How many of us were or are commercial fisherman

[leaseman]

Thanks for the memories!

My Great Uncle, Jake Greaves was well known on the Vancouver waterfront. He would take me down there to see what was happening and would stop to talk to all the boats....going to have to find the old papers and see what boats he was on!

His claim to fame was being the second boat under Lions Gate with the official opening!

 

[onefish]

I always thought there should be more rec fishing groups like commercial fishermen working together.

You only worked within your own group though. I still have one of my old code wheels where you had to change it every day to match the inner wheel to the date. Some groups had scramblers or private frequencies programed in their phones ( vhf, jacked up cbs, SSB NOT cell phones or sat phones ) so they didn't have to use code wheels. It was always frowned upon to give any sort of intel directly over the vhf as there was always guys listening for tidbits they could cash in on.
I fished for a number of years with the "Sooke group". If you were caught fudging your numbers or talking outside the group you were risking getting kicked out of the group. I can remember getting hot reports at shutdown and rather than running to the spot right away going to bed for a few hours and sneaking away from the fleet in the middle of the night.
One year we were fishing around winter harbour and saw a couple of hot shots heading west towards the charlottes. We thought they were heading to the west side of the charlottes for sockeye. The whole south coast was slow at the time so we decided to follow them. As it turned out they didn't stop till they got to Langara Island. We ended up fishing springs and coho for the rest of the season from Langara over to Tow Hill. In the end it turned out to be a good move but we were sure wondering if we had made a huge mistake.

 

[Aquaholic]

You only worked within your own group though. I still have one of my old code wheels where you had to change it every day to match the inner wheel to the date. Some groups had scramblers or private frequencies programed in their phones ( vhf, jacked up cbs, big phones NOT cell phones or sat phones ) so they didn't have to use code wheels.

Daniels or Unimetrics (?) would tell you they could sell you and your code partner a private chip or channel so you could talk on the VHF and be unheard. Not sure if it worked. My skipper was code partner with a top producer, the handwritten pencil code words were quite funny to see.

 

[Gong Show]

We had a radio scanner from Australia.
Aussie regulators block different frequencies than North America scanners.
We could listen in to all sorts of things, like dfo, police, cellphones, at least back when it was analogue, they did not work with digital phones.

Always trying to crack the codes. You would get to know some of the boats within a code group, then by watching one and listening to their code report, you started a database that you would update until you cracked the code. All sorts of scrap paper with code notes on them.

My reports would always reference something shared with the recipient, easy code. "Just picked up 20 times the number of beers drank at your house last week"

Other fun stuff was marine telephone over VHF, "yes I would like privacy", then the responding party would be a half channel over. Or, you just make up the other side of the conversation. "Yes dear, I miss you too"

 

[Gong Show]

Pictures, as requested,
Portheus and Cobber.

 

[Dave H]

Great stuff from all you guys.

As a youth I always thought about being a commercial fisherman as my Dad had a couple of friends who were and I saw them around and heard a few stories.
One was Al Purkiss, a troller and very good producer. He was also a very keen fly fisherman and famous for his annual competition with a fellow angler over who would land the most steelhead during a specified period. I can remember him false casting a new fly line out on our lawn and he had the whole 90' of line out. I think his boat was named the Salmon Seeker and he's mentioned in the book, Fishing With John, although his name is spelled wrong in it.

Dad also had a pal named Al Harris who gill-netted up the coast, particularly in 1944 at Rivers Inlet on the big sockeye run there. Near the end of July of 1944 my Dad and Mom, both serving in the military, met up on a weekend and went down to see if Al was back from fishing.
His boat was there but he wasn't. Dad and Mom went aboard and one thing led to another that led to me being conceived. Nine months later, on May 3rd. 1945 I was born.

17 years later, in 1962, I went to the DFO office here in Campbell River, and purchased a C Commercial fishing license. It cost $2.00 and I got it so I could hunt and sell Octopus during the winter of 1962-63. Made good spending money for a 17 year old.

So, I was conceived on a fish-boat and technically was a commercial fisherman too.

I might deserve a prize or something. LOL



Take care.

 

[Fishless]

Great stuff from all you guys.

As a youth I always thought about being a commercial fisherman as my Dad had a couple of friends who were and I saw them around and heard a few stories.
One was Al Purkiss, a troller and very good producer. He was also a very keen fly fisherman and famous for his annual competition with a fellow angler over who would land the most steelhead during a specified period. I can remember him false casting a new fly line out on our lawn and he had the whole 90' of line out. I think his boat was named the Salmon Seeker and he's mentioned in the book, Fishing With John, although his name is spelled wrong in it.

Dad also had a pal named Al Harris who gill-netted up the coast, particularly in 1944 at Rivers Inlet on the big sockeye run there. Near the end of July of 1944 my Dad and Mom, both serving in the military, met up on a weekend and went down to see if Al was back from fishing.
His boat was there but he wasn't. Dad and Mom went aboard and one thing led to another that led to me being conceived. Nine months later, on May 3rd. 1945 I was born.

17 years later, in 1962, I went to the DFO office here in Campbell River, and purchased a C Commercial fishing license. It cost $2.00 and I got it so I could hunt and sell Octopus during the winter of 1962-63. Made good spending money for a 17 year old.

So, I was conceived on a fish-boat and technically was a commercial fisherman too.

I might deserve a prize or something. LOL



Take care.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!!!

 

[Tsquared]

Paid for my last 2 years of my university degree by deckhanding on west coast salmon trollers starting in 1979 with Jimmy Kilbourne on the Lea WK and then the Miss Asrai with Dave Crampton. Bought my own 36 ft wood troller in 1981 and fished it for a couple of years but 20% mortgage rates did me in and I sold it in 1984 and went back to school. I combined commercial trolling as a deckhand and teaching during the winter for several years. 12 years of commercial trolling in all.
Here’s a picture of me landing a fish on the Ella Maude on Laperouse and another doing direct sales on Fishermen’s wharf in James Bay circa 1983.

 

[Aquaholic]

Paid for my last 2 years of my university degree by deckhanding on west coast salmon trollers starting in 1979 with Jimmy Kilbourne on the Lea WK and then the Miss Asrai with Dave Crampton. Bought my own 36 ft wood troller in 1981 and fished it for a couple of years but 20% mortgage rates did me in and I sold it in 1984 and went back to school. I combined commercial trolling as a deckhand and teaching during the winter for several years. 12 years of commercial trolling in all.
Here’s a picture of me landing a fish on the Ella Maude on Laperouse and another doing direct sales on Fishermen’s wharf in James Bay circa 1983.
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Gaff techniques of a commercial troller are right up there. It’s all we had.

 

[Tsquared]

Great tales, you guys must have had some amazing seasons!

Trolled on the Titanium a yellow wooden double ender out of the Courtenay slew/Ukee. Tim Noot the skipper was a part of the Num Nuts group of boats, always loved the end of day count of the fish caught by each boat and the radio BS. Hearing a female skippers voice on the radio was like seeing Pam Andersen after a few days at sea. Loved all of it from the Fraser up to QC. Early 90’s. Did one Tuna trip and it was a blast, no hydraulics just plugs on hand lines, tips of our fingers if I remember correctly but maybe I’m just getting old.

In 2005 ish I did one commercial Hali trip with Dave Boyes who is still at it, with his daughter fishing to this day and they sell Hali and ling at the Comox dock every year. His boat name escapes me, he had a 40+ wooden scooner and then up graded. Someone will remember Daves boat name he and Tim were both UBC biology grads and had sailed to the South Pacific in a converted life boat that was donated to the sea cadets. I had just quit my job on the mainland and before moving back to the island permanently, guess the Hali trip was my last job. Started my own business afterwards.

Was looking a prawn/tuna boat with a prawn license today as part of the research for my YouTube channel. Family and friends are running to their Prawn spots for the opening. Killed me to skip opening day of ling cod, this weekend, and I’ll be thinking of the men and women setting strings on a real opening day Thursday.

Hats off to you few who owned boats and fished so many crazy fisheries!

I know Dave and Tiare Boyes. Dave and his wife used to deliver to Ukee Fish when I did in the early eighties.

 

[IronNoggin]

Happy Birthday Dave H!!!

 

[cuttlefish]

@cuttlefish I knew someone would know. Looks like a great boat, 27 years is longer than most marriages. Where did you fish out of?

I always thought there should be more rec fishing groups like commercial fishermen working together. How we find fish trolling two lures, vs double or triple or more sharing what depth and more is a miracle to me.

We mostly fished the north coast out of QCC and Rupert. Then DFO brought in area and gear licensing and I had to buy a second license from another troller to fish for sockeye. It was all downhill after that…
Speaking of codes, we had one that worked like this;
think of a sheet divided into boxes.
Across the top (x axis) were words like “kinda”, “mighty”, “pretty”, “sorta”, “awfully”, “really”, etc.
Down the side (y axis) were more words like “poor”, “bad”, “slow”, ”shi**y”, ”terrible”, “cr#ppy”, and so on.
In the boxes were the scores so if you told your fellow groupie it was “mighty poor today” you had 10 but if you said it was “pretty slow” you had 20.
Later on we moved to the code wheel and used scramblers on our tuneable VHFs and SSBs.

 

[Aquaholic]

We mostly fished the north coast out of QCC and Rupert. Then DFO brought in area and gear licensing and I had to buy a second license from another troller to fish for sockeye. It was all downhill after that…
Speaking of codes, we had one that worked like this;
think of a sheet divided into boxes.
Across the top (x axis) were words like “kinda”, “mighty”, “pretty”, “sorta”, “awfully”, “really”, etc.
Down the side (y axis) were more words like “poor”, “bad”, “slow”, ”shi**y”, ”terrible”, “cr#ppy”, and so on.
In the boxes were the scores so if you told your fellow groupie it was “mighty poor today” you had 10 but if you said it was “pretty slow” you had 20.
Later on we moved to the code wheel and used scramblers on our tuneable VHFs and SSBs.

Exactly how I remember it, you would cross reference the grid to get what you wanted to share for how the fishing was.

 

[Newf]

Fished on the Sunfjord ,a Dragger/Seiner, for only two years (79 and 80) but really enjoyed being on the water. The guys laughed at me, being a Newfie who had never fished in NL but travelled all the way to BC to fish commercially. We fished for the Prince Rupert Fishermans Co-op.

It would Seine for Food and Roe herring for a couple of months and dragged for the rest of the year.

The boat was built as a 67 footer. It fished herring in the early days on the BC coast and then fished herring in the late 60's in NL. It came back to BC in early 70's and fished Halibut for a couple of years and then went dragging and Seining with a few stints packing herring and salmon. Somewhere, in the early 70's I believe, it was lengthened by 20ft as it was 87ft when I was on it. It was owned by Dick Woods and Per Engelund at that time.

Lots of memories from those two years.







This photo below was after the boat struck a reef on its way from Rupert to Vancouver in early 79 to switch to the seine gear. At low tide they were able to patch the gash in the bottom and re-float her. In this photo she was towed to Alert Bay where they did a temporary repair good enough so they we could get her to Vancouver where she was stripped and rebuilt.

 

[Gong Show]

Fished on the Sunfjord ,a Dragger/Seiner, for only two years (79 and 80) but really enjoyed being on the water. The guys laughed at me, being a Newfie who had never fished in NL but travelled all the way to BC to fish commercially. We fished for the Prince Rupert Fishermans Co-op.

It would Seine for Food and Roe herring for a couple of months and dragged for the rest of the year.

The boat was built as a 67 footer. It fished herring in the early days on the BC coast and then fished herring in the late 60's in NL. It came back to BC in early 70's and fished Halibut for a couple of years and then went dragging and Seining with a few stints packing herring and salmon. Somewhere, in the early 70's I believe, it was lengthened by 20ft as it was 87ft when I was on it. It was owned by Dick Woods and Per Engelund at that time.

Lots of memories from those two years.

View attachment 79057


View attachment 79058

View attachment 79060
This photo below was after the boat struck a reef on its way from Rupert to Vancouver in early 79 to switch to the seine gear. At low tide they were able to patch the gash in the bottom and re-float her. In this photo she was towed to Alert Bay where they did a temporary repair good enough so they we could get her to Vancouver where she was stripped and rebuilt.
View attachment 79062

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Great pictures!

 

[Aquaholic]

Fished on the Sunfjord ,
View attachment 79057

This was a famous Rupert boat. That hull extension really blended well with the boat lines and cabin size.

 

[Newf]

This was a famous Rupert boat. That hull extension really blended well with the boat lines and cabin size.

It was a good looking boat when it was all painted up. Many loooong days and nights when we were dragging.

My brother-in-law ( Per Engelund) sold it some time ago to someone in the states. It sank just a few years ago.

 

[Aquaholic]

In a related story, The Belmont Hotel in Prince Rupert just burned down a few nights ago. Many a commercial fisherman spent time in there, during herring season it was fights n beer nights. Someone said in the photo of the remains, you can still see the strippers pole standing proud!

 

[VanIsle10]

Was a troller from 1979 to 2000 also work as deckhand for herring and crew on a halibut boat with brother inlaw
for most of those years. Owned 3 different trollers from ice to freezer

Dug up a few photos of the trollers @Forbsey10

 

[Derby]

In a related story, The Belmont Hotel in Prince Rupert just burned down a few nights ago. Many a commercial fisherman spent time in there, during herring season it was fights n beer nights. Someone said in the photo of the remains, you can still see the strippers pole standing proud!

View attachment 79075View attachment 79074

Remember spending some wild times there is the early 80's when i was in Rupert laying rail for the Grain port and repairing rail in the coal port .. I remeber the commercial guys buying shooters by the plate full and they would not like it if you said no if they were offering... crazy times ....