PERSPECTIVE
Crab 2019 (Price +/- $5 lbs)
April 11 hauled +~ 800 Lbs
April 15 hauled +~ 800 Lbs
April 21 hauled +~ 500 Lbs
May 05 hauled +~ 600 Lbs
May 11 hauled. +~ 300 Lbs
May 17 hauled +~ 400 Lbs
May 25 hauled +~ 800 Lbs
Jun 08 hauled +~ 940 Lbs
Jun 19 hauled +~ 300 Lbs
Jun 25 hauled +~ 200 Lbs
Jun 28 hauled +~ 200 Lbs
This was the roughest year in history for Snow crab in our area (6C). The TOC in the area was 950 ton and only 55% of it ended up being landed. Each of the above trips cost us an average of $2000 to untie from the wharf.
Instead of keeping our boat tied up I still went and took a lost to make sure my two crew members (Who also work outside the fishery) made an honest days pay for the commitment they make for me and my father year after year when the times are good. It was also to ensure the employees of my small plant that also struggles to survive are able to put food on their table. (That are being denied a processing licence ).
Many will look at this situation and think I’m crazy and say why not let rationalization serve its purpose, but to me it’s a way of life and a family tradition that I need to protect. I come from what was once two of the largest fishing families in Petty Harbour and right now we own the last licence left because all of my uncles licences (7) were sold to big boat fishing families because we had nobody eligible to hold them and they all left the family and the community.
The people who bought them and the processors that funded them were all great people too, they were just fortunate enough to land on the right side of a rule that a handful of people voted to implement in 1997 without fully understanding the long-term catastrophic effects it would have on small fishing families like mine across the province . (Rural Newfoundland & Labrador).
If my family were brave enough to receive medals from the order of Canada for risking their lives to save others when they left the harbour in a small open boat while others in larger enclosed boats were afraid to go through the natch then I wouldn’t be much of a son or nephew to let a handful of bully’s back me into a corner and force me to sell out their legacy.
I commend and admire the large fishing families that are not cooperate owned but I understand that although we are in the same boat, we are financially in two different worlds. My ask is a reasonable one and it’s the only one going to rebuild the small boat fishery and make it an attractive occupation to entice young people into the industry and become independent licence holders, and it’s also the one that shifts control back into the hands of fishing families alike. Everyone in the professionalization program has the ability to be diversified, so it totally lacks logic to make any of them become unemployed to gain the privilege of graduating and becoming an enterprise owner. Diversification is the only way the small boat fishery becomes a sustainable and attractive option, and it’s the only long term solution to avoid situations like we are in today.
SHORE SKIPPER ( Greater than 40’fleet)
I can assure you no true fisherman voted to remove the 75 percent rule from themselves to let them work in an office for 12 months a year and have someone else run their fishing boat. To add insult to injury not only did they do this they also suggested it was ok for them to to have a designated skipper for the entire year but the rest of us are only allowed to get sick and have one for 5 years before we are forced to sell to one of the shore skipper s offspring. I didn’t make the rule and my family didn’t either, but I don’t take kindly of having to train their children in the job I was forced into and the one they chose while they hold the seven licenses that my uncles were forced to sell.
Empathy
I stayed tied up when I didn’t need to stay tied up and I offered my gear to those that chose to fish.
Ryan Everard (Certified Fishing Master)