall a few local fishermen (and women) will take boats out to fish for the school. The school freezes the fish to use for lunches throughout the year. I asked one of the students how often they eat fish and she said about once a week. 

Liz and I were lucky enough to get to go out in one of the boats and learn a thing or two about drift net fishing.  This method is the main method for summer fishing.  Our students begin learning how to fish at a very young age and grow up traveling via boat on the waterways.  I am grateful to have the opportunity to gain an understanding of this aspect of their lives.

We were with two high school students and a recent graduate.

The beach with all the boats.  Ideally, an afternoon of fishing would fill one or two of those containers.

The water was very calm that day.

I'm still acclimating to the weather and have on base layers, shirt, jeans, down vest, rain jacket, and my life vest.

The net is stored in the divided compartment in the boat.  The top part, with the white floats, is on the left side and the bottom on the right.  Each end of the net has a float, one is about the size of an exercise ball and the other is about the size of a kickball.  The large float (just visible past the very tip of the boat) was thrown out first and then each side of the net is slowly pulled off over the edge of the boat.  The driver slowly backs up at at a curve and maintains the right speed to make sure the net is thrown out properly.  Occasionally there is an issue with the net and a pause is necessary.

The net we were using was 105 feet long and 35 feet deep.

Liz commented that the clouds seemed very close.

After the net is thrown it is time to wait.

When the floats look as though they have been pulled and we had drifted far enough, it is time to pull in the net.

As the net is pulled back in so are the fish.  The fish are then untangled from the net and tossed in the tote.

Our first drift gave us the most fish.

After the captain had pulled in a few fish he asked if Liz or I wanted to try.  I volunteered first.  It was pretty tricky to unravel the fish from the nylon nets.  Then trying to grab them was another matter.  Wet fish are slick.  We learned that it is best to grab them at the gills, even better to stick two fingers right under the gill opening and grab it that way.

One person pulls the float and the other pulls the bottom.

Liz untangling a fish.  We learned a few techniques.  One was two pull at the net and use gravity to help untangle the fish.

That space were the two gill plates meet is the place that offers the most control for handling the fish.  

Fish scales on the knees.  We did four drifts that day.  I'm not sure how many fish we ended up with total but it was quite a few.

It started raining after that last drift so we headed back to the village.

We loaded all the fish up in the truck and took them to the school.  From there we took them inside in bags, about seven or eight per bag, to be frozen for the school year.  Those were some heavy bags.