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The fishing season has
switched from salmon to crab for local fishers. There was one day of sockeye salmon
fishing in August, and then a couple days of fishing for pink (humpy) salmon,
at 15 cents a pound, in September, and then the buyers quit buying. They didn’t
need any more fish, there are already too many cans of pink salmon in the warehouses
from earlier years.
There are so many pinks out there, that they literally
sank one seiner.
The New Moon, owned by the Sea K Fish Co., had about
40,000 pounds of pinks aboard, and a net full of pinks to bring aboard, when the
boat noticeably started listing, with the stern roller going under water. The
crew cut the net loose, and tried to pull the boat back with the seine skiff,
but it didn’t help. They had to jump into the skiff. The last one, the captain,
had to jump down about six feet into the skiff, as the boat was rolling over and
sank stern first. It took about two minutes for it to go down. The old wooden
boat had more fish aboard than it had seen in a long time, and the seams of the
boat which were normally above water line were down where they weren’t soaked
up, and water poured in. She is now on the bottom off of Point Whitehorn. All
the crew were shaken up but are okay.
The treaty Indian fishers also
had several days of crab fishing between the end of August and the middle of September.
There were a lot of Dungeness crab caught at that time, as much as a million and
a half pounds. Two Indian crab boats also sank, one a skiff with pots aboard which
sank going out of the harbor, between the dock at the end of Marine Drive and
Semiahmoo. The men aboard had to swim before being picked up by another fisher,
and were taken to the hospital for treatment of hypothermia.
The second
crab boat sank the next day, coming into the harbor. It went down off Semiahmoo
Spit, out from sewer treatment plant. The men aboard also make it to shore okay.
It seems that these boats were all overloaded, as the weather was calm.
Non-Indian fishers will start crab fishing October 1. The crab pots will start
arriving at the harbor soon, to be loaded onto boats in preparation for the opening
day. Treaty Indian fishers are slated to start crab fishing again October 3. Crab
buyers are expected to be at Sea K, Boundary, Star Fish, Blaine Crab (Blaine Marina
dock), and Dakota Fisheries. Local draggers have been fishing for sole and some
cod, bringing their catch into Sea K Fish. Offshore draggers have been going out
in the ocean for bottom fish and turbot. Some of these draggers will be unloading
their bottom fish catch in Neah Bay. Several large draggers have been bringing
in hundreds of thousands of pounds of turbot to Sea K, where these soft, low priced
fish are then taken to Dakota Fisheries building to have the fins cut off with
bandsaws, and the rest of the fish returned for processing at Sea K. The fins
are boxed, frozen and shipped to the Orient.
As the Dakota Fisheries
company has not been using their building for processing fish, this arrangement
gives Sea K a larger space for the saws and crew to work. The fillet lines are
all in the Sea K building for processing for fresh fish markets.
The
local draggers that are still working in Alaska will be fishing for cod and pollock
in October. The season will close November 1.
Many old time local boats
have changed hands this year. Some are still in our harbor, others come during
certain seasons for fishing, and others will never be seen again, as they have
been destroyed. The salmon license buy-back has removed many local fishers form
the salmon fishing, and they sold their boats to either Indian fishers, who will
be getting more and more of the total allowable catch, or to fishers in other
areas for different fisheries. It has been sad to see many of these boats leave
our area, and more will be changing hands as the fishery changes.
Our
harbor has been updated, with modern facilities for moorage and for general usage.
Now we shall see who will still be here to use these facilities. Back
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