From the Ocean to Your Table

From the ocean to your table the fisherman is the first link in bringing fresh seafood to you, whether it be in your home or the restaurant. The catch of the day could mean it was caught in the last twenty-four or forty-eight hours. It could mean that is was caught three days ago. Fresh from the river to your plate doesn’t necessarily mean what the consumer thinks it does.

Walking out on the dock of the mooring basin, gillnet boats line the docks like cars in a used car lot. The diversity is just as broad. You can see anything from a twenty-two foot gillnet boats to sixty foot trawler lined up in their slips. Many of these slips have been handed down father to son for generations.

I talked with J, a fourth generation Columbia River fishermen. J fishes off a bowpicker, meaning you pull, and set the net over the bow (stern pickers pull from the front). He has a cabin on it that he can use for a place to cook, eat, and sleep. The boat is made of fiberglass that he repairs, paints, and caulks yearly. He cleans the holds out after every trip to get the bacteria from the fish out. "Fiberglass is a lot more inexpensive to upkeep then the old wooden gillnet boats," J declared. "They would get slimey and were hard to repair if they hit something in the river." According to J, over ninety percent of all fishing vessels are fiberglass, now.

A gillnet is descriptive of the way a net is used. The type of net combined with the method used snares the targeted fish. The fish try to swim through the deliberately sized mesh openings (each net made to catch a specific species). They are unable to squeeze completely through these openings swimming forward because they catch their fins in the mesh. Once in this position, they are prevented from backing out due to the tendency for their gills to become caught. This effectively traps them. The size of the mesh, in theory, allows for smaller types of waterlife to get through the net or doesn't allow the larger species to get their heads caught in. Most often, however, the fisherman spends time throwing back things which are not his intended catch. If the unintended catch are sturgeon caught during salmon season a fisherman will often bring in a couple hundred of these during his drift. He will leave them on his deck until he leaves that area so that the fish aren’t caught over and over again in his net, endangering their ability to survive. Because the deck is very wet, and the sturgeon are very hardy, this method is better than tearing their gills, leaving them with little chance of survival as they are pulled from the net over and over again throughout the day. Another problem with drifts are the amount of logs and other debris caught up in them. Whenever possible, as the fishermen layout they try to avoid this debris, lifting their nets over and placing it around the river's refuse. Repair of nets costs time and labor and lost time on the river means lost money, often the only opportunity they have during a short season.

As there was no season when I visited with J, he explained the fishing to me. "You begin by laying out the net, and waiting several hours until you haul your net in. If the tide’s moving fast, haul your net in sooner. If it’s moving slower you wait longer. As you bring the net in you pull the fish out of the net, and throw them in the hold. If it is February or March and the fisherman catches a salmon with a whole adipose fin then that fish goes into the live box, a box of cold water used to keep salmon alive" [until it can be thrown back into the river at the end of the day after the danger of being recaught in the nets is passed].

J has been fishing the Columbia for over forty years. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather fished the Columbia as did his mother’s family. He learned many techniques, which he said could bring in good hauls even in short seasons when the competition was fierce. These are techniques each fisherman has, and are closely guarded secrets ranging from when to lay out, to how often, and where. Some fishermen come in earlier on short openings, and others stay out longer. Each way has benefits, and drawbacks both to the freshness of the fish as well as the profit to the fisherman. "I like being on the river, sometimes I even love it," J said. "Especially the sky, either the blue of a real nice day or the stars shining out of a pitch black night." The relationship between the river and the fisherman changes as often as the tides.

When J brings his catch in many options are open to him. If he has the proper license he can sell directly to the public. "Most people think that’s the freshest way to go," J chuckled, "but often if the fisherman is selling for himself he’s stayed out long, and is after as many fish as he can get. He then comes in, and is sitting at the dock, selling the fish from his hold. These fish can be out of the water for 24 hours at this point." J argues that a fisherman is smarter using a wholesale broker who has a good client base. The fisherman will get less per pound but he will sell all of his fish to the broker. If he sells his fish himself he may get more per pound but he also may not get all of his fish sold.

With a broker waiting to purchase the fish as soon as the fisherman brings it in, the fisherman can afford to make a few trips bringing them in throughout the day. He wants to do this so his fish is the better, fresher looking, and will go for the higher price. These fish can be sold to the fish markets to sit in the deli case or in the restaurant to sit nicely on your plate. The other fish go to the canneries to be canned, they don’t need to look as nice and go for a lower price.

Conceivably, a fish can go from the river to the consumer’s plate in as few as twelve hours. From the fisherman to a wholesale broker to a retail broker to the fishmarket to the plate, all that’s needed now is a wedge of lemon, and a good side dish.