The Generous Fisherman

One of the unseen and often under-estimated joys of living in on a small island is the local fisherman. When you think of the taste of fresh food, often thoughts turn to the farmer’s market. Who can deny those lovely tomatoes of summer, so sweet and juicy they hardly make it home before they are consumed. How about the lettuce that is crisp, cool and sweet. The carrots that may not be the straightest, but taste like a carrot should. The benefits and joys of a farmer’s market are well known to all, and if they are not, then you should definitely rise early and explore some of the best food you will ever see outside of your own garden. When you think of local, of sustainable eating, often we do not think of our local fisherman.

The local fisherman is every bit as sustainable as the market gardener or local farmer. They are as local as the free range beef, pork or chicken that comes from friends around the corner. They harvest and manage their ‘crop’ just as much as all the others, and they often know when things are at their best, advice which is well heeded. Sometimes you are lucky and you know just such a fisherman. Sometimes you are extraordinarily blessed and this fisherman is your neighbor.

David is our neighbor, and you have read about him around this time last year when I had the chance to go lobster fishing with him last spring. He is a fisherman, and he fishes in the spring and through the early summer. He also farms mussels and oysters, but his first love is lobster. In order to fish lobster, you have to have bait for the traps. Often this bait is cut fish that has been caught elsewhere. Many of the lobstermen will purchase mackerel or flounder for bait for their traps, but some fish their bait to ensure freshness and a steady supply at a reasonable cost. David fishes his own mackerel.

Tonight, David brought over three lobsters for a cooking lesson that Nancy will be having in our house in two days. As usual, we called to ask him if we could purchase a few lobster form him, and as usual, he refused to take our money. Normally he will cook the lobster for us as he steams in to shore, in the sea water. The quick steaming of lobster in sea water and rapid cooling in the same imparts a flavor to the lobster I have never had in any other setting. Tonight, he chose not to steam them as he thought that part of the lesson would involve the cooking of the lobster. You can imagine Nancy’s surprise when she reached into the bucket for the lobster and they were still kicking. Having never cooked lobster before, the lesson commenced, and David taught us the best way to steam lobster (if you are not doing it in seawater). Whenever we have cooked and eaten something that had recently been kicking around, and their demise was at our hands, we take a moment to give thanks for the life that is given for us.

David was full of surprises, in addition to the lobster, he had brought two 8 ounce mackerel that he had caught earlier in the day. He was kind enough to clean and scale them for us, and he provided us with a couple of recipes that he often used when cooking mackerel. Neither of us has ever had mackerel that we can recall, and it is not a common item on the menu at the local restaurants. However, David assured us that it was a really good fish, and aside from just burning it all to heck, it would taste lovely. So, despite the chili that was in the slow cooker, the lobster that was to be saved for the cooking lesson on Friday, we turned our attention to the mackerel.

Mackerel is an oily ocean fish that is high in omega-3 fatty acids, and is best eaten fresh. There are many different types of mackerel and the Spanish is supposed to be of the lightest flavor, the Atlantic the most savory. Well, ours was Atlantic, and savory was the order of the night. A quick call to Judy (the chef who will be giving us lessons) and we had a quick and dirty recipe for the mackerel. We elected the grill, to help render some of the oil, and allow the flavor to intensify a little bit. Since our herb garden is in full swing, a little fresh Greek oregano, English Thyme, and rosemary made a lovely bouquet. A quick Google search yielded a basic recipe (minus the olives) to compliment the one from Judy and it provided a nice lemon pepper sauce for the fish.

To say that this was the best fish I have ever had may seem a bit over the top, but consider that it is 22:45 at night, after a long day, and I am writing about this fish because it was so wonderful and that should give you a bit more perspective. The flesh was firm yet tender, and the taste was savory but not overwhelming. It did not taste strongly ‘fish’, and with the herbs and lemon-pepper sauce, it was quiet simply the best meal we have had in a long time. The season for mackerel is roughly four week in our area, so we can enjoy this fish from the end of May through June and then it is gone. It is a fish stock that is strong and has not been stressed by production fishing. Given the health benefits of this fish, the lovely flavor, and the ease with which it was prepared on the grill, it is beyond my understanding why it is not more popular.

So, as our night comes to a close, we give thanks to the local fisherman. He has once again brought us a joyful meal, local, sustainable, and yummy. May you all be so blessed this week.

Spring Lobster Season

The lobster industry on PEI is big, in fact some would say it is THE industry of Prince Edward Island. The industry itself usually lands $10 million worth of lobster, and there are various industries attached to the management of that lobster until its arrival in your home in its various forms. However, it all starts with a fisherman and his traps working in one of two seasons on the island, spring for the northern side of the island and fall for the southern side.

David Lewis has been a lobster fisher for as long as I have been a physician. He purchased his “gear”, that is his license to commercially fish lobster, in 1995 at the close of the spring season. He has been fishing lobster ever since as an independent fisherman. David is also my neighbor and it is in his old family homestead that Nancy and I make our current home. After a couple of false starts, I finally had the chance to go out lobster fishing with David and his crew (yesterday), and it was a blast. I wanted to go out fishing because I take care of lobster fishers. I see and treat them for a variety of illnesses and injuries but I have done so for the last year not really knowing what they did in their job. I have found over the years as a physician, that if I know the kind of labor done in a particular job, then I am better able to treat the individual patients, and I am better able to help them with their chronic diseases. David gave me the chance to find out what a lobsterman does on the water.

A day spent fishing
The day begins at 4 am as I clamber into the truck to head to the port with David and his son Derek (who is spending his first year post High School fishing lobster). After the obligatory stop for a coffee at the Alberton Bakery we are off to the wharf. Once there we meet the rest of the crew, Chad who has been working with David for the last 8 years, and Shawn, a High School student who works on Saturdays during the season.

Everyone jumps onto the boat and immediately begins working without any instruction. Lunches are stowed; mooring lines are cast as the engine fires up. It is less than five minutes from arrival to departure from the harbor and into the waters surrounding the northern point of the island. As we leave the harbor, David begins educating the novice on all the tools of navigation for his fishing boat, and the crew set up the deck to receive lobsters and reload the traps with cut bait.

Navigation on the fishing boat takes two forms, the innate knowledge of the captain and the combination radar-global positioning satellite system. It is the latter that he begins to explain in detail. The global positioning function allows him to plot several important details for our travels. First he has a plot for the return to port. This is important since if the weather is foul or foggy, he can return to port without worry that he will run aground or become lost. The maroon plot line that curves a graceful arc across the screen also happens to describe our travel out of the port. The second function that is available to him from this system is that each of his traps is plotted as an individual waypoint on the system. He can travel directly to the trap even in the densest fog as his system allows him to adjust the screen so that it displays a circle that is 15 meters around the boat. Additional functionality of the system are that it also has a map overlay function so that those of us who are land oriented can find out where we are in relation to our landmarks from shore. Finally the radar function allows him to see the other vessels in the area, again to protect him in the fog.

It is ten minutes when we arrive at our first trap-line for the day. In all we will visit 60 such lines, moving those that did not produce as expected. It is roughly 4:25 am when the first trap comes out of the water. As the boat slides up to the buoy Derek leans out and hooks and drags it on board. The line is quickly fed over the pulley and into running winch which quickly hauls the first trap to the side of the boat. David grabs the trap and as he dead lifts it with his right hand, the left follows the lead line that attaches the trap to the trap-line. He deftly pops this over and off the pulley as Chad grabs the trap from him and begins to off-load the lobster within. As Chad finishes with the lobster, the trap passes to Derek and Shawn who remove the old bait and load it with fresh bait fish. All the while, David is keeping the boat as still as possible to avoid entangling the trap-line in the propeller. In short order all the traps are in place, and the second buoy is on board. At this point Chad has turned his hand to the second duty, measuring and counting the lobster from this trap-line. He calls out the number of each type, market or canner, and David records this in his journal. He is looking for something on the order of 3 and 13 as a minimum for the trap line, and if it is underperforming he will move it to a new location. Once the market lobsters are separated from the canners, their claws are banded to keep them from attacking each other. If the trap-line has performed well, then David will replace it in the same location. The first buoy is back into the water as Shawn and Derek watch the line play out, keeping watch for snags that will entangle the traps. As the line plays out each trap is dropped off the boat and into the water until the last one is in then out goes the second buoy.

This assembly line of activity proceeds for roughly half the traps that are near the Northport area, and then it is a 20 minute ride to the next location for his traps. This is further south starting in the region of Lenox Island down to Summerside. During the break, the crew gets a pot of water boiling and an entire 24 count package of hot dogs goes into the pot for a snack as they head to the next section of traps. Everyone is pretty happy as the younger members of the crew eat far more dogs than David. For myself, I eat one, but since the ocean is a bit rough, and I am a novice, I figure it is more prudent to have some water and let food wait for calmer seas.

Once the traps have been fished, David steers for port. As he does so, the crew begins to clean the boat of all the debris of the day. The decks are scrubbed and washed, the cabin is wiped down, and all the loose gear is stowed away and generally picked up. By the time we arrive back in harbor, it does not look like they have been working at all, except for the cases of lobster. Once in harbor, we await our turn to off-load our catch and take on more ice and more bait. The total weight for the day was 851 pounds of lobster. David is happy, although like any fisherman, he

would have liked a bit more catch, but this is a good day. As he backs the boat into the slip and the mooring lines are re-attached, the crew gets the lobster together for the orders that they have received while out fishing. As with all lobster fishers, David gets a few personal orders for lobster while he is out fishing, and he is more than happy to put some back for you. If you ask nicely, he will even boil them for you in salt water and cool them down in fresh ocean water. It is what he did for ours, and let me tell you, there is nothing better than lobster prepared this way.

As I arrived back home, I realized that my sense of still being on the boat was with me whenever I would move or turn suddenly. An interesting sensation……..

Spring Arrives on Prince Edward Island

Today marks as clearly as anything the arrival of spring on Prince Edward Island, it is the beginning of the spring lobster season. The photo you see comes from Dolly Silk at French River as the boats are leaving the harbor (taken from Island Morning website of CBC ). We have been watching our neighbors working hard getting their traps ready for the season. The traps are a combination of wood and net and are far heavier than they appear, and once they are water logged and full of lobster, it becomes apparent why most lobster fishers have broad chests and strong arms.

Today is trap setting day and it gets started just as the daylight starts to peak over the water. The fishermen all head out at the same time and head to their preferred areas to set their traps. They are allowed to set 275 traps per license and tomorrow they will pull up their first lobster. The weather today could not be better, it is a bit cool, but the wind is mild and the sun is out. It is altogether a better day than yesterday, when the wind was whipping the waters around the island in what would have been a very rough day at sea.

The signs of spring have been arriving daily for the last two weeks. It began with the arrival of the small song birds at our feeder. They have been here for roughly 18 days and seemed occupied with the seed during the last storm we had two weeks ago. It was just after that storm when the second sign of spring arrived in the form of a pair of robins where were pulling worms from the frozen ground (much to my amazement). The snow from the last storm literally vanished with the arrival of warm rain followed by the glorious sun, and that is when things really seemed to get busy.

The melting of the last snow saw the resurgence of the islanders in the outside world. It was as if they had all gone into hibernation and as the sun returned, they burst onto the scene with a sense of energy and frenzy. They are all over the place, all engaged in outdoor activities- raking yards, clearing flowerbeds, repairing lobster traps, fishing oysters, walking the roads, hanging out in yards. The arrival of spring marks an increase in activity that is fascinating. It is hard not to get involved in the same activity, and as such, I began to clear the flowerbeds (more on this in the future).

So, as the fishermen head out today, let me wish you all a very pleasant and happy spring from the Gentle Island of Prince Edward and I will try to post as many photos of spring as I can over the coming weeks.