VANCOUVER – The acrid exhaust from dozens of diesel engines hung heavy over Steveston Harbour on Wednesday morning as the last of the gillnet fleet got ready to feast on a historic bounty of sockeye flooding the Fraser River.
An estimated 25 million sockeye are expected to swim upriver – the largest number on record since 1913.
The sense of expectation among the fishermen as they stowed the last of the gear aboard their small vessels was as pervasive as the smell of burnt diesel.
These are people who have watched their livelihoods shrink to almost nothing, who haven’t been allowed a minute’s fishing for Fraser sockeye in the last three years, and now the fishery has been thrown open for an unheard-of 32 hours.
No wonder Lok Luong could hardly wait to slip his lines and take up station in his favourite spot in the middle of the Fraser not far from his home port.
For these fishermen it promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime bonanza.
“I’m excited. I don’t know how many we’ll catch, but they are telling us there’s lots of fish out there,” said Luong, whose 29-foot vessel Sheila V has enough space in her hold for 1,000 sockeye.
The fishermen who prefer to fish further upstream around Mission slipped away earlier in the morning.
Those like Luong, who fish near Steveston, began moving out shortly after 10:30 a.m. with tanks full of fuel and plenty of ice in the holds.
Steveston Harbour is Canada’s largest commercial fishing port and it was empty of gillnetters with mostly trollers and the odd sailboat still in the harbour as the clock ticked towards noon – the time when the gillnets would start hitting the water.
The Sheila V had recently returned from a disappointing trip to Prince Rupert for an opening earlier this month.
“We didn’t make any money up there. Only caught enough fish to pay the cost of fuel,” said Luong, who has been a commercial fisherman since 1988.
His compatriot on the next slip, Hung Nguyen, whose 37-foot vessel Atlas Mariner can hold 3,000 sockeye, was in Prince Rupert, too, but had less luck.
“It was only open one day. We didn’t catch enough to pay for the fuel. We haven’t really been making any money for years. It’s been very bad. We’re hoping we can make enough this year to pay some things off,” Nguyen said.
Kim Pham and his sister, Mai, said they were astonished when they learned the fishery would be open for 32 hours.
Pham has been fishing for 15 years during which he has spent more time not fishing than fishing.
“It’s been mostly closures or openings of a couple of hours, three hours, five hours, eight hours – but 32 hours, never,” he said.
Pham’s vessel Whitecaps can hold 1,500 fish and he was hoping to see his hold packed with fish.
“Apparently it’s an abundance. We’re going to stay out for the whole 32 hours.”
The only downside for the likes of Luong is that the sheer quantity of fish will reduce the price.
“It’ll likely go down. The first opening two weeks ago the price [paid to fishermen] was $1.75 a pound. Last Monday it was down to $1.25 and if there’s lots of fish caught it could go down to $1,” he said.
David Secord, 58, a fisherman for more than 40 years, was fishing near Fort Langley aboard his vessel The Last Of The Mohicans.
By 2 p.m. he had about 100 fish in the first set compared to a few days ago when he said fishermen were getting 200 to 400 fish in a set.
Fifteen years ago there would have been 2,000 gillers fishing on the Fraser River, but now there are only 300 licences left on the entire river, he said.
He viewed the biggest run in almost 100 years as coming “too late” to do much to save the industry.
“It’s so screwed up that you’d have to have back-to-back runs like this for five to 10 years in order for the fleet to recover from the condition it’s in,” he said.
“This big run of fish, really what difference is it going to make?”
“We have had so many years where we have had absolutely nothing. No opportunity to fish, and so this big bonanza run is great from a certain perspective, but the overall industry isn’t prepared to handle this much fish.”
He said fishermen don’t have the freezing capacity and they were having to bring in ice from Prince Rupert.
He said he was furious over the price fishermen were getting for the salmon, saying the packing companies were just capitalizing on the big run.
“We went on strike 40 years ago to get a better price than we’re getting now.”
He said the majority of the salmon will be sold for $1.15 a pound, down from $1.75 a couple of days ago, and the rest, fishermen will try to sell directly to the public.
“This is ridiculous when you are talking about the No. 1 protein source in the world.”
He said the price should be up around $4 a pound like it was 20 years ago.
Customers are paying up to $8 or $9 a pound in the supermarket, he said.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.