4th of July Feast.

[nastygunz]

Lobsta, mac n  cheese and scallops wrapped in bacon

[nastygunz]

Burp.

[Okanagan]

Lookin good.

Rock scallops are the best tasting food in the ocean!

[nastygunz]

I used to work on a few scallop draggers out of New Bedford Massachusetts, hardest job I ever had my life.

[Okanagan]

I've mostly eaten the big west coast scallops that attach to rocks.  Some of the shells get as big as dinner plates.  We would dive for them though in the old days people tell me they picked them off the rocks at low tide in California, which I did one time on an island in northern BC.   They are so prized by divers that now it is hard to find one in less than 30 feet of water.   I made a special tool out of an ancient Model A Ford leaf spring to pry them off of the rock.  The shell molds to the rock and feels like it is attached with super glue.    A friend of mine developed a scallop fishery in the Straits of Juan de Fuca in WA state, dragging them out of the sand.  He did that on special permit basis and had a Fed observer along all of the time.  I think they shut him down after a series of test fishing and closed that fishery though he had an insatiable market for them in Japan.   He's died now, a remarkable innovator among commercial fishermen. 

While I'm rambling, he told me about a place where he consistently caught king salmon way back when he fished for salmon.  The older Finn hadn't fished it in 30 years.  I told my super salmon fisherman cousin and we went there, the only boat in sight during a busy summer salmon season.  Hammered salmon there, trip after trip, and managed to keep it secret for two seasons.  It is only good on a certain tide condition. 

This man had quit fishing salmon commercially because it got too competitive, too regulated, with seasons too short for a man who wanted year round income with less pressure and place to employ his sons.  So he continually developed new fisheries and moved on to another one when competitors crowded him or the Feds started clamping him down too much.   Both of my sons worked for him, crabbing part of the year, trawling for "greenies(?)" part of the year, halibut long lines once in awhile etc.  I helped catch a ton or two of black sea bass one day as a guest, two at a time on rods in kelp beds. 

He was good.  On the one day I fished halibut with him our boat caught several tons of halibut without another boat in view most of the time on the open Pacific.  The second best catch of the day was a boat that had caught 88 fish.  The only time I remembered to count we had 23 halibut on 23 consecutive hooks...  Hardest single day's work I ever did, and I started out as a guest! 

People would try to copy him and try to discover what he was doing when he would develop a new fishery.  One time my boys told me that with Port Angeles Harbor ringed with boats watching them and ready to follow, at 2:00 AM they suddenly fired up and pulled out of the harbor with a bunch of commercial boats shadowing them.  They ran east toward Seattle along the shore, then jogged across the Straits toward Canada, hovered around a spot for awhile, zigzagged, etc. then went back into the harbor and the crew slept all morning. 

They had a small hot spot loaded with fish for their trawler one time, and they would drag for miles before subtly passing through it, and then not pull the net for another long ways.  I miss that man, a good friend.   Knowing him and his family, I see why the Russians couldn't beat them in the Winter War early in WWII. 

   

[JohnP]

"I made a special tool out of an ancient Model A Ford leaf spring"

Was that your first or second automobile?

[Okanagan]

"I made a special tool out of an ancient Model A Ford leaf spring"

Was that your first or second automobile?

Ouch!

[nastygunz]

Zinnngggg!... We used to go out for about 15 days and  and work six on six off the whole time around the clock. Then we would come back to port and have roughly 5 days off which included unloading and gear work so in actuality we have 2 to 3 days off then back at it again. Hard dangerous work and all seasons with sometimes a huge paycheck. I get a kick out of watching all those fishing shows on TV. The hardest part about scallop fishing was you didn't just catch them like fish and then throw them down in the hold on ice, first you had to pick the deck when you dump the drags, then after you get the scallops you have to shovel all the other stuff over the side known as the shit  pile. Then you would haul the bushel baskets of scallops back to the cutting boxes and stand there and cut scallops,or open the shell and cut the muscle out the part that you eat, the whole time until the siren went off and the drags are coming in for the next haul which averaged about 45 minutes.  Then at the end of your shift you had to bag all the scallops up twist tie them put them down in the hold in layers covered with ice.  During your shift you would grab minutes here and there to get a coffee grab a sandwich use the bathroom etc. there were no breaks. When you got off shift you usually grab something to eat and went straight to the bunk, lay down close your eyes and 30 seconds later somebody would be poking you saying your shift you up shift up half-hour and back again.

[FinsnFur]

  I forgot what the post was about now.  Hang on a sec......

[nastygunz]

C-Food!....